iPad Air, updated to iOS 8.1. Wifi almost unusable

I am using iPad3 (The New iPad), and lost my WiFi connection.

I tried "Reset Network Settings" and now, when I try to connect to my WiFi, it says I have entered incorrect password. Which I know is correct. I have read people had this problem but only with the iOS6 update.

Has anyone encountered this problem? Or if there is a thread about this, please tell, I've tried searching but only old threads appear.

Thanks in advance!

I agree with Scott, people need to mention what frequencies, channels and perhaps routers they are using. It could narrow the problem further. I know most people would like to use the highest frequency they can but for somethings you have to go back to 20hz. I have a Linksys E1550 router its 3 years old and have it set for auto 20hz and 40hz. My channel is set to auto and network mode set to mixed b/g/n. I know mines not a fancy router but it works fine for all of my idevices, iphone 3Gs, iphone 4, ipad 2 and iPad Air 2.

I'm having wifi issues with my new ipad air 2 . Everytime i access an app like angry birds, wifi turns itself off !

ive done a network rest and it still does it .

should i take it to a genius bar? Im a bit reluctant as i have a zagg shield on the lcd screen which is not easily removed

Since I psoted my last comments I have tired auto 20/40 and it seems stable on the high channel. But I can't tell the connection speed and until I get may MacBook back I won't know if it's using 20 or 49 for the connection. iOS doesn't give these details.

I Also realized I had my 2.4GHZ on 40Mhz, so even if your having issues with a 2.4Ghz router you may want to try manulay setting it to 20Mhz and it should help.

TThe sad part is that the newer phones and iPads do have 2 wifi antenas to use 40mhz bandwidth.

I Wonder if it's some kind of power savings setting apple has turned on since it does connect at first, then drops off. Maybe they are trying to make it default to 20Mhz when it's not being used heavily but then fails and drops the wifi completely.

SInce i I moved my 2.4 and 5Ghz to 20 they have been stable over the last few hours On both the asus and netgear router.

its a shame we may have to figure out the specifics of the issue before apple fixes this, but if it means they fix it faster then I'm willing to test but others need to test and report back the detail also..

RE: Prowles, since I've found 17 other thread with the same issue being reported I don't think it's the phone. But you can have the Genius Bar swap out the phone if you think it will help. As for the Zag just keep the screen. remove it from the old phone and put it on a blank piece of paper and keep it. Find an authorized zag dealer or kios and your local mall and they will install a new shield on the new phone for a six dollar install fee.

If you have the receipt and it's within the last 30 days then you won't be charged an install fee. A close friend of mine owns a Zagg kios so I have learned this from him over the years.

Yes, I did the reset and when I first tried to connect to my wifi network I recieved a message that the password was incorrect, however I rebooted and was able to go right through the setup process without re-typing the WPA-PSK password. Hopefully that works for you too!

Kor

True, it may not be a home network problem. I assume it has to do with bugs introduced in the upgrades and patches but in the interest of finding a workaround, anything that ameliorates the problem will help until Apple fixes the problem properly. Indeed, by switching to auto channel selection on my router configuration, everything is working much better. I also installed the Wifi Analyzer app on an Android device I have and was able to see what was happening on my network and other home networks which were in range of me. This showed me that the channel that I had nailed years ago was no longer optimal. It has been fine for my wife's dell as well as my Samsung Galaxy but iOS 8.1's apparently buggy wifi interface has exposed the weakness of that setup. After switching to auto select (which selected channel 1) I was even able to watch Netflix last night--first time since iOS 8! A speedtest measures about 10 Mbps which is fine for my ISP.

Kor

Wow, thank you for taking the time to run through these tests and post the results. Very educational.

I'm experiencing this too.

The WIFI with iOS 8.1 is unstable and unusable. My Wifi connection gets dropped when I stream videos within the Netflix App or within Safari (if it even loads). Email and iMessage do not load over WIFI. Wifi issues occur on both of my routers (as I have two), at my work, and on public wifi such as Starbucks which is generally pretty reliable. Safari has suddenly stopped working with my wifi altogether and states that, "This iPad is currently not online right now" when i'm currently connected to my WIFI with the strongest signal. When the wifi was working it ran at 1mbps, if even, now it doesn't work at all. I've tried rebooting my iPad, my router, and still no dice. The only way to use the iPad at the moment is on my cell service otherwise it would say I'm offline even if my signal is at full strength. Mean while every other electronic device is having no issue connecting to my routers and running over wifi smoothly.

Using:

iPad Air (Gen 4.2) Firmware 8.1 Network T-Mobile LTE

Hi agent yellow,

Yours sounds like a different issue from mine, just because the public wifi issues. Public wife's are set up very simple and the least amount of features. And most are just 20Mhz bandwidth even at apple retail stores.

THis is might sound weird but have you tried resetting ALL settings. I suspect some cloud and keychain sharing is working in the back. resetting all settings fixed my blutooth issues I was having even when resetting just network setting didn't fix it.

you will need to out your password and finger scans back, and maybe tweak a few setting you changed but it may be worth a trie.

if your still having the issues after that then apple would tell you to do a restore, possible corrupted file durring the update. It's rare, but I've seen it happen from when I was doing a lot of ios beta testing.

If it's still not working after that I would see if apple will swap it out. It sounds like it would have issues even connecting to apples wifi so it would be easy to prove considering all the demos at the store run the latest iOS.

Hi Scott.J.D,

thank you for your prompt reply. Alas I've tried a soft reset by restoring iPad from itself using both the back up then again as a new iPad. Neither have currently made a difference, but maybe a DFU and set up as a new iPad will do the trick?

This is already a replacement iPad I just got two weeks ago, so want to avoid replacing it. The Air I bought last month, the week iOS 8 was going to be released, had a damaged wifi card (ironically).

I'll give the hard reset a try since it's about the only other thing I can think of. Though I'd like to know if you know of anything that can import and export the shortcuts I programed into the keyboard so I can import them without doing so manually. I have over 200 saved commands to save time note taking in class. All of which would be a real bother to convert into a text document and then reimport manually with the iPad again. Otherwise I really could care a less about the settings since those are easy to put back.

Regards,

AYB

ssorry, I just did a reset all to test it on my iPhone 5S I'm getting ready to sell and it does wipe the shortcuts.

i don't know of anyway easy to back them up, maybe cooy and past them into the note pad or email. Then copy/paste them back after the reset?

iif I'm correct about a cloud setting config file and you don't have any or many documents in the cloud (back them up first on a computer) then you could turn the iCloud off on all the iOS devices and Mac if you have one. This might clear the cloud and then turn it back on. This may clear the possible corrupted file in the cloud without loosing your settings and shortcuts. You may want to try that first.

I Think I did that once when I got the iPhone 6, the blutooth messed up again from adding another device to my iCloud account in iOS and airdrop wouldn't work. They didn't see each other to the new easy cell teacher was also not working. So I turned off the cloud in setting/iCloud, waited a few minutes and then turned them all back on and it fixed the BT issue. So give that a shot first.

I Was having wifi disconnection problems similar to others that have reported on this thread. Other types of hiccups also similar to the others have reported, the most annoying is when I stream videos the wifi drops right away. The router I used was a a Belkin Pre-N router. I did some tweaks in some of the settings to provide better performance for multimedia streaming. The connections were better I was able to stream for a couple of NBA highlights but it disconnected and my devices couldn't even find the network after that. I had to power down and turn ymy device back on to reconnect wifi. After reading some posts about wifi issues and about WPA, WPA2 security connections, I realized that my Belkin router only provides WPA connections.

I have another Tp-Link TL- WR541G router. Made sure I have the latest firmware, I started the setup. This router provides a WPA2 connection and I set it up with AES. I don't know if TKIP would make any difference. After successful set up, both my iPhone 5 & iPad Air are connecting fine and streaming videos well. Watched quite a few of my NBA pre-season highlights and enjoying them. When I turned on Airdrop the wifi connections does not disconnect like with my other wifi set up. I also noticed that on the info page of the wifi connection on my divices it shows the DNS numbers of the ISP. It has been connecting stably.

With all this turmoils I believe IOS 8.1 requires pairing it with a higher security connection protocol. Give a try.

I learned several years ago after spending most of the first week of a 3 week beach vacation on the phone with Linkys, that when one has Apple wireless products, just suck it up and buy an Apple router. I plugged it in, it worked flawlessly immediately. Yes, it was more expensive, but so was that lost week!

I had the same issue but on my iPad mini and contacted Apple. They looked at my iPad and said that they can't fix it, but as it is still under warranty they replaced it for free. This free iPad had IOS 7 on, I then just didn't upgrade.

Don't know if this helps.

Michael

I found an issue with wifi,

ios8 is creating two entries for DNS in wifi. Both the entries are same. You can delete one entry and wifi will work fine. I have tested the same in two wifi and result is same.

go to Settings - > wifi - > click on circled i ( i) -> go to DNS -> you will see two entries for your dns (both the entries are same). touch on that and delete one.

all you problems are solved now.....