iPad Air, updated to iOS 8.1. Wifi almost unusable

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

Hello Scott.J.D,

I have good news and better news. First off there was something wrong with my routers at home and I got that straightened out. Separately there was also something going on with the iOS loaded in my iPad and the iCloud back ups I had. So in the end I did have to go to Apple, I went and they performed the DFU for me and also checked my iCloud which seemed to have a minor problem in it too. What Apple did is clean the two up and get my iPad back to working order. Now everything works and I didn't have to punch up my shortcuts either. What a nice bonus. They loaded up on their own because that part of my iCloud wasn't effected by the thing they cleaned. So everything seems to be working now.

I love the tip in here though, totally helpful if the iOS 8.1 does something silly with the wifi I will definitely apply that.

Thanks for the help! ヾ(•⚗৺⚗•)

AYB

So tired of the excuses from Apple. This has NOTHING to do with routers....it is 110% the 8.0, 8.0.2, and 8.1 versions that are full of bugs. This network issue is easy for me to pinpoint, as we have two other iPads on the same router. Both others are 7.1 and neither has EVER lost connectivity. We will NEVER EVER upgrade those, as they work beautifully. Past upgrades to 7 and 7.1 were without any issues at all.

I chatted with Apple support, and with the "genius" folks in the store after upgrading my iPad Air. I have gotten the typical cheerleading scripts about how iOS 8.x will cook your breakfast and do your laundry and are so much better than older versions. If I hear that one more time, I may vomit on someone's shoes.

so far, I have done "restore my ipad" from iTunes (no errors), reset network, reset routers, and finally (in desperation) upgraded from 8.02 to 8.1. It was better for about 3 days, and now it is dropping more than 10 times a day, mostly when I am in Safari. Also, while in Safari and in Mail, there is the constant swirl from **** (next to the wifi signal strength indicator). That indicates something is going on in the background constantly.......even when I am doing nothing!!! Never happened on older versions, and I have tested them side by side, so I know it has absolutely zero to do with what I am or am not doing in those apps (which are both Apple apps, so no fingers point anywhere other than the OS).

One thing I have noticed is that the strength of signal varies, even while sitting still. All my other devices show full strength from the same location.

WARNING if you are on 8.0.x or 8.1.... When you upgrade or repair, be sure to hook to your computer/iTunes. Otherwise, if netowork drops during your upgrade, you will be bricked. If you are still on 7.x, STAY THERE!!! I have heard that appoximately 10-15% of people on 8.x do not have issues, but I am not sure I believe them....for those who do, life is **** right now! Test your stuff, Apple......QA is key!!! I paid almost $1k for my iPad Air 128gb, and now I am realizing I could have bought an Android tablet (or 3!) and repurchased all of my apps for less than this expensive failure. The fact that Apple will not let me roll back to what works has effectively sealed my decision for future purchases for both home and office......too unreliable and heading the wrong direction with respect to quality. Am very, very disappointed..... :-(

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!

Sorry - didn't mean to send previous post!

im sorry you're having so much trouble and are unhappy with your purchase, but most people are enjoying ios8.1 and their new iPads - I am!

i Think those with wifi problems are the exception, not the rule. If that were not do, the press would be calling for Tim Cook's head.

Being an exception does not make it acceptable.

Especially with four pages of exceptions, wnich is just the people who have found this thread and bothered to post.

How did Apple 'clean' your iCloud?

I Would like to give my recent update. All my apple devices including MBPR and iPhone 6 are now stable connected to my 5Ghz router on a 40Mhz bandwidth at full speed. As I mentioned about draft wireless in a previous post they are not finalized. apparently Even after updating my wifi routers the updates were not taking completely and some updates included new updated draft drivers for the wifi radios.

So with one a simple reset to defaults fixed the issue. The other one required what's called a 30/30/30 reset. You can Google this for more information.

After fixing the routers and having the wireless card replaced in the MBPR everything has been stable and working great. I was able to change my bandwidth to auto 20/40 and the laptop connects on 40, or specify 40 only and it works. The iPhone 6 is now fast, contact and not dropping.

So in my opinion if the iPhone 6 is using the most updated latest wifi chip drivers but my routers were not because the firmware update didn't aply it correctly and needed a reset. Well I beleive this may have been the issue. Maybe the router companies assumed he firmware update applied the new drivers but in reality the router needed a reset to apply these changes and not just a restart.

NOTE: the defaults or 30/30/30 will require you to out all the wifi setting back, reset the default password and add wifi keys. So you will want to make a note of all your setting and you will also want to know your default passwords that can be found in the online manuals for your wifi router.

The same WIFI issues persist since "upgrading" to iOS8 on my iPad air; hasn't it been over a month? Crippling connectivity is totally unacceptable for a device such as this.

Please acknowledge the problem and fix properly.

Unfortunately Apple does not see these posts. However if you are still having these issues after installing IOS8.1 then go to your nearest Apple Store or call their help line. I had the same issue as you and they replaced my iPad for free. The iPad then had IOS 7 preinstalled so I just never updated it and now my wifi works fine.

Hope this helps.

This advice may have helped me, with 2 new iPhone 6 Plus phones in my home, at iOS 8.1. iPhone 5 with iOS 8.1 didn't show this same problem.

Tried the removal of the 2nd DNS and 3rd DNS entries (mine were 8.8.8.8 / 8.8.4.4 / 10.10.1.1), and it seemed to work, but I also wanted to be ready for other devices coming to my home.

I went ahead and set my router to no longer feed out 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 and instead went with fully automatic DHCP for WAN, which means my particular router feeds out just it's own IP as the DNS (with no secondary DNS) for DHCP clients. I then "forgot" the WiFi network connections from the iPhones, then reconnected, and they now show just the router's IP for the DNS.

This method worked for me, with https://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm showing my cable company's dns being fast anyway. It might not be right for everybody, and I feel like Apple will likely fix this strange behavior soon enough anyway. But you sure saved me some grief in the meanwhile!

Also worth noting that like others have reported, my iPhone 6 Plus works fine with the Apple Store's WiFi, but with in my home, it was bad, dropping YouTube streams in about a minute, web pages stalling, then recovering 2 minutes later (sometimes).

Thank you!

Hi Everyone,

I too suffered from this problem. I use my iPad Air to stream movies I have saved in the cloud, and also to watch Live DirecTv while I am working out. Recently (this week) DirecTV was unuseable. I kept getting messages "Due to insufficient bandwidth, only the sound will play." I thought maybe it was a problem with DirecTV so I just switched to start watching my iCloud movies. At first it was ok, but then it started buffering a lot, and then it wouldn't even load. I ran my SpeedTest.net app and I was getting crazy low numbers: 185ms ping, .28mbps down and .78mbps up. Normally I would get around 14mbps down and 15mbps up. I started thinking about it and realized the only thing that changed from the week prior to when I noticed the problems was installing ios 8 and 8.1. To be fair though, I had noticed in general on my ios devices that wifi was spotty - slow, wouldn't load, trouble connecting, etc.

I found this thread and tried restarting my router, restarting my modem, resetting my iPad network settings, etc. None of it worked. Starting to think it was my router, I started messing around with it. I am actually fairly savvy so I wasn't afraid I was going to break anything. I actually have a Linksys Smart Wifi, so I log into a platform. If you don't have it, try typing the IP address in your browser. Most of the time it is 192.168.1.1.

Anyway, I don't know WHAT, if anything I did actually worked, or was a fluke. But I will tell you what I did and you can try and see if it works. First, I turned off the 5ghz frequency because none of my devices connect to it anyway. Second, I went to the "devices" tab which shows every device that has connected to my wifi and there were a TON - old computers, old iphones, etc. I deleted all of the ones I knew were not still in use. I then restarted my router and my iPad and I am now back up and running! I am getting normal speeds of around 45ping, 8-18mbps down, and 8-15mbps up.

WIthout question Apple goofed up something with their IOS8 .x relating to wireless stability. Both the iPad 2 and iPhone 5 drop every few seconds making them useless for this medium. It seems like innovation and customer service/commitment died along with Steve Jobs. Perhaps Apple is focused more with pursuing revenue through sales and IOS releases for these newer products than they are with maintaining a quality experience for all users of there full product portfolio.

I just re-read this entire thread yet again. It appears that some routers work better than others, and it also appears that those who are having the most problems are very familiar with routers and routinely "tweak" them.

This is NOT a major problem with this device, nor is it with iOS 8.1. I don't for a moment mean to make light of the time, energy and general frustration many who have posted here are experiencing! When one expects something (especially an expensive NEW something) to "just work" and it doesn't, it's a huge frustration.

As I've said before, I'd strongly advise you to use your 90 day free phone support and call Apple Support for help. If the first person doesn't fix your problem, ask for it to be escalated. If you don't want to take the time to do this, then return the iPad for a refund.

Individual networks are just that - individual. We all have different ISP's/modems/routers. Some have used "auto" to connect their devices; others have tweaked them for high performance. As a user-to-user forum, it is very hard to give advice under these circumstances. That's for Apple Support.

I have the same issue, 8.1 is a bad update. Wished i would of never updated. You have keep refreshing the connection to be able to load a webpage. Why can't i roll back updates? This one is useless to me.