iOS 8 Wi-Fi problems

Ever since upgrading to IOS 8, including IOS 8.01, 8.02 and 8.1 I had the wellknown Wifi issue.

wifi speeds dropping from 120mbps to about 2mbps @ 5ghz in within a minute after connecting to the wifinetwork. often i couldn't even surf at all. but the wifi signal was always strong.

With every update i was hoping for a solution from Apple but it never came.

Tried everything that can be found on the internet.

Resetting the network settings.

Disabling "wifi networking" under Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services.

Reinstalling my Ipad from scratch

Used different routers and different setups.

Automatic ip's and fixed ip's and different dns servers just to be sure.

Nothing worked. The only workaround is switching to a 2.4Ghz network.

So i was doing some tests and found THE solution, but i don't like it all.

One of the biggest changes in IOS 8 is the ability to use airplay without a network. by using a wifi connection in combination with bluetooth.

And here lies the problem.

I disconnected al my Airplaydevices from my network. Denon AV-amplifier AVR2113, Pioneer wireless speaker XW SMA3 and an airport express.

Et voila... My Ipad is back to normal. fast... no very fast internet connection and stable as ****. Just like iOS 7 was.

Working with it for a couple of hours now without any trouble at all.

But do i connect one Airplay device to the network the wifi is not stable anymore and extremely slow again on my ipad air.

My Macbook running mac os x mavericks doesn't have these issues, neither does my iphone 5S. and they are also on the same 5ghz network.

So I can create and recreate the issue and create a work around... Apple please come with a solution that makes me able to use airplay an ipad (on ios8) on a 5ghz network! like in iOS 7!!!!

macfanta wrote:

Stanky, I'll reproduce here the Gazole post if you didn't read before.

He is talking about BEACONS and LOCATION SENSORS FOR WI-FI.

Don't use the word "ridiculous" so openly as you used. I told I'm not engineer or programmer, just read Gazole's post and used his focus on LOCATION/REGION theme to solve my issue. I didn't change any of his suggestions, I just verified that my Country settings at 5GHz band was changed to Mexico and turn to Brazil as the 2.4GHz band setting. It solves my issue that started after upgraded to 8.1.1

gazoleOct 7, 2014 3:53 AM Re: iPad Air WiFi (5GHz) issues after iOS 8 upgrade
Re: iPad Air WiFi (5GHz) issues after iOS 8 upgradein response to NikCh

Folks, as far as I see disabling Location services for Wi-fi as advised by some people here helps someone as Apple seems to have issues with 802.11d protocol implementation in iOS 8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11d-2001 and Location sensors for Wi-Fi.

Basically what 802.11d does is that it does not allow you to use certain channels on Wi-Fi in certain countries. As you can see from this table (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels#5.C2.A0GHz_.28802.11a.2Fh.2Fj .2Fn.2Fac.29.5B17.5D) you can not use any channel you like while you are in US, some channels are not allowed in EU etc...

What happens nowadays with lots of routers installed here and there is that some routers are sending 802.11d beacons and these beacons carry country code, but these country codes are not correct sometimes. So some router (most of those are made in China) broadcasts CN country code (which is China), iOS device sees this beacon and applies certain restrictions on channels it (iOS device) will operate. Thus some neighbour with such router might ruin your 5GHz 802.11n. If you have your router setup for US 802.11n channels (or set to Auto) and your iOS device see beacon from some other country earlier than same beacon from your router - you're stuck and your iOS device can't connect to your 5ghz 802.11n.

How to check if this is an issue:

if you're on Mac, start Terminal and run the command /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Resources/airport -s

you will see the following response (list of networks our Mac see)

SSID BSSID RSSI CH HT CC SECURITY (auth/unicast/group)
dlink178 1c:7e:e5:d0:df:хх -65 1,+1 Y RU WPA(PSK/TKIP,AES/TKIP)
hh245 cc:5d:4e:fb:8f:хх -67 1 Y TW WPA2(PSK/AES/AES)
Dread 00:22:90:90:07:хх -69 11 N -- WPA(PSK/TKIP/TKIP)
MajorWiFi 50:46:5d:cc:c2:хх -41 6 Y -- WPA2(PSK/AES/AES)
sohc f0:7d:68:9b:da:хх -75 6 N -- WPA(PSK/TKIP/TKIP)

you can see in CC column that some routers broadcast country code, some not. Thus is I am in Russia and want to use Russian 802.11n channels I might face an issue as my neighbour's wi-fi router is broadcasting Taiwan country code.

Why resetting network settings might help? Because when you do the reset, iOS device resets the country codes it seen before and if you're lucky enough - it will hear the correct 802.11d beacon from your network earlier than any other.

To fix this particular issue you need to shorten beacon interval on your router from 100 (default) to let's say 75 (on my dd-wrt it looks like this)

This will make your router to send beacon more often, so chances that your device sees your network earlier than others are higher.

Another point is to enable 802.11d in your router if it is not enabled yet (it is not enabled if you see "--" in CC column in terminal output higher above)

I spent lots of hours trying to figure out why my Macbook can't use my 5ghz 802.11n network until I found the great post about this (http://wifi-mac.blogspot.ru/2013/03/mac-os-x-5.html). All credits go this guy.

It seems that Apple made a mistake with the priorities device gives to data it receives from location sensor and Wi-fi. So if Location sensor tells device that you're in US and 802.11d says you're in China, obviously Location sensor should be the trusted source which seems to be not the case with iOS 8

I did not read this before and apologize for my ignorance. I guess it's possible that this problem is now primarily occruring outside of the US, since this thread has become fairly quiet, so your recommenation may actually help others outside of the US. Since I'm in the US, I can't change my Region setings, but i don't need to since 8.1.1 has ressolved my Wi-Fi issue.

I've had the same problem.

Short answer: Try turning off Settings > iCloud > Sign Out, then sign back in. Also, turn off Settings > iCloud > Photos > iCloud Photo Library and My Photo Stream.

Here's what I did.

To look for the problem:

1. In Terminal, I ran "traceroute 8.8.8.8" to look for the nearest hop.
2. I ran "ping 98.248.40.1" (from the above, 10.0.1.1 is my AirPort Extreme, 98.248.40.1 is the first hop outside).

Ping times are around 10 ms when normal, and on the order of 100's to 1000's of ms when the problem occurs.

To isolate the problem:

1. I reset both the cable modem and the Wi-Fi router. => Problem occurs.
2. I took the cable modem downstairs and hooked it up as close as possible to where the cable line comes into the house, to isolate cabling problems. And I turned off my Wi-Fi router and plugged the cable modem directly into my MacBook using Ethernet, to isolate Wi-Fi problems. => Problem doesn't occur.
3. I moved the cable modem back upstairs but kept it plugged into my MacBook using Ethernet. => Problem doesn't occur. This tells me that it's not Comcast's fault, nor a problem with the cabling.
4. I turned on Internet Sharing from my Mac (sharing the Ethernet connection over Wi-Fi using the same SSID and WPA2 key). => Problem occurs after a little while. Strange. Eventually I notice that as soon as I turn off Internet Sharing, ping times drop back down to a reasonable 10 ms! This tells me that something on the Wi-Fi network is causing the problem. My Wi-Fi router isn't even part of the equation anymore.
5. I changed my Wi-Fi password to selectively let clients back on the network. As soon as my iPhone 6 (running iOS 8.1.2) joins the network, the problem occurs.

To fix the problem:

• I made sure Wi-Fi was on a clear channel 1 (basically using iStumbler and picking amongst 1,6,11; see http://www.adriangranados.com/blog/how-not-find-best-channel-using-mavericks-wir eless-diagnostics-tool) and also changing the AirPort to 802.11n-only (default is 802.11b/g/n), but neither helped.
• On the iPhone, I turned off Settings > General > Background App Refresh, Settings > iCloud > Backup, and also AirDrop (see https://medium.com/@mariociabarra/wifried-ios-8-wifi-performance-issues-3029a164 ce94 which points the finger at AWDL), but neither fixed the problem for me.
• I did a packet capture using the built-in Wireless Diagnostics and Wireshark and noticed activity from ports 49xxx to/from amazonaws.com. This suggested some iCloud service, since no apps were supposedly running on the phone.
• Eventually I signed out of iCloud completely on my iPhone (Settings > iCloud > Sign Out) and signed back in, and the problem has mostly gone away!
• Also: I'm not currently using iCloud Photo Library, but I noticed that I had Photo Stream turned on. This could explain some of the problem if uploading photos was overwhelming the uplink. But the problem seems to occur (to a much less severe extent) even with both iCloud Photo Library and Photo Stream off.

Hope this helps someone.

[Updated. Forum hosts, please delete my previous post.]

I've had the same problem.

Short answer: Turn off Settings > iCloud > Sign Out, then sign back in. Also try turning off Settings > iCloud > iCloud Drive, and for good measure, Settings > iCloud > Photos > iCloud Photo Library and My Photo Stream.

Here's what I did.

To look for the problem:

1. In Terminal, I ran "traceroute 8.8.8.8" to look for the nearest hop.
2. I ran "ping 98.248.40.1" (from the above, 10.0.1.1 is my AirPort Extreme, 98.248.40.1 is the first hop outside).

Ping times are around 10 ms when normal, and on the order of 100's to 1000's of ms when the problem occurs.

To isolate the problem:

1. I reset both the cable modem and the Wi-Fi router. => Problem occurs.
2. I took the cable modem downstairs and hooked it up as close as possible to where the cable line comes into the house, to isolate cabling problems. And I turned off my Wi-Fi router and plugged the cable modem directly into my MacBook using Ethernet, to isolate Wi-Fi problems. => Problem doesn't occur.
3. I moved the cable modem back upstairs but kept it plugged into my MacBook using Ethernet. => Problem doesn't occur. This tells me that it's not Comcast's fault, nor a problem with the cabling.
4. I turned on Internet Sharing from my Mac (sharing the Ethernet connection over Wi-Fi using the same SSID and WPA2 key). => Problem occurs after a little while. Strange. Eventually I notice that as soon as I turn off Internet Sharing, ping times drop back down to a reasonable 10 ms! This tells me that something on the Wi-Fi network is causing the problem. My Wi-Fi router isn't even part of the equation anymore.
5. I changed my Wi-Fi password to selectively let clients back on the network. As soon as my iPhone 6 (running iOS 8.1.2) joins the network, the problem occurs.

To fix the problem:

1. I made sure Wi-Fi was on a clear channel 1 (basically using iStumbler and picking amongst 1,6,11; see http://www.adriangranados.com/blog/how-not-find-best-channel-using-mavericks-wir eless-diagnostics-tool) and also changing the AirPort to 802.11n-only (default is 802.11b/g/n), but neither helped.
2. On the iPhone, I turned off Settings > General > Background App Refresh, Settings > iCloud > Backup, and also AirDrop (see https://medium.com/@mariociabarra/wifried-ios-8-wifi-performance-issues-3029a164 ce94 which points the finger at AWDL), but neither fixed the problem for me.
3. I did a packet capture using the built-in Wireless Diagnostics and Wireshark and noticed activity from ports 49xxx to/from amazonaws.com. This suggested some iCloud service, since no apps were supposedly running on the phone.
4. Eventually I signed out of iCloud completely on my iPhone (Settings > iCloud > Sign Out) and signed back in, and the problem stopped!

I'm not currently using iCloud Photo Library, but I noticed that I had Photo Stream turned on. This could explain the problem if uploading photos was overwhelming the uplink but the problem seems to occur (to a much less severe extent) even with both iCloud Photo Library and Photo Stream off. I actually think now that the problem has to do with a bug in the implementation of iCloud Drive, so I'm keeping that off for now, and the problem seems to have gone away.

Hope this helps someone.

Interesting. Got Apple watch early today. Now I never have used Bluetooth before but obviously the watch necessitates it now for pairing. By having it on it has halved my wifi download througput on the iPhone. Other devices without Bluetooth on don't suffer such as the iPad. I can get the speed back by turning Bluetooth off and then disconnecting and reconnecting to the wifi. But this is another iOS 8 gremlin. Interestingly 5 ghz wifi is ok, this quirk is only evident on 2.4 ghz band. I re iterate the other iPads maintain speed fine on 2.4 ghz so here is a case of Bluetooth negatively impacting the wifi speed

My iPhone and iPad behave the same. With Bluetooth (and AirDrop) OFF they consistently get my ISP rated speed of 15 Mbps as do my MBP and my two Dell PCs. With Bluetooth ON, the iPhone and iPad Wi-Fi speeds degrade to about 1/10 of the rated speeds (you are lucky if yours only degrade to 1/2). Attached is a screenshot of speed tests on my iPhone. The bottom 2 were taken with Bluetooth OFF, the top 3 were taken with Bluetooth ON. This behavior is very repeatable and consistent - it is still the same today. I have tried many recommended "fixes" (reset Wi-Fi, changed DNS, changed routers, reset iPhone and iPad to factory, reinstalled 8.3 from scratch with no other apps except a new OOKLA, tried iPhone with other ISPs, spend hours with AppleCare Level 2 tech verifying my settings, etc.) but all to no avail.

In November 2014 a programmer reported that there is a conflict between AWDL and Bluetooth affecting Wi-Fi speeds in iOS 8. You can see the logic behind this. Various people on this thread have reported the same issue in the past. This issue manifests itself with some iPhones and some iPads but many are not affected, reasons unknown to me. Hopefully iOS 8.4 (or 9) will resolve this. Since I seldom use Bluetooth (only for an occasional AirDrop) this is not a big deal to me as I can consistently get my rated ISP speed with BT OFF on all devices, problem only with BT and AirDrop ON. Different story for those with the Apple Watch. As you stated the 5GHz band is unaffected (mine is also ok) but as you know the range at 5GHZ is much less than 2.4.

<Edited By Host>

For years Apple had been using a networking routine by the name of mDNSResponder which had proven rather reliable (not perfect) and had minimal issues. This routine was still in use in iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks. With the advent of iOS 8 and Yosemite, Apple deployed a new routine by the name of DiscoveryD, DD for short. While most users did not experience any issues with DD, a large subset encountered substantial Wi-Fi difficulties and some of those proved to be rather serious - inability to connect at all, repeated disconnects, very short Wi-Fi range, etc. Our 4 iOS devices (2 mine, 2 my wife’s) were part of that subset that encountered issues. My devices were paired with an up-to-date, high-end Cisco router (latest firmware). They did not experience connection or range issues, however my download speeds were severely degraded right after updating to iOS 8 rendering my iPads and iPhones rather useless at home. After taking the usual Wi-Fi "repair" steps I discovered that turning Bluetooth and AirDrop OFF restored my download speeds on all my iOS devices to full ISP range. Interestingly, my MacBook Pro, my two Dell PCs and an old Toshiba PC all maintained full download speeds regardless of Bluetooth setting (and in the case of the Mac, AirDrop being on or off). Simply, the iOS devices could not be used with BT/AD on, while all non-iOS devices had no issues at all. My difficulties were minor in comparison to others, I just left BT and AD off, turn them on only when AirDropping, and then turned them off again, a hassle but not a major issue.

I have posted on this thread many times before and as a result I received two calls from AppleCare earlier this year. Apple collected various logs from my iOS devices and took extensive information regarding my Wi-Fi configuration. The calls lasted over one hour each. Several others have reported the same. Apple was well aware that there were issues with DD and had been trying to address them. In fact, iOS 8.3 included various "fixes" for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, see the release notes here: iOS 8.3 Those fixes worked for some but not others - they did not work for me.

When Yosemite 10.10.4 came out on June 30, users noticed that Apple had abandoned DD and had switched back to mDNSResponder - easy to test with Activity Monitor on a Mac. Apple’s 10.10.4 release notes stated “improvements to Wi-FI”. Apple attempted to "fix" DiscoveryD but after 9 months of effort they opted to revert back to mDNSR instead, albeit with some tweaks from the older version. Apple did not do this lightly or for the "fun" of it, they did so because they were well aware that many users were having problems indeed and their attempts to fix DD had proven unsuccessful. While there will always be Wi-Fi issues reported for any iOS, Androids, Macs or PCs (and now iOS 9), the general consensus from technical publications and affected users is that reverting back to mDNSResponder in Yosemite has significantly reduced the problems encountered with the previous routine.

I am now pleased to report that DiscoveryD has been replaced in iOS 9 as well. This was not unexpected as they had done so for OS X as mentioned above. Yesterday afternoon I updated my iPad to iOS 9 and I am also pleased to report that after a year of waiting my Bluetooth / AirDrop issues are finally over. I encountered no issues with the update whatsoever. My ISP nominal download speed is 15 Mbps. My iPad consistently received that speed as long as BT and AD were off. With BT / AD on my iPad crawled down to less than 1 Mbps, sometimes much less. After updating to iOS 9 I turned BT and AD on and began testing with OOKLA. I have yet to receive a DL of less than 14.9 (yesterday and today) regardless of the fact that BT / AD are now ON.

I updated my iPhone late last night and I am also pleased to report that the issues have been resolved for the phone as well. Prior to updating, i.e while still running iOS 8.4.1, I did 5 OOKLA tests with BT and AD turned ON. The 5 tests can be seen on the first screenshot below. They average 0.6 Mbps. After updating to 9, the iPhone also delivers full speeds regardless of BT and AD now being ON. The second screenshot shows 5 additional OOKLA tests performed after the iOS 9 update. They average 15.15 Mbps. This morning I did an additional 5 tests and they average 15.14 Mbps. Goodbye DiscoveryD, welcome back mDNSResponder!!!

I hope other users have similar success with their updates as well. Good luck to all. 🙂

I had a problem with my iPhone 6 where my 2.4ghz wireless connection was very poor (less than 1mbps). After many attempts to fix (reset phone, reset wireless settings) the thing that fixed it for me was to change my security setting to WPA2-Personal (it was WEP). My 5ghz wireless-n connection was always working fine and it was already set to WPA2-Personal.

Read iOS and OS X: Recommended settings for Wi-Fi routers and access points. Clearly states that WPA2 Personal (AES) is recommended and that WEP is "not recommended for compatibility, reliability, performance, and security reasons."

Hope this helps others.

Changing my wireless security to WPA2 is what fixed it for me also. Had been using WEP for years with no problems so I had no reason to switch it. I'm also getting a lot faster wifi speeds than I was before. Also I'm on Verizon Fios if that helps anyone, which I believe is automatically on WPA or WPA2 if you use the preset password. ( I did not and had changed it to WEP) just wondering if anyone has just tried to connect without any wifi security enabled to see if that is their problem.

The problem is not DNS.

Honestly, there is NOTHING you can do but bug Apple for a fix.

You can get some marginal relief by stopping/starting wifi, or by screwing around with the multiple "tricks" that have been published here and elsewhere, which indirectly cause a wi-fi re-start. Things may look good immediately afterwards, but will deteriorate over time.

The basic problem appears to be within the wi-fi driver.

You can see why things are bad simply by using ping.

I have a separate wifi access point (AP) (not integrated with a router, so you can forget anything people tell you about routers for this issue),

The AP is on the same sub-net as several other machines. Normally, I can ping one of these machines from the iPad (or anything else on wi-fi) and see a round trip time of about 1.2ms.

With a freshly re-booted iOS 8 on my iPad air, I now see a fairly consistent ping of about 30ms. About one packet in 20 is ~1.3ms. There are occasional outliers with pings over 100ms.

Leave it to run, and over time the number of outliers increases, as does their time.

Then you will see packets being dropped. leave it overnight and you will see something like this:

2/3 of the packets are being dropped. The very occasional packet is getting through in a reasonable time, but most of the packets which don't disappear are taking half a second or more for the round trip. This is (of course) totally unusable.

You can re-set the wi-fi driver by stop/start, fiddle with DNS, fiddle with wifi location etc, each of which will, behind the scenes cause a wifi driver reset, and things will go back to the working, but still broken (SLOW) state.

Sorry guys, there is absolutely nothing you can do to fix or work around this, other than use cell data if you have it, or stop/start wifi.

Only Apple can fix this.

Same issue AFTER update to iOS 8.0.2...

I THINK I HAVE A SOLUTION!!! (not perfect, but a workaround).

I have a NetGear R7000 Nighthawk Home 802.11ac home router.

It used to broadcast the same SSID for both 2.4ghz and 5ghz networks.

I changed the settings to use different names for 2.4ghz and 5ghz (AC) networks.

If the iPad Mini Retina Display tries to connect to the 5ghz network... same issues (works for 5/10 minutes, then slow to the point of failure)

If the iPad Mini Retina connects to the 2.4ghz network - EVERYTHING WORKS!

My original iPad Mini (no Retina) works with either.

The issue: I think iOS8 has bugs dealing with "multi-stream" (e.g. 2) 5ghz data streams from a WiFi Router. The iPad Mini only uses 1 stream (as do iPhones prior to 6), and those devices have no issue with 5ghz.

Apple, PLEASE FIX THIS!!

Until it's fixed, my iPad Mini Retina just connects to the slower network and I'm functional. Not as fast as it should be, but it will work.

I had this problem with my ipad mini - very slow internet after IOS 8 upgrade. I tried all of the make do 'solutions' offered by others on the forum and even 'downgraded' back to 7.1.2. To my horror the problem was still there even after I downgraded so decided to contact Apple Support through their text chat service. They told me that the connection issue is due to a software conflict as part of the upgrade.

Apple guided me through the solution which is to put the device into 'recovery mode' and do a 'restore without backup' through ITunes, effectively wiping the device clean. This then installed the latest IOS 8.0.2 which is now running absolutely perfectly.

LESSON: CONTACT APPLE SUPPORT I N THE FIRST INSTANCE. They were not impressed about me doing the 'downgrade'!!

I am working.... For the past 5 hours... FINALLY!

My setup:

• iPad Mini Retina
• NetGear 802.11ac R7000 router

Things I tried, but made NO difference:

• Turning off 2.4ghz or just 5ghz on the Router
• Turning off "WiFi networking" in Location Privacy
• Resetting network settings

What fixed it:

• Backed up my iPad
• Moved any "critical" data to the cloud or other sources
• Completely "Restored" my iPad through iTunes to 8.0.2
• I did NOT restore my backup. I re-downloaded the apps.
• Most of my apps (DropBox, iCloud, Evernote, Email) resync their data

I still then had to power off / restart completely after several minutes to make iCloud Photo Sharing come to life. This seems to have fixed things.

Another change, but it *shouldn't* make a difference. On my Router in the Wireless Configuration, I forced the 2.4ghz to only allow up to "289mbps"... Basically, it disables wifi Channel Bonding. Why this would make a difference? No idea... But maybe iOS 8 is getting confused on trying to pick the "best performing" network band, and I just made iOS' life a bit simpler.

I'm going to test roaming around the house and see if it gets flaky again!

I would like to let everyone know I enabled WMM (Wi-Fi multimedia) setting on my 5Ghz network (Netgear Night Hawk R7000), this setting was under the QoS settings and now the WIFI seems to be working perfect i'm back to getting 60.11Mbps Down and 11.95up, the signal has been consistent for sometime now! This is on my Iphone 6Plus. I hope this helps!

The only channels you can lock in on the 5GHz band are the bottom 4 and the top 4. The middle channels are all dynamically allocated and because that is a radio band shared with other radio services such as Air Traffic control radar, the access point must monitor and adapt to whatever is going on in its environment with the conflicting uses. I suspect that IOS 8 is not handling the changes that naturally may occur on the auto set channels in that range. The bottom 4 channels are not a good choice as they are low power and low range. That leaves only the 4 high channels as being usable. 161 is the highest that can be set on an Airport Extreme ac - 165 is also in that sub band but I don't think Apple stuff will work on that channel. 149, 153, 157 should also work if there is a problem with 161.

I have a Roku 3 that purports to work on the 5GHz band. I found it won't see the access point at all unless one of the 4 high channels is set. That indicates to me that it is somewhat complex to use the dynamic mid band sub channels and I think Apple when upgrading the IOS software to work with 802.11ac did it wrong. Obviously this needs to be fixed.

After I changed my AP to use 161, I've had absolutely no problems with connections on my iPad Air and iPhone 5s. Not to say this is a fix, just that it is working for me.

I'll reply to my own post now. Got home from work, I updated my iPhone 5 to iOS 8.02, just to try it out, worked fine at home, (where the iPhone 6 does not work at all). Then I took the iPhone 6, in the Wifi settings I entered the info manually instead of using DHCP. It works fine with a manual IP!

I entered IP 192.186.1.11, Subnet 255.255.255.0, Router 192.168.1.1 and same for DNS. So far the iPhone 6 is working fine, at full speed.

When it failes it had an IP starting with 169 wich is an internal IP that comes up when the router can not give the device an IP for some reason.