iOS 8 WiFi sync is broken

I spoke too soon. Still having trouble keeping my iPhones connecting via WiFi. Things are good for a day or two, then nothing.

Not a Apple Fan what so ever. Apple introduces more bugs then features on each release. Wifi Sync has been broken for quite some time and with the introduction of iOS8, Push email is also broken for Exchange users.

This will be my first and last post, but wanted to provide some feedback to these two issues.

Issues 1. Wifi Sync

- iOS6,7 and especially 8, Wifi sync has had severe issues. My remedy was simple, logged out of iCloud on the phone. Went to iCloud.com and deleted email@me.com & email@icloud.com. Wifi Sync is now working. I'm willing to bet just logging out of iCloud on the phone resolved it. Both iPhones are now happy.

Issue 2. Push Email

- iOS 8 broke push email for Exchange uses. This is a serious issue for IT members that support iPhone for their companies. Still amazes me how this actually was broke after upgrading to 8.0.x. The solution here was, again, log out of iCloud on the phone and login to icould.com and delete the @me.com & @icloud.com emails. For some reason Apple either didn't realize, not tested, or didn't care. What appears to be the issue is Exchange accounts that use Push email is confused with iCloud email accounts. Again, both iPhones are happy and Push email working as it should.

Apple really needs to fix this, iOS 8.0.x to 8.1 this is broken.

Hope these two finds help you and your issues. It did mine.

First of all, I don't understand why this would be your first and last post. Understand the frustration but, this is where to possibly get some answers or at least vent.

I have had occasional issues with wifi syncing in the past. Normally it was just a matter of turning off wifi on my MBP and then turning it back on. iOS 8.1 has fixed most all the issues introduced with 8.0. No more problems with syncing, just a few annoyances with other hardware.

Never had a problem with mail syncing on exchange server though. On any version of iOS since exchange mail was introduced. Mail pushes just fine and in fact I had to turn off the sounds for incoming mail because the bell was constantly going off (I get a lot of email from my job). My guess is one or more accounts are not set up correctly. My only issue with exchange server in the past was not being able to delete mail from the server but I figured that out.

If more information was given about your configuration you might get some help here.

Maybe YOUR Exchange push isn't working, but it certainly isn't a problem "for all Exchange users." In fact, throughout the period we were all waiting for the 8.1 wifi fix (which did solve my wifi problems), my Exchange push was one of the things that did work properly. No problems at all, either at home or at work. I understand it's frustrating when things don't work, but I've never -- on my worst tech-plagued day -- found my Apple products to function worse than Microsoft's. Never.

My perspective as an information technology professional is that no one's products are perfect. I've worked on Apple XServe's that are every bit as finicky as their Microsoft counterparts. It's a matter of personal preference really, which products one buys. That's the beauty of free enterprise and competition. That being said, and as a proud Apple convert since 2007 and the original iPhone, don't give up on Apple, Layer, simply because something isn't working as you expect it to. These forums are for precisely that eventuality - so you can research the issue to see if it's common to others, then bounce ideas around to find a solution.

And, as Dancer1003 correctly pointed out, Apple's implementation of Exchange Active Sync is even better than Microsoft's own. This has been the case since iOS 3.0 and the iPhone 3G. If you were to start another thread, Layer, we would be happy to help you sort your Exchange problems out.

Strangely enough, the issue that has cropped up for me when syncing over WiFi is that iTunes crashes in the middle of a WiFi sync session. Sometimes this results in a total crash of my late 2013 iMac and sometimes it's localized to just iTunes. It happened 3 times within 45 minutes last night. Very frustrating. Plugging in and syncing via USB was successful and did not cause a crash.

After each crash I went through the report before submitting to Apple. It seems like a WiFi driver issue. Hopefully fixed with OS X 10.10.1.

Strangely enough, the issue that has cropped up for me when syncing over WiFi is that iTunes crashes in the middle of a WiFi sync session. Sometimes this results in a total crash of my late 2013 iMac and sometimes it's localized to just iTunes. It happened 3 times within 45 minutes last night. Very frustrating. Plugging in and syncing via USB was successful and did not cause a crash.

I've never seen anything like that in any Yosemite beta or release version, or with any version of iOS.

Kudos for reporting it officially to Apple.

A suggestion: Check your hard drive.

Thanks for the heads up on the hard drive check, Klahane. Just finished the "repair permissions" process via disk utility. Most, if not all, of the fixes were related to printer driver permissions. We will see if this results in improved WiFi syncing, but I rather doubt it. Besides all that, the 1TB Fusion Drive in my iMac is less than 9 months old. And, I never had a single crash running 10.9 Mavericks during the aforementioned 9 months. Seems like a Yosemite problem to me, or a problem with iTunes 12 and my particular iMac configuration. Who knows? Maybe Apple can make sense of the crash reports I sent them (complete with snarky comments from me) and fix it in an upcoming update.

In the mean time, I am forced to (yet again) wipe and reload my iPhone 6, since the interrupted sync sessions from last night caused each and every album artwork to disappear. I suspect corrupted iTunes metadata. And this will not do. Ok, ok, call me anal. But what good is a 4.7" retina display if all it displays is black text over a white background where the album art should be? :-) Anyhow, that's the argument I'm using on my wife...

Update - before wiping my iPhone 6 I figured I'd sync it one last time via USB to grab any changes to the iTunes library, and whaddya know! iTunes synced back all 5000+ missing pieces of album artwork! Just to be sure, I rebooted my iPhone, and I can verify that all missing artwork is indeed restored and intact! Hooray!

So, then I went ahead and synced my wife's iPhone 5S via WiFi. No issues. Maybe you were on to something there, Klahane. I can heartily recommend a Repair Permissions be run on everyone's hard drive. It don't hurt nothin', and it may just make things better.

I am a happy camper!

I have an iPhone4...still waiting fro my iPhone6.

My iPhone wouldn't sync with the new iTunes update for iOS 8, no matter what I did. I tried to "check" sync over wi-fi. "uncheck" sync over wi-fi.....blah blah blah. And that never resolved the issues.

My 2nd gen iPad2 wouldn't sync either. I have been on a rampage for the last week to find out why and nobody's suggestions resolved the issue.

My devices sync'd just fine before the update.

And I noticed that the new album art was't being saved, after the iOS 8 update, because the artwork was gone when I re-opened the app.

I fixed it on my system, I hope this will help everyone.

I searched for iTunes 10 and found that it was was available from Apple. So I went into the finder, clicked on "Go", then selected "applications", found iTunes, and threw it right into the trash bin.

Then I downloaded iTunes 10 and attempted to install it. "Attempted" because it didn't work. I was prompted that there was an update. So I let it update back and guess what...it updated to 11.4.😐😐

So I opened iTunes and clicked on sync.............and it sync'd🙂.🙂

Same problem here, I have tried everything to make this work. Why doesn't apple just kill the WIFI option and let the sync happen off the grid with Bluetooth or something else. It doesn't make sense that I have to have the phone on a power source to sync it. I would like to be able to sync my phone anywhere, library, park, coffee shop without power cables and usb cables. Anyways, Apple please fix this ASAP.

Could provide more information about the problem? I have had little problem since the iOS 8.1 update. What version of iTunes are you using and what version of iOS are you using? Are you Windows or Mac? What are you settings in iTunes for syncing?

Just as a note, it may take a while for iTunes to discover your devices. Also, I am almost sure that your device needs to be on the same network as your laptop (which I assume you are using). If you are trying to sync at a more or less public wifi spot (library, coffee shop, etc) you might not be logged into the same on all devices. You can set up your own wifi hotspot and connect to that though.

IIt's working fine for me. Wifi sync, no power connection required. OSX Yosemite + iOS 8.1. Apple does check the charge level of the device for some operations, so you might want to make sure the device is well charged before trying wireless sync without power.

Everything I have is Apple, same wifi, all setting are correct. I have turned everything off and on a dozen times, reinstalled all programs more than once. I reset my iPhone 6 a couple times, that didn't help. Full charge, still does not matter, will not work. Tried two different routers 2wiregateway and Airport, that didn't work. The only thing that works is usb cable. I have gone in and tried to sync manually under general settings/ iTunes sync, that didn't work. All software is up to date.

When I was referring to a coffee shop or library I was talking about new technology that should be available to the systems. I was saying it would be nice to sync without having to have a wifi connection.

fr8tdog wrote:

Could provide more information about the problem? I have had little problem since the iOS 8.1 update. What version of iTunes are you using and what version of iOS are you using? Are you Windows or Mac? What are you settings in iTunes for syncing?

Just as a note, it may take a while for iTunes to discover your devices. Also, I am almost sure that your device needs to be on the same network as your laptop (which I assume you are using). If you are trying to sync at a more or less public wifi spot (library, coffee shop, etc) you might not be logged into the same on all devices. You can set up your own wifi hotspot and connect to that though.

In general you should never attempt a WiFi sync at a public hotspot. They are rarely encrypted, so you would be exposing all of the content of your backup to whoever is eavesdropping on the network. And there are lots of people doing that just to capture logins and passwords from people foolish enough to use non-secure sites. It also probably won't work, because most public routers block the ports that WiFi sync uses (along with most other ports).