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IOS 7.1 iphone 4S wifi not available .. help..

wifi not available on my iphone.. any help?

User uploaded file

iPhone 4S, iOS 7.1

Posted on Mar 11, 2014 9:47 AM

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Posted on Mar 11, 2014 1:45 PM

Same problem. Anybody?

333 replies

Mar 29, 2014 12:58 PM in response to fahruzi

I have had the same issue, not Wifi and wierdly, the bluetooth option was constantly spinning, but in the dashboard it was off? Anyway and was able to fix this issue and Wifi works perfectly now.


All I simply did was do an iPhone restore and upon the iPhone botting up after the restore of the firmware, I got this message "Congratulations your iPhone has successfully been Unlocked" This is very odd as it as always has been unlocked and has always been working with other SIM cards.... interesting Maybe IOS 7 casued an issue?... anyway I restored from a backup and once the phone rebooted all was dandy and wifi was back on again and bluetooth back to normal.


Maybe this will work for some of you, good luck.

Mar 30, 2014 2:12 PM in response to fahruzi

So on my sunny Sunday afternoon, I am doing Apple's work gratis as it is very painful not to have wi-fi working properly on my iPhone 4s.


Using the terminal connection I used tcpdump to look a little closer at the packets.

Entering sudo tcpdump -i en0 -s 0 host 192.168.0.8

and providing my admin password provided me a look at the handshakes.

192.168.0.1 is the IP of my 5th Gen Airport Extreme router (FW 7.6.4)

192.168.0.8 is the IP of my iPhone 4s 16GB running iOS 7.1

192.168.0.19 is the IP of my iPad 16GB (3rd Gen) running iOS 7.1


This is the traffic I recorded after a full reset by power cycling the iPhone 4s:

13:12:19.220614 ARP, Request who-has 192.168.0.8 tell 192.168.0.1, length 46

13:12:19.224019 ARP, Request who-has 192.168.0.8 tell 192.168.0.1, length 46

13:12:20.248780 ARP, Request who-has 192.168.0.8 tell 192.168.0.8, length 46

13:12:20.255214 ARP, Request who-has 192.168.0.1 tell 192.168.0.8, length 46 ... same packet 2 times

13:12:21.016759 IP 192.168.0.8.mdns > 224.0.0.251.mdns: 0 [2q] [1au] PTR (QU)? _raop._tcp.local. PTR (QU)? _airplay._tcp.local. (78)

13:12:21.645469 IP 192.168.0.8 > igmp.mcast.net: igmp v3 report, 1 group record(s) … same packet 2 times


Then browse a bit on Safari and lose connection ... connection cycles ON/OFF

13:19:34.973580 ARP, Request who-has 192.168.0.8 tell 192.168.0.1, length 46


13:19:45.650165 ARP, Request who-has 192.168.0.8 tell 192.168.0.1, length 46

13:19:46.661277 ARP, Request who-has 192.168.0.8 tell 192.168.0.8, length 46

13:19:46.667239 ARP, Request who-has 192.168.0.1 tell 192.168.0.8, length 46 … same packet 2 times


13:20:19.375146 ARP, Request who-has 192.168.0.8 tell 192.168.0.1, length 46

13:20:20.410301 ARP, Request who-has 192.168.0.8 tell 192.168.0.8, length 46

13:20:20.413232 ARP, Request who-has 192.168.0.1 tell 192.168.0.8, length 46 … same packet 3 times

13:20:21.550908 IP 192.168.0.8 > igmp.mcast.net: igmp v3 report, 1 group record(s) … same packet 2 times


13:20:40.970024 ARP, Request who-has 192.168.0.8 tell 192.168.0.1, length 46

13:20:42.002469 ARP, Request who-has 192.168.0.8 tell 192.168.0.8, length 46

13:20:42.010152 ARP, Request who-has 192.168.0.1 tell 192.168.0.8, length 46 … same packet 2 times


... and on and on until I reset the phone by cycling the power.


Performing the same procedure on my iPad shows a distinctly different negotiation.

13:03:27.107110 ARP, Request who-has 192.168.0.19 tell 192.168.0.1, length 46

13:03:28.127297 ARP, Request who-has 192.168.0.19 tell 192.168.0.19, length 46

13:03:28.133392 ARP, Request who-has 192.168.0.1 tell 192.168.0.19, length 46

13:03:28.807281 ARP, Request who-has 192.168.0.1 tell 192.168.0.19, length 46

13:03:28.820386 IP 192.168.0.19.mdns > 224.0.0.251.mdns: 0 [3q] [3n] [1au] … same packet 3 times

13:03:30.472865 IP 192.168.0.19.mdns > 224.0.0.251.mdns: 0*- [0q] 9/0/5 (Cache flush) TXT "" … same packet 4 times


... after which the network connection on my iPad is sound.


Looking at the difference, (with my limited network experience), the iPad is doing some sort of cache flush during the initial handshake which the iPhone 4s is not.


It appears to me that the fix involves programming the iPhone 4s to send the same sort of packets to clear the mdns tree ... Problem potentiallly solved.


Apple, the ball is in your court ... How long should we wait for a 7.1.1 return ?

Mar 31, 2014 7:49 AM in response to fahruzi

So the chip is burnt out?? screw apple and their software. I have called twice and they want to charge me for it. I have a brand new phone but it is a trade in so there is no warranty and it breaks after 3 weeks. what the ****. that is such bull. it feels like you give out a broken phone because you know there is not **** we can do about it. i feel like switching to android unless you can help all of these people fix it!! this problem is to widespread for you not to do anything about it apple

Apr 4, 2014 3:52 AM in response to richbox

UPDATE: Adding my endorsement to the blow-dryer/freezer fix. Resisted the idea for a while as it seemed counterintuitive, goofy or just unproductive. But given that this appears to be a software-generated temperature problem -- and that I had nothing to lose -- I tried it as shown here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK5Piz5XZVg&list=UU0cyY4uVK5rB6p-cAu6X-ZA


It did not seem to work at first but after a couple of hard re-boots wi-fi functionality stabilized and has remained reliable for the past 5 days. It's a relief to have it working as it should again, and to not have to spend either $200 for repair or $800 for a new phone.


Am stil curious about the root cause of the problem as well as the how and why a system overtemp seems to overcome it. Sort of like giving your phone a fever to get rid of an infection.

Apr 4, 2014 4:26 AM in response to fahruzi

Guys, this is 10000% hardware issue.


The reason why people are starting to face this issue with a new update is not because there is a bug in the new OS but the older OS didn't need the part that was already broken.


iPhone 4s wi-fi chip are very vulnerable with solder connection. On top of that apple designed the chip to use more power than before which will generate more heat. This generated heat degrades the solder connection of the chip and the motherboard and slowly breaks the connection of som pins of wi-fi chip and when the connections is broken, that's when you see the greyed out wi-fi on setting.


Reason heating the chip or freezing works is because you are affecting the solder connection so that the pins are connected again. However, this may not last long as the connection will be broken again as the chip heats up over time. The best fix for this is to replace or reball the wi-fi chip.


Funny thing is ( and also why many people think it is OS issue) that the vulnerable pins are used to check the functionality of wi-fi chip, not to power on and off the chip. Older OS didn't check the functianlity of the chip before letting the user to turn it on and off when the user accessed the wi-fi with a control panel. Therefore, the users could be able to turn the wi-fi on and off with the hardware defects.

New OS however checks the functionality of the chip no matter when you access it through the control panel or setting before letting user to turn the wi-fi on and off. Then it reads no value as the connection is broken and thinks the chip is not working or connected and disable the user to turn it on.


Even the wi-fi worked with older OS, it is true that the hardware defects were already there. Also this defect occurs over a long time which also could be seen as wear and tear of using wi-fi too much.

Of course it is a design fault of apple but it is sort of understandable. ( is there any electronic that lasts forever without wear and tear? )

IOS 7.1 iphone 4S wifi not available .. help..

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