iPad Air, updated to iOS 8.1. Wifi almost unusable

I have this problem on my iPad 4 and iPhone 5s. It seems that all iOS8 updates have wireless connectivity problems.

Fix it, Apple.

I haven't had reliable, usable, wifi on my iPad Air since I updated to iOS8 nearly a month ago. Constant drop-out, crawling speed when it does work, and as for streaming on Netflix or iPlayer....well that's becoming a distant memory.....The successive updates have done nothing and I've tried numerous resets and work-arounds to no avail. As a first time Apple user, I'm very disappointed. I was very impressed with my iPad until Apple broke it...

I'd agree with this and think Apple's good name is being slowly eroded, in my mind at least. I see only a year after I bought my iPad Air they have a new one coming out. They should get my one working properly before worrying about releasing an iPad Air 2. Not impressed.

Same issue here.

My iphone 4S and iPad air are almost worthless now as they received poor Wifi connectioin when I move to other room from the wifi router.

This is really pssing me off.

Some of my findings... bare with me some of this might get technical.

I have an iPad Air, iPhone 6+, and an iPhone 5s (also have iPad 3, iPhone 4, apple TV but not tested).

iPad Air:

7.1.2 perfect, no issues.

Update 8.0 worked fine (or i didn't notice any connectivity issues).

Update 8.0.2 horrible, every minute it LOCKED connection, Safari stopped responding during use or actually caused a re-spring, horrible bandwidth...

Update 8.1 much better but STILL problems with throughput, video was horrible, Safari - studders, links and buttons don't click, no loads, etc.,

iPhone 6+

Preloaded 8.0 PERFECT, throughput maxed out my 60Mbps connection.

Update 8.0.2 small noticeable problems, Safari - links would sometimes need to be clicked several times to proceed, some video shutters.

Update 8.1 even more problems, streaming video shutters, overruns, half throughput of 8.0, much better than iPad on 8.1

First off, before some Apple geek give me the generic template with "<your device here> have you tried.." rant, I've tried it (several times) and nothing helps:

✅reboot device, yes.. million times.. yes.

✅reboot AP, router, modem, etc.

✅reset network settings

✅reset all settings

✅erase all content and settings

✅DFU restore from iTunes with latest...

✅clean flash, no iCloud restore, new account, FACTORY, CLEAN! 😢

Weird things tried:

unplugging Apple TV and airplay devices- saw this in the forum and found something interesting.. throughput does go up on iPad and iPhone (~25%), BUT still has issues.

-I'm guessing that this has to do with a flood of back and fourth Airplay announcement and handshake packets when the connections is intermittent.

-might be worth trying while waiting for a wifi fix.

Findings:

2.4Ghz, seems to be fine! (not tested thoroughly though)

5Ghz, on any channel HAS problems for my iPad and iPhone on 8.1

-about every 100ms - 300ms the wireless TX signal (from iPad/iPhone) drops to 24Mbps @ 20Mhz during transmission then rebounds to normal (300Mbps) during light load (surfing, videos)

-saw this happening about 6-10 times a second during video streaming

-the TX side is not used directly for downloading, but is plays a huge role on RX (download) transmissions (speed, responsiveness, etc.)

my best guess is that there is a programming error on the power saving feature of 5Ghz connection in ios 8

-TX rate drop is used as a power saving feature and employed in many other devices, if you watch the signal, many devices do this when idle or sleep

-IOS will do this when the connection is idle

-AP logs and tools didn't show wifi had connection problems like drops, reconnection, timeouts, noise, etc.,

-TX rate drop might be due to other errors in programming like distance matrices, negotiation, etc,.

-testing the upload (TX) almost topped my 6Mbps internet connection, dumps didn't show a connection rate drop under this load.

Station 90:b9:31:xx:xx:xx (on wlan1)

inactive time: 0 ms

rx bytes: 5592785

rx packets: 50283

tx bytes: 169273453

tx packets: 112535

tx retries: 1638

tx failed: 3

signal: -42 [-46, -45] dBm

signal avg: -44 [-49, -48] dBm

tx bitrate: 300.0 MBit/s MCS 15 40MHz short GI

rx bitrate: 24.0 MBit/s

authorized: yes

authenticated: yes

preamble: long

WMM/WME: yes

MFP: no

TDLS peer: no

Above is a simple (readable) snapshot dump that shows what my iPad is doing while streaming videos.

signal strength is great, packet retires hit about 4-3% tops by an hr (not too bad).

but if you look at 'rx bitrate' (tx on device, rx on my AP) you can see the drop, this happened hundreds of times a minute

Test system:

Two WLAN APs:

Atheros/Qualcom AR93xx, 802.11n, 5Ghz, 2x2:2, 40Mhz HT upper band @ CH149 (300Mbps) <--- my normal connection

Atheros AR54xx, 802.11g, 2.4Ghz, 1x1:1 20Mhz @ CH 1 (54Mbps), 1500mA tx power, 12dBi omni ant <--- yes very old but great for testing

Router- Mikrotik RB2011UiAS-IN

Modem- Arris SB6141, bridged, static

ISP- cable, Comcast, 60/7Mbps (actual)

factory clean iPad Air, iPhone 6+

Test conditions:

device 8ft from AP

2 different 5Ghz channels were used 36 and 165 (low and high, no overlap singnals, US)

no other clients connected to AP

no other devices connected to network except notebook (test tools and ssh to AP, wired GbE)

Youtube app on devices playing nVidia purevideo test sample (1080p, 1h loop)

wifi dump, sniffer, analyzers, and tools running on AP

Not tested:

videos from a UDP stream, too much setup and work...

AP config without encryption (no WEP or WPA), no one in their right mind would want this in a real world setup.

Different AP's with different wifi chips from other manufactures (Broadcom, TI, Ralink, Realtek), too much work, Atheros is very popular...

iPhone 5s has not been tested yet, exhibits same problems but less often and not as bad as iPad.

Rant:

this is frustrating, and i feel for the unlucky few... going to the apple store and try and prove this is pointless, hopefully apple already know about this and is working on it. the lucky ones are probably running a different wireless chipset or even a revision, not even apple can pump out that many phones with the exact same hardware...

Same here... Never had a problem with my IPad Air until this upgrade To 8.1. Wish there was a way to roll back the upgrade. Pathetically slow wifi...

ipad air, stayed on 7.1.1 and i have to live with the safari refreshing tabs and crashing crap and was hoping 8.1 might be a winner... of course not.

i'm screwed my year is almost up and safari has been a hopeless mess and i know if i call to get a return on my ipad air they will want me to reset it and put on ios8.1 ... what to do.

i'll keep my mac mini i7 and my android phone and i'm done with ipad's that's for sure. It was a good product as i have the ipad2, and ipad3 on ios6 and they work excellent. The air safari is a complete bomb.

enjoy and good luck.

Have any of you spoken with your ISP'S? I have an iPad 3rd gen running IOS 8.1 perfectly. Also, the same on my new iPhone 6. It could very well be your router or you ISP not recognizing the new devices. It's worth a phone call. I don't think this is a universal problem.

Thanks for this recommendation. I am not an IT person and do not have enough technical knowledge to wrap my mind around this ISP not recognizing the new devices. My devices have been connecting through the same provider all along and have been working fine since iOS 7. Currently, my IOS 8.1 devices are iPhone 5 & iPad Air, they most of the time connect to my home wifi network fine, general surfing is fine but once I try to stream some videos the wifi disconnects.

I do experience occasional dropping of wifi connections but the device would reconnect by itself fine. At times I have to power off the device and turn it back on to reconnect to wifi.

However, i have indicated in my other responses, i have no such problems at my work wifi network with a high speed connection. My problems only occur at home where i have a .8/8 M up/down connection. I am suspecting that the new iOS is made for high speed connections only.

I have a technical background and know it is not ISP related nor a fault with my it infrastructure setup at home.

Should anyone doubt my skills (which is only fair as people don't know me here) my iPad suffers the same issues when connected to the wireless network at my office. A setup there which is almost totally beyond reproach.

I am using an iPad 4 on iOS 8.1 and am having no trouble at all with WiFi or Cellular. This is on a number of different WiFi routers in various locations around the UK as well as at home.

iOS 8.0 was OK-ish, iOS 8.0.1 was sort of OK. iOS 8.0.2 was a living nightmare, iOS 8.1 seems to be a lot more stable, but not without its issues.

There are a number of Apps that make demands on WiFi that may not be taking too well to the iOS upgrade, and where I have had clients affected by this kind of issue I have had to go back to basics. This may help you (and others).

Connect your iPad to iTunes and back it up.

Once backed up, choose the option to restore your iPad.

When it comes back, DO NOT restore the data and set it up as a new iPad.

Check WiFi operation. If you are getting the same issues, you have just confirmed that it is either the iPad at fault or the WiFi Router.

If your iPad is now staying connected without issue, it is likely that there is at least one app that may be experiencing problems. The next part is tedious, but the only way that I know to nail the culprit. You need to add each app one by one and check the iPad's operation. When you find the culprit, see if there is an update that has not come down the pike yet, or contact their support desk.

If millions were affected, I would blame Apple, but the sad fact is that some iPads have been affected whilst the majority have not. It is not an exoneration of Apple, but a mere statement of fact. I happen to agree that iOS 8 has been less than exemplary since its release and I would have preferred to wait longer for a more solid release than the misery we have had to endure for the last few weeks.

Similar issue: iPhone 5s, worked fine with iOS 8.0 and 8.02, but after upgrading to 8.1 trouble started. The phone will connect to the router but wifi is either extremely slow or not working — I couldn't get e-mails to send last night and this morning. Reset network settings and I'll see what happens. Laptop has continued to work great on wifi, so it must be something in the iOS upgrade. Since it's not universal, it may be iOS 8.1 in combination with something else. VERY frustrating.

"

Connect your iPad to iTunes and back it up.

Once backed up, choose the option to restore your iPad.

When it comes back, DO NOT restore the data and set it up as a new iPad."

I tried this. Unfortunately, It doesn't seem to have helped at all. I am now running only the apps that are installed by default and have the same type and frequency of wifi disconnections I had before. The first half hour or so seemed promising but within an hour it was disconnecting again. Manual re-connects were mostly followed with almost immediate disconnects (as before this experiment) and reboots became inevitable. I usually get a half hour or more after a reboot. I've never managed to connect with the Netflix app since upgrading to iOS 8 except a few times, very briefly.

Next I will try changing the router channel setting from 10 to "auto"

iPad 3, 32 GB, no cell, iOS 8.1

Belkin wireless pre-n router (pretty old)

Have tested several iPad 3 and 4 and iPhone 5c and 5s and found the following

5s no wifi speedtest is about 8Mbps

5c working wifi speedtest is 99Mbps

Both iPads same result as 5c

5s speedtest on 4G 50Mbps

Simply put this is not a home network issue but a hardware/software issue

I Had an issue with my MacBook retina since I bought it last year and was not able to connect to 5Ghz high channels. Specifically on the 40mhz band, if I changed it to 20mhz it was fine, but half the speed for moving large data files around on my network. So I went back to the low channels like 44 but these frequencies don't pentrate my walls nearly as well and I have a week signal in the yard. The high channels I can walk 5 houses down and still get great speed.

Well the mac is in getting the wifi card replaced after this still was not fixed with yosimite, so I went back to the high channels at home. It's funny how all apple stores run Cisco wifi on high channels but only in 20mhz band or maybe they would see this issue also instead to recommend I buy a apple wifi router.

So today I picked up the iPhone 6 and nothing but issues on 5ghz. Tested 2.4 and seems stable. So then I changled the channle back from 157 to 44 amd now I'm finally able to complete a backup to the cloud without the wifi dropping. My iPad 2 mini retina is fine and the iPhone 5s seems fine on the high channels.

so I'm starting to think this is something again with high channels and 40mhz bandwidth.

oh before anyone mentions it yes I did all the standard scripting trouble shooting, resets, clean restores and bla bla bla.

So my request to all having issues is.

1. What channel are you running? If above 100 have you tried the lower end of the spectrum? If not can you and report back if it also helped you?

2. If your bandwidth on the channle is set to auto, or 40mhz can you try setting it to 20MHz and see if that helps and report back?

Im just looking for a pattern and sharing what helped me, then asking you to try and see if it helps you.

i Know, I know. This is not a fix. It's a temporary work around and apple still needs to get off their arse and fix this wifi stuff with the 5ghz range. It's a shame that great hardware and design is not starting to get a bad reputation just because of the software issues and not testing properly before releasing it.

if your reading this apple, it the mix of stable software, with hardware, simplicity and design that sells your product and was the reason I moved over years ago for that stable BSD kernel.i support enough to tech issues 70 hours a week and didn't want to deal with it at home. I admire the movement to bring everything together across all your hardware to be the same simplicity and the free OS updates for the Mac the last couple of years. But truth be told even junk unstable software is not worth being free. Please fire the guy responsible for this testing before release, and yes I have an idea on who this guys is also. Can you say apple maps?