Why can I only get imessages if my wifi is turned off away from home?

I have reset my iphone 4 and when I have both my cellular on and wifi turned on I cannot receive imessages when away from home. Once I am home the imessages are only then able to come to my phone. If I turned off the wifi and away from home I can then get imessages. Is the ios7 that cannot update not able to manage this? It is like the iphone 4 is not able to first check the wifi and then default the cellular if wifi is not available when away from home. Is there some other setting that might help the iphone to know to check the cellular if the wifi is not available.

iPhone 6 Plus, iOS 9.2.1, IOS, updates, hearing aid apps,

Posted on Jun 12, 2016 3:20 PM

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2 replies

Jun 13, 2016 7:39 AM in response to Trillium3

Trillium3 wrote:


I have reset my iphone 4 and when I have both my cellular on and wifi turned on I cannot receive imessages when away from home. Once I am home the imessages are only then able to come to my phone. If I turned off the wifi and away from home I can then get imessages. Is the ios7 that cannot update not able to manage this? It is like the iphone 4 is not able to first check the wifi and then default the cellular if wifi is not available when away from home. Is there some other setting that might help the iphone to know to check the cellular if the wifi is not available.

By design, you can leave your wifi on and should leave it on even when not connected to a present wifi access point as it assists in getting a more accurate read for your location services. If your iPhone is not recognizing that your wifi is not connected to anything, make sure that under Settings>WiFi that it doesn't believe itself to be connected to any resource when you are out. If there is nothing there which it appears to think it is connected to, you can try the 3Rs. Restart the iPhone, Reset Network Settings, Restore. Do these in order and check to see if the issue has continued after attempting each out so you avoid unneeded, additional troubleshooting.


Use iTunes on your Mac or PC to restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to factory settings - Apple Support


Remember to backup prior to troubleshooting.

How to back up your devices using iCloud or iTunes - Apple Support

Jun 14, 2016 11:21 AM in response to BBoiss

Well I have restarted the phone. I have reset the phone et al and no it doesn't help. I think with the locking of these phones and keeping OS at 7 it just keeps getting buggy. I think they locked it after only 3 yrs which is planned obsolesce in the 2 power. I would imagine the security in these things now is just pretty bad too. Don't worry I won't take up anymore of any more "unneeded additional troubleshooting." We will just leave the dang wifi off and sick of spending so much time trying to fix issues with this. I bet others do the same on this. For a level 3 you aren't that good.

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Why can I only get imessages if my wifi is turned off away from home?

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