RobertDeveloper
Level 1 (5 points)

Q: Wi-Fi not working on iOS 8.4

Hi,

 

I had problems on iOS 8.3 where Wi-Fi worked at the beginning, but then stopped. Sometimes iPhone 4S attempted to connect, I saw wifi icon and then it disappeared. I tried Reset Network Settings, I managed to setup Wi-Fi connection again, but it worked for a few minutes and then again the same issue.

I was hoping that the issue will be fixed on 8.4, but now it's worse. After resetting network settings I cannot even join wifi network. After entering password, it says "Unable to Join the network. I have correct password, because I'm using it for other devices.

I tried to restore iphone through iTunes, but I cannot do that, because I'm getting error message "Find My iPhone" must be turned off. The problem is that I cannot turn Find My iPhone off in iCloud settings on the device, because Wi-Fi is not working. Now I cannot restore iPhone and I cannot setup Wi-Fi.

 

Another issue is the fact that device may not have 8.4 installed. Although it reports version 8.4, the device didn't show locked screen after update, like it did on iPad. It seems that device only shows version ioS 8.4, but hasn't really been updated, otherwise I would see locked screen after restart.

Is there a way to force iOS 8.4 update again on the device?

 

How can I fix wi-fi problem? Wi-Fi scanning seems to be a little slow. On that page the device often freezes for 20 seconds or so. The quality of iOS and Mac OS X has gone down dramatically.

 

I have $800 iPhone 4S, which has the antenna problem and I don't think I want another Apple device, if I can get Android device with better spec than iPhone 6 for $200. Over 3 years I made around 50 calls with this device and I'm not using much. I'm just using password manager app and need wifi for sync and backup.

 

You know what, forget this, because no one is going to fix/revert wifi code back to what it was on 8.0 or older.

MacBook Air (13-inch Late 2010), Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Jul 1, 2015 4:00 AM

by RobertDeveloper,Solvedanswer
RobertDeveloper RobertDeveloper
Level 1 (5 points)
A:

Potential solution to Wi-Fi problem (at least until Apple fixed the real issue)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------

Wi-Fi on iOS is really horrible. So far my iPhone and Wi-Fi is working after disabling "Find my iPhone", so I didn't even need to restore the device through iTunes. But it was painful process to get it working. Originally I wanted to restore iPhone, but iTunes prevented that, because restore needs "Find my iPhone" to be disabled. However you cannot disable "Find my iPhone", if you don't have network connection.

From all this it's clear that some didn't think it through. It is true that "Find my iPhone" is there to prevent unauthorized user to disable this feature, so that owner could potentially find the device. I guess that's also the reason why restore of the device is prevented when "Find my iPhone" is enabled. But there has to be  a better way to handle this, for example owner of iPhone could mark stolen device as "Stolen" on Apple's website and when some restores the phone and goes online to get updates through iTunes, it should be possbile to block the device based on it's serial number. This way "Find my iPhone" does not have to block "Restore" process.

 

After a little rant here is how to fix your phone, until Apple fixes real Wi-Fi problems:

 

Goal: The goal is to disable "Find my iPhone", which is impossible if your Wifi (or 3G/4G nework, as some users reported) does not work.

Reason: It is very likely that Find my iPhone and perhaps other services break Wi-Fi connection or networking in general. Perhaps wifi daemon cannot handle correctly parallel access to network resources.

How: You have to connect to Wi-Fi at least for a minute so you can disable "Find my iPhone".

Hint: You may need to reboot the device several times. I had to do it around 7 times, just to get wifi scanning to work.

 

1. Shut down your device completely by holding power button and then sliding Off switch. If that does not work, hold power button and home button until the devices shuts down. Start up your iPhone again.

2. Navigate to Wi-Fi page and try to connect to your router. If the device cannot connect or cannot find networks go to step 3. If you are connected go to step xxx.

3. On Wi-Fi settings page  disable wifi  by moving the switch to OFF position. This may not be as easy as it sounds. The device may continue scanning for available networks and any screen update may be very very slow. If you navigate back too soon before the information about position of the switch is saved, then the device does not actually switch Wi-Fi off and when navigating back it starts scanning again. Of course this is undesirable, because at this point networking is in bad state and it never connects. The device sometimes freezes. When I left fully charged  device overnight, the battery was dead in the morning (after about 8 hours in sleep mode). Another indication of bad device state is inability to navigate back from settings while Wi-FI switch is in OFF position. Even pressing home button doesn't work and you cannot leave Settings. In this case you may need to switch Wi-Fi On again and then try to switch it OFF again. Every time you change the switch, you may need to wait (for a minute or more) so that new setting is actually applied. If nothing works and you cannot positively change the settings, you may need to go to step 1. reboot the device and repeat the steps until Wi-FI is OFF. If you finally have Wi-Fi turned OFF, navigate back and leave Settings.

4. Now that Wi-Fi is OFF shutdown the device and reboot again.

5. Navigate to Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services and turn off following services: Location based iAds, Share my location, Spotlight suggestions, Wifi networking and Frequent locations. It is surprising, but you actually don't need wifi networking enabled here in order to connect to wifi (if I remember it is used to provide shared access to wifi to the other services/background tasks). Disabling these services help to keep eliminate parallel requests for networking. At this point you cannot disable "Find my iPhone", because you are offline.

6. Navigate to Settings > Wi-Fi and switch Wifi ON. See if scanning works and device can find your router. If you see your router select it. If you had problems before, you may need to actually tap on icon and  on DHCP tab enter into DNS field 8.8.8.8 (Google's DNS if I remember correctly). If your router is not found and you cannot see any other networks, that means the device or rather networking is in bad state, scanning is broken and you need to go to step 4 and  reboot the device. If you see networks in the area including your router, select it and enter password. If the password is not accepted or you get message like "Unable to connect", you may need to repeat everything from step 4. It can also help you to configure your router to channel, which is not used by any other router that your device can see. Routers usually use default channel 11 or similar (although manufacturers now started to assign different default channel on each router). Newer routers use Automatic channel assignment. Do not use this feature, if your iOS device cannot connect even after 10 reboots. You may need to set channel manually on your router, it looks like iPhone wifi scanning has problems when more than one router uses the same channel. Hopefully by now you are connected to Wi-Fi. Proceed to step 7.

7. Before your Wi-FI connection goes down again !!! quickly !!! navigate to Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services and disable "Find my iPhone". The device will actually connect over the internet and disables the service online, then it disables the service on your device. If that is successful. Your Wi-Fi should be working again.

8. Optional steps: Go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services and enable Wi-Fi Networking, Frequent Locations and if you want Spotlight and iAds (although I left these off).

 

Good luck !!! You are going to need it.

Posted on Jul 18, 2015 8:43 AM

Close
RobertDeveloper

Q: Wi-Fi not working on iOS 8.4

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

first Previous Page 12 of 15 last Next

  • by RobertDeveloper,

    RobertDeveloper RobertDeveloper Aug 13, 2015 3:35 PM in response to RobertDeveloper
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Aug 13, 2015 3:35 PM in response to RobertDeveloper

    Updated to iOS 8.4.1 and no change. Wi-Fi worked for about 2 minutes, then it disconnected and connected again for about 4 or 5 times and then wifi was gone forever. The same problem in User Interface as before - it is freezing when changing Wi-Fi switch, UI cannot quite reflect status of the change (like showing "Not connected" instead of "Off" and you cannot close Settings by pressing home button).

    Clearly the guy, who made the latest updates to Settings app, does not know how to properly update UI from background thread, how to notify background thread to trigger some action, sync data between threads, prevent multiple calls when user presses a button/switch. Sometimes I have to hold Wi-Fi button for 2 - 3 seconds otherwise it does not change from Off to On (or vice versa). From the behavior of UI, I would say that there has to be a recursive call, like calling some function 100 times or using TouchDownInside on a button (which can trigger multiple calls of the handler function) and that's why UI is unresponsive or Settings app crashes (probably as a result of stack overflow).

    Instead of replacing iPhones, perhaps Apple should replace developers.

  • by Philly_Phan,

    Philly_Phan Philly_Phan Aug 13, 2015 3:38 PM in response to RobertDeveloper
    Level 6 (13,576 points)
    iPhone
    Aug 13, 2015 3:38 PM in response to RobertDeveloper

    That's because your problem has nothing to do with the IOS.

  • by RobertDeveloper,

    RobertDeveloper RobertDeveloper Aug 13, 2015 3:57 PM in response to Philly_Phan
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Aug 13, 2015 3:57 PM in response to Philly_Phan

    Ok. So what is the problem? I would really like to know.

    I can run graphics intensive apps, so clearly there is no issue with CPU, memory, storage, graphics. If Wi-Fi chip is fried or something, I don't see why software should be freezing or responding so slowly (unless it is badly written). I would understand if it was loading large amount of data, or doing some other intensive task and if it finally completed successfully. But it behaves pretty much like Windows and you are waiting and waiting and waiting and nothing happens, UI not responding, sometimes it finds and displays wireless networks, sometimes it doesn't.

  • by whsalumni,

    whsalumni whsalumni Aug 13, 2015 5:16 PM in response to RobertDeveloper
    Level 1 (12 points)
    iPad
    Aug 13, 2015 5:16 PM in response to RobertDeveloper

    I called Apple Care about 8.4.1 that was released today.  It primarily fixed music problems but nothing about wi-fi problems that so many people are having problems with.  My iPhone 6 Plus was checked by the Genius Bar and the hardware is fine.  No matter what some people are writing it is not the hardware but the software.  Apple is putting its head in the sand about this issue. 

  • by PS61,

    PS61 PS61 Aug 14, 2015 7:44 AM in response to RobertDeveloper
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 14, 2015 7:44 AM in response to RobertDeveloper

    May want to check out this Apple thread about iOS 8 Wi-Fi issues, similar to this one.

     

    <Edited by Host>

  • by Philly_Phan,

    Philly_Phan Philly_Phan Aug 13, 2015 5:52 PM in response to whsalumni
    Level 6 (13,576 points)
    iPhone
    Aug 13, 2015 5:52 PM in response to whsalumni

    whsalumni wrote:

     

    I called Apple Care about 8.4.1 that was released today.  It primarily fixed music problems but nothing about wi-fi problems that so many people are having problems with.  My iPhone 6 Plus was checked by the Genius Bar and the hardware is fine.  No matter what some people are writing it is not the hardware but the software.  Apple is putting its head in the sand about this issue.

    Obviously Apple engineers don't understand the IOS as well as you do.

  • by Frank Lowney,

    Frank Lowney Frank Lowney Aug 13, 2015 5:58 PM in response to RobertDeveloper
    Level 1 (113 points)
    Aug 13, 2015 5:58 PM in response to RobertDeveloper

    Even though I solved this issue for myself some tome ago, I have followed the discussion with great interest. The fact that may people have resolved the issue in so many different ways suggests to me that the root problem is with a config file that needs somehow to be written to and thereby made functional again. This is my not so famous "jiggle" theory.

    On OS X you can simply delete prefs files and let the OS rewrite them and that corrects a host of various issues. On iOS, this is not possible w/o a jailbreak and software to fiddle with the config files. Thus, one has to "jiggle" these config files via various and sundry means.

    Clearly. this is one of the downsides to a "walled garden."

    So, do whatever you have to do to rewrite config files and eventually all will be well. Router settings, find my <whatever>, DHCP, whatever works for you. The standard networking reset doesn't appear to work.

    I just upgraded to 8.4.1 and all is well for me.

  • by Philly_Phan,

    Philly_Phan Philly_Phan Aug 13, 2015 5:53 PM in response to Frank Lowney
    Level 6 (13,576 points)
    iPhone
    Aug 13, 2015 5:53 PM in response to Frank Lowney

    Frank Lowney wrote:

     

    Even though I solved this issue for myself some tome ago, I have of;;owed the discussion with great interest. The fact that may people have resolved the issue in so many different ways suggests to me that the root issue is a config file that needs somehow to be written to and thereby made functional again. This is my not so famous "jiggle" theory.

    On OS X you can simply delete prefs files and let the OS rewrite them and that corrects a host of various issues. On iOS, this is not possible w/o a jailbreak and software to fiddle with the config files. Thus, one has to "jiggle" these config files via various and sundry means.

    Clearlt. this is one of the downsides to a "walled garden."

    Please refer to this:

     

    Wifi not working after upgrade to iOS 7

  • by azkid53,

    azkid53 azkid53 Aug 13, 2015 9:45 PM in response to RobertDeveloper
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 13, 2015 9:45 PM in response to RobertDeveloper

    The 8.4.1 update DID resolve the issue and lack of iTunes starting up automatically when I connected iPod to desktop. I'm happy for that. But didn't do a thing to help access my wifi network. I Did notice though, (still trying various things mentioned here), that, while my Pod sees my network, it won't recognize the correct log in, but when I switched airplane mode off and then back on, it connected on its own.

     

    Or, at the least, it SAYS I'm connected. Still can't get new emails or connect to the App Store or Facebook or USE the flippin internet, lol. This is really nutz. It's become a really small camera and mp3 file carrier.... fairly worthless without internet access, for me.

     

    And yes, if you read back, my previous post mentions that I've both chatted to Apple Support online, (mentioning the fact that since the 8.4 update, iTunes no longer started up automatically when I plugged the iPod Touch into my Power Mac desktop, but iPhoto still did...), AND took the blasted thing into the Geniuses, who tested it fully, and told me nothing was wrong with it.

  • by petermac87,

    petermac87 petermac87 Aug 13, 2015 9:53 PM in response to Philly_Phan
    Level 5 (7,402 points)
    Aug 13, 2015 9:53 PM in response to Philly_Phan

    Glad to see this thread has been marked as answered by the OP.

     

    Cheers

     

    Pete

  • by elcpu,

    elcpu elcpu Aug 14, 2015 4:09 AM in response to azkid53
    Level 6 (16,265 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Aug 14, 2015 4:09 AM in response to azkid53

    azkid, your comments are not surprising since iOS 8.4.1 contained various improvements to the Music App as Apple described in their release notes. That appears to be the main reason for this update. The notes contained no information on Wi-Fi. iOS 9 is scheduled for release in the fall, hopefully with similar improvements as we saw in OS X 10.4.4. 

  • by azkid53,

    azkid53 azkid53 Aug 14, 2015 7:24 AM in response to elcpu
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 14, 2015 7:24 AM in response to elcpu

    elcpu, Yes. I'm glad that I made a detailed account of the changes I experienced after the update when I chatted w/ Apple Support, and then on their help site. I haven't witnessed anyone else complaint's about iTunes and that issue, but downloaded/installed the new iTunes update they issued last night, along with the 8.4.1 for iOS.

     

    My 2008 Mac Pro desktop won't handle Yosemite. But my Mac Mini does. sigh. It's a never ending 'thang', ain't it?

  • by elcpu,

    elcpu elcpu Aug 14, 2015 7:28 AM in response to azkid53
    Level 6 (16,265 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Aug 14, 2015 7:28 AM in response to azkid53

    sigh. It's a never ending 'thang', ain't it?

     

    Yeah!!! 

  • by Umechan,

    Umechan Umechan Aug 20, 2015 11:09 AM in response to RobertDeveloper
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 20, 2015 11:09 AM in response to RobertDeveloper

    After upgrading my iPad to iOS 8.4, although I can connect to my router at home via Settings, the internet connection doesn't work - it says I am connected, but nothing will download. I can get a proper wifi connection in the Apple store and via my phone's tethering function, just not via my home router, although the connection was working perfectly before the upgrade and is still fine on my other devices. Restoring the iPad to factory settings doesn't work. Nor does changing the DNS tab to 8.8.8.8. Apple, this is obviously a software issue with the upgrade - please fix it as soon as possible.

  • by petermac87,

    petermac87 petermac87 Aug 20, 2015 1:47 PM in response to Umechan
    Level 5 (7,402 points)
    Aug 20, 2015 1:47 PM in response to Umechan

    Try updating to iOS 8.4.1

     

    Cheers

     

    Pete

first Previous Page 12 of 15 last Next