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

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RobertDeveloper

Q: Wi-Fi not working on iOS 8.4

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  • Helpful answers

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  • by HanFred,

    HanFred HanFred Jul 10, 2015 12:48 PM in response to Grace0716
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jul 10, 2015 12:48 PM in response to Grace0716

    It depends on your router, so I can't really tell. But in the menu where you can name your WLAN (which is accessed by browser and typing in the router's IP in the address bar) there's usually an option to hide it, cloak it or whatever it may be called in said menu. I have a Thomson device from my cable provider, where it's called "closed". If you do that, the Iphone will not be able to find your network automatically anymore and you'll have to type in the name (SSID) of your network and the password after choosing "other" at the bottom of all found networks. Mind that other devices won't find the network either after this, unless they run scanner software.

  • by RagonS,

    RagonS RagonS Jul 10, 2015 11:38 PM in response to RobertDeveloper
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 10, 2015 11:38 PM in response to RobertDeveloper

    just want to share. I have iPhone 4s 2 years old, got wifi grey out 1 year ago, after update to iOS 7. I update OS with itunes, which really slow and mus dowbload full 1 giga. Also i downloaded app with itunes, even updating, which actually redownload the game. 

     

    1 month ago, when i use ios 8, i tried my wifi. it only can be connected for a couple seconds. tried open youtube and wifi repeatly turned on / off till crash. then when i turned my wifi, it will cause not responding.

     

    one day, when i charging my iphone, i tried my wifi again, and its worked! i played vainglory 5 matches. on next day, it doesnt work... i thought my wifi can be work if charged but it is not. Then another day, after i play vainglory with cellular nertwork, i tried my wifi and its work. then i did an experiment, the result is my iphone must get warm enough in order to use wifi. so each time i want to use wifi, i played vainglory with cellular network. but if the iphone get colder, wifi will stop working, and can be used again after get warm.

     

    so, thats strange. But now my wifi is work 100%  how? i dont know. it happen after a trip with airplane. before thaf, on airport, its still same, must get warm enough. i downloaded GarageBand, put iphone in my pocket. Then after finished download, the wifi turned off by it self  then i turn on airplane mode. after arrive, i check my wifi and it work even when my iphone is cold.

     

    so thats my story, sorry for my bad english and typos

  • by Charmiepoo,

    Charmiepoo Charmiepoo Jul 11, 2015 4:04 PM in response to RobertDeveloper
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jul 11, 2015 4:04 PM in response to RobertDeveloper

    While this may not work for everyone, it is a workaround that is working for me. Go into Settings/Privacy/Location Services/System Services and turn off Wi-fi Networking. This is not a service I need enabled and since I have turned it off my wi-fi now stays connected continuously, no more drop-outs. Why this is so is anybody's guess!

  • by lex_talionis,

    lex_talionis lex_talionis Jul 11, 2015 5:35 PM in response to RobertDeveloper
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 11, 2015 5:35 PM in response to RobertDeveloper

    I tried all the possible solutions suggested on this thread and no luck. This is really annoying and it's a shame for Apple. Why don't they clearly admit that there is a problem with WiFi on this device/OS? I first experienced this problem on iOS 8.2 and back then; resetting the network settings did the trick. But now with 8.4, I started to experience the same issue and this time nothing helps. I even restored my phone from a backup using iTunes but still the same problem. I spent so much time and effort on fixing Apple's "bug". I tried changing all possible WLAN settings of my route. All of my devices including my old iPhone 4 connects to network with no problem. But my iPhone 6 keeps saying "incorrect password". By the way; what kind of error message is this? Clearly I'm typing it correctly, really really annoying -.- I don't know what to do. This does not happen only at home. It connects fine at some networks (e.g. work) but this happened to me at several places. As a last hope; I'll take my phone to Apple Store and ask the geniuses for help.

  • by RagonS,

    RagonS RagonS Jul 12, 2015 4:19 AM in response to lex_talionis
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 12, 2015 4:19 AM in response to lex_talionis

    have you tried my trick? Before that I also have that problem. I believe after iOS 8, they changed wifi grey out to not working (incorrect password or cant connect). Just try make your iPhone warm enough by using cellular network and play online games .

  • by whsalumni,

    whsalumni whsalumni Jul 12, 2015 4:32 PM in response to RobertDeveloper
    Level 1 (12 points)
    iPad
    Jul 12, 2015 4:32 PM in response to RobertDeveloper

    MY iPhone 6 plus also would not download wifi with 8.4.  After many tries Apple gave me a new phone.  It worked fine until I updated to 8.4. Could not connect to Apple Extreme nor make or receive phone calls..The phone was useless.  After reading these posts tried once more to call Apple. The tech suggestedI call mr internet provider---Cox.  The tech said my new modem had a built in router and gave me the password for that.  Bingo! I now had wifi.  It seems that 8.4 does not support all routers. Apple has to fix that.  I suggest that you contact your internet provider.  They might have a solution till Apple fixes this.

  • by erikbock,

    erikbock erikbock Jul 12, 2015 5:43 PM in response to Philly_Phan
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 12, 2015 5:43 PM in response to Philly_Phan

    I was running iOS 8.3 and getting internet speed tests of 95+Mb on my home 100Mb service.  Now after the update to 8.4 20Mb if I am lucky.  This was the worst update I have ever done.

  • by dipovespo,

    dipovespo dipovespo Jul 13, 2015 7:23 AM in response to RobertDeveloper
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 13, 2015 7:23 AM in response to RobertDeveloper

    I found the answer!

    I've had this trouble for almost 2 days, can't connect to wifi at all.

    Trid all the solution, non of them works.

     

    This is what works for me: SET THE IP ADDRESS MANUALLY.

    Maybe it's got the other device use the same IP Address as you.

     

    ss.png

     

    1. Go to Setting - Wifi - Click on your wifi.
    2. Copy the info on DHCP tab to the static tab, except for IP address. If DHCP is blank, look it from another device that could connect, in my case I see it on my iPad.
    3. On the last 3 digit, you could choose from 2-255 (1 is for router, afaik). Choose the random number like 189.
    4. Click renew lease, and back.
    5. Voila it work like before! Not have disconected anymore!

     

    Remember, this is just one solution. Maybe your problem isn't same as mine. But maybe it will be useful for someone.

  • by Grace0716,

    Grace0716 Grace0716 Jul 13, 2015 7:38 AM in response to dipovespo
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 13, 2015 7:38 AM in response to dipovespo

    Thanks everyone!  I've tried everything people suggested, including this new one on the static IP and nothing worked.  I have an appointment at the Genuis Bar tomorrow.  I hope they can fix it. 

  • by erikbock,

    erikbock erikbock Jul 13, 2015 9:01 AM in response to dipovespo
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 13, 2015 9:01 AM in response to dipovespo

    I was having the problem on my work network as well this morning. (I don't normally use this just wanted to verify.)  I went in and did a reset of the network settings, re-authenticated and was getting the same performance that someone else was getting.  Seems to have fixed the problem.  I will test at home this evening and see what I get there.

  • by davemegan,

    davemegan davemegan Jul 13, 2015 2:18 PM in response to dipovespo
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 13, 2015 2:18 PM in response to dipovespo

    Hi. Any idea what you can do if the phone won't even find the network?

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Jul 13, 2015 2:28 PM in response to RobertDeveloper
    Level 9 (51,412 points)
    Desktops
    Jul 13, 2015 2:28 PM in response to RobertDeveloper

    RobertDeveloper wrote:

     

    Another issue screen started flickering. iOS 8.4 is very unstable release.

    Not for everyone though, all my IOS8.4 devices work perfectly.

  • by RobertDeveloper,

    RobertDeveloper RobertDeveloper Jul 13, 2015 4:48 PM in response to davemegan
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jul 13, 2015 4:48 PM in response to davemegan

    Hi,

     

    I found some other options that partially work for me, although I still get disconnects about every 1 - 10 minutes. These steps however require to make changes to the router:

     

    1. Increase "Beacon" time - by default it is usually 100. Try to set this to 500 or more (max is 1000 on my router). It means that router will broadcast beacon signal every 500 milliseconds instead of 100 (too often for iOS 8.4).

    2. Set DTIM to 1 (usually default) - this value is multiplied by Beacon time. I tried to set this to 10, which means that devices would get connection information about every 5 seconds (500 * 10). It took around 5 seconds for iOS device to connect, but if this could fix connection issues, it would be great. However I found an error log on iPhone, which says that DTIM could not be set to 1, so I returned DTIM back to 1, I guess iOS wifi routine cannot quite handle special router settings.

    In any case higher beacon time helps iPhone to connect. I think iOS must have a bug where too many beacon broadcasts are not handled by the code (perhaps it stores info about networks in a queue, which overflows. With low beacon time (too many broadcasts) background tasks on iPhone seem to stop responding and UI starts slowing down until it crashes and iPhone restarts or iPhone freezes and requires manual shutdown. This slow down also drains battery, possibly because UI or background tasks start using too much CPU and when iPhone wakes up from sleep, it cannot quickly complete its tasks before going to sleep again.

    Hopefully someone from Apple will read this.

     

    I also tried other options that some people already suggested, like setting IP address manually, but that didn't work for me.

    Mostly it seems that iPhone needs higher beacon time and my iPad works without any problem with iOS 8.4, but that's probably because I set DNS manually some time ago (I think after upgrade to 8.1).

     

    I hope this beacon time thing helps some people, but it may not help if there are other routers in the vicinity with low beacon time. This breaks scanning for networks on iPhone. In that case I recommend to select network manually.

  • by mmp1964,

    mmp1964 mmp1964 Jul 14, 2015 5:31 AM in response to Philly_Phan
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jul 14, 2015 5:31 AM in response to Philly_Phan

    Sometimes ranting is therapeutic.  For example, I was informed that my family has blown through 50% of our data plan in 10 days.  Guessing I was the main culprit since I recently discovered that my brand new iPhone 6 Plus started dropping the WiFi connection at random times - but I unknowingly kept downloading tunes from Apple Music.  Been through this many times before with Apple - on my Macbook, on my original iPhone 5 (which was replaced under Apple Care which solved the problem) - on my Wife's Macbook - on a very short-lived Mac Mini running an early build of Yosemite.  All this is to say that there has been no common villian.  Sometimes it has been hardware, sometimes software.  Sometimes router settings have resolved the issue.  Sometimes I don't know what resolved the issue.  This just seems to be part of being in the Mac ecosystem.

  • by dfranck,

    dfranck dfranck Jul 14, 2015 11:32 AM in response to RobertDeveloper
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 14, 2015 11:32 AM in response to RobertDeveloper

    Hi all

    I experienced the same wifi problem on an iphone 6 and an iphone 5s on IOS 8.4. Reboots and reset of network settings did not help. I changed the language away from English to another language (UK english also fine) and changed it back to English.  After that I could reconnect to the wifi.

    Kind regards

    David

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