How To Fix Your iPad’s Wireless Problems (If You Have Them)

John Brownlee ()

How To Fix Your iPad’s Wireless Problems (If You Have Them)

Having some problems with your iPad’s WiFi connection? Apple’s aware of the problem, and has some ideas on how to fix them.

According to Apple, the iPad might not automatically rejoin known WiFi networks using third-party routers that are dual-band capable (802.11 b/g and 802.11 n) when each band’s network uses the same name or use different security settings.

Apple’s recommendation? Try creating separate network names for each separate band’s network (ie: add a G to the end of the name of the 802.11 b/g band) and making sure both bands’ networks use the same security settings.

We’ve been lucky enough to not have this problem, but what about you? Is this solution fixing your problem, or is their a bigger issue afloat?

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About the author

John BrownleeJohn Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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Posted in How-To, iPad, News |

  • Miken

    One band enabled on a Verizon mifi and still having lots of issues staying connected and waking up the network.

  • charli

    in and out of 7 different wifi setups since Saturday. no issues at 6. the 7th was exactly that set up at a friends. did the rename and full stream ahead.

  • tom

    ok, but who cares about a crappy ipad?

  • prepsel

    I have a Sprint MiFi and I’m having the same issue…I updated the firmware on my MiFi and tried all the different security settings, still get prompted for security password in the middle of things. If I take security off the MiFi then I don’t have an issue bu who wants an open MiFi???

    -Frank

  • wyseguy

    I have a Sprint MiFi, latest firmware, and no issues with my iPad WiFi. I use WPA2 Personal, and it works fine. Same with my Apple Time Capsule (Dual-Band II, latest firmware updates). I do have my 5 GHz network named differently than my 2.4 GHz network, but they use the same authentication method (WPA2 Personal).

    Haven’t had issues at several Starbucks AT&T WiFI hotspots, either.

  • MeD8R

    I get a solid connection, but download is so slow, I cannot download and watch any videos, YouTube included.

  • richh

    We were so happy to get one, so excited to use this truly amazing device.
    Now we are fighting the wireless network problem as many are. We have an “a/b/g” router, open security.

    The iPad makes inconsistent, poorly performing network connections.

    I hope Apple quickly solves the problem.
    My wife wants to return it today.

    But I have to ask, how did Apple and its engineers release a product to market with such a serious flaw ?

  • Galen

    Seems to be an extremely isolated issue, My iPad works fine. It is extremely
    Fast and video looks Great !!!

  • http://www.ert.com blair

    i Agree with Galen my iPad is awesome and fast video is quick and I downloaded the IWorks suite and emailing docs are just as quick, so im like you Galen i dont know why or where these problems or coming out I hear and read them everywhere on the web but have yet to see them in person,and i have my own Co. with 85 employees we all use Mac and PC also I had at least 30 or so people buy an Ipad on the day of the launch and brought it to work and had it added to our network and havent heard anything bad at all.

    Nothing if anything its been all good and we have board meetings and everyone brings there iPad for notes and web stuff. I guess we have to consider the sources sometimes as well. but i like my odds and numbers 30+ ipads potentially in one place one network and not one problem. but yet I read 1 ipad and a home network and setup by god knows who hmmmm maybe a pattern there??

    I maybe wrong i have been in the past…! :)

  • Apple is buggy

    My Ipad is way out there on the WIFI. My university has sent an email saying they’re blocking Ipad access to the school wifi. My Sprint MIFI is touch and go, but I definitely can’t stray more than 3 feet or so from the MIFI Router. If I put my Ipad right next to my home wireless router seems to work ok, but generally it is slow no matter what. Hopefully Apple will get this sorted out. Right now my Ipad is a big way overpriced ebook reader.

  • Has some wifi trouble

    Have no problems on 802.11g networks. Have simultaneous dual-band Airport Extreme at home, separate network name for 802.11n and it connects fine, but the signal strength jumps up and down almost wildly even with the iPad sitting untouched in one place. My Macbook sitting next to it has a solid and fast connection to the same network… if I switch the iPad to the 802.11g network the signal is solid and fast. If I’m using 802.11n and move into the iPad into the same room with the router the signal is strong and constant, but beyond 12 to 15 feet it gets flaky. For me, it isn’t surprising to think that the iPhones have been running 802.11g for a long time and have the kinks worked out, but it may take a while before the 802.11n is as solid.

  • Viking

    I find it funny when people who don’t have the problem spout off it could be the user. There is a reason people who actually know what they are doing are complaining about wi-fi issues, BECAUSE THE iPAD HAS WI-FI ISSUES! Yours is one of the lucky few that doesn’t? Congrats, many of us got one that does and it sucks. The wireless turns itself off, you look at the screen and it says in that stupid ballon “Connecting” and then boom, signal drops.

    Every single other wireless device I use works fine but no matter where I take the iPad, including the Apple store, it drops connections and even sometimes states it couldn’t join a network it has been on plenty of times before.

    Steve Jobs claims they worked on this 10 years, hey Steve, your guys screwed the pooch! Wireless sucks, a whole country banned it, schools are blocking it and you forgot that video is wide screen so while video looks fine in that narrow width it plays in, it has HUGE bars above and below the video. You can tap the screen to make it larger but then of course you’re missing some of the action and it looks like crap then.

    So I bought a great book reader for $700.00 that plays videos in wide screen format with huge bars, drops wireless signals and has only 64gigs of space. Oh yeah, since my wife has 2 computers, we have an ATV, 2 iPhones, an iPad I have 3 computers we have reached the limit of our iTunes account!! Great job Steve and if you delete them you’re stuck until frackin November to delete the account!! Customer support is clueless and states, well sir, you bought too much gear… WHAT?!?!?!? Side note, the stupid ATV has to be rebooted more than any Windows ME computer I have ever supported, that should tell you something!

    Steve is laughing all the way to the bank guys….. and the loser that I am kept buying… not any more.

  • Ramón

    Pssssssssst!!! Hey, Viking; my iPad works great!

  • Chris

    WIFI is a real issue on my IPAD. This is not a user issue as all my other wireless devices work fine on the network….except the IPAD. I love the IPAD and hope APPLE gets this gets fixed.

  • newyorkuser

    I have a secured Verizon FiOS wireless network at home, and the iPad keeps dropping the connection every few minutes and asks me to re-enter a password. So much for the movie I was trying to watch on Netflix. I still love the device though, am hoping Apple will release a fix soon.

  • Luis R Montiel

    The solution suggested doesn’t work, I tried using exactly the same security settings in the router and the repeater and it doesn’t work. Standing by the router it still drop the signail and it takes a whileto come back, some times when the signal comes back is to weak. I tried using only one network all the time and it still losses signal. Any suggestion?

  • Lev

    My iPad (64GB Wi Fi) is 3 days old and have dropped off my secured Verizon FiOS 10 times already. This is definitely a bug.

    Did anyone have any luck with Apple’s clueless support? Have they acknowledged the issue? When is the fix coming out?

  • Reggie

    I also have a Verizon FiOS router and a 32GB IPAD. I’m a Network Engineer so please hold all the “its the users problem” non-sense! I’ve tried all the suggestions from Apple and the IPAD continues to drop the signal intermittantly. I’ve had if for a week and a half so I’m returning it today hoping that there is just a bad batch out there. Apple get your head out your a$$ and fix this … the IPAD cost way to much to drop signals!!! I love the device but if the replacement fails I will wait until the 2nd gen comes out next year. Oh and i have a laptop and netbook that have keep a strong signal constantly…

  • http://Www.websitebuilder.co.nz Reuben

    Seems to be an issue with the iPad networking, doesn’t work after going to sleep. Renew lease and wait 2 minutes, then perhaps repeat until you get a good lease, then full steam until you next put the device down for a rest. It’s undesirable for sure!

  • http://neodrew.com Andrew

    My iPad (64GB WiFi) was dropping my home FiOS wifi connection every five or ten minutes – and this was sitting eight feet from the router with clear air between the devices. I went to the Apple support pages, discovered the tip to change the router configuration from WEP protocol to WPA2, and after making that change in the router config, the iPad is now holding the wifi connection with no problem at all from anywhere in the house.

  • iPad WiFi doesn’t Work

    Why am I the only one who expects a product to work as advertised? iPad WiFi is unusable and everyone is cutting Apple an incredible amount of slack when, after shelling out hundreds of dollars, you end up with a paperweight.

    If anybody but Apple shipped a product so obviously flawed, the masses would have crucified the company and unit sales would fall like the BP stock price.

    WiFi has been around for more than a decade yet Apple is unable or unwilling to actually implement the standard. To give “deflection support” like “upgrade your router firmware”, or cripple 1/2 of your access point (turn off 802.11a, g, or n leaving only one radio standard on) is trying to put blame where blame doesn’t belong. Many people can’t or won’t do these things (they don’t work anyway – hence deflection) and will just accept the iPad as is and blame themselves when they should be pointing squarely at Apple.

    Apple – fix the damn iPad – step up and make it work as it should. You can make it work with your own access points, but not the mainstream and widely deployed Cisco AP’s. Hard to believe from an engineering company hyped as much as Apple. Or for the paranoid, maybe that was the plan. For those of us that want to use WPA2, it is utterly impossible. Every few minutes the connection drops and you have to “forget the network” and re-enter the SSID and password. WiFi isn’t that big an engineering challenge, is it? Did you buy the wrong chipset / firmware? In your effort to make the networking setting idiot proof, you instead made networking unreliable and unusable. These are issues you almost never have with other company’s products. Only Apple has the arrogance to ignore the rest of the world and focus on itself.

    You are marketing the iPad as a product for the masses, but you delivered more “Apple Kool-Aid” for those that blindly follow. Luckily I should still be able to find a “follower” to buy this thing before it has no value.

  • Rob Cometa

    Mine won’t even see a network. I’ve tried everything that they suggest with no improvement.

    I guess I’ll have to wait for Google to bring one out that works.

  • Earl brokaw

    Connection issues are real. Not an engineer but know my iPad should work with the wireless network I have in my home. This same network supports two other Apple computers, an ipod touch, a printer, and a blue ray player. Was hoping my wife would gravitate more to the iPad and quit asking me to walk her thru tasks on her MacBook pro. Unfortunately, she gets frustrated while using the iPad and it drops the connection, especially when i’m not there to call out the network password to her!

  • IPAD WIFi does not work 2

    At my Ipad the same – Wifi connects and disconnects every second – therefore no access possible. Within the network of my corporation I had similar (dropped every minute) problems. This has been resolved thru a new access point closer to my office and a hard entry of my ipads adress into the guest network….
    Does anyone have a idea to fix this other to sell it?

  • http://Www.connexion.co.uk Hamspanner

    I remember when the original iPhone came out it had the same problems as my iPad with Wi-Fi, Low signal strength and reliability issues. As soon as the first update came out all these issues were resolved. Personally I can accept the first release of the iPad having issues, however I think it is totally unacceptable to have to wait so song for Apple to release a fix. With their resources they should sorted in a couple of weeks. I wonder what the he’ll they are playing at! are they arrogantly waiting to roll it up into a later release or is the problem so major that its taking them this long to fix it or worse still they can’t!?

  • jp23

    i’m sooo upset at buying this ipad crap. wireless goes on and off very quickly and have to reboot the damn thing to get it working it again. It’s useless. If I didn’t need this thing to develop apps for, I’d return it so fast.

  • Tom H

    I’m another iPad wireless victim, wireless connects then is unresponsive. Im getting a bit fed up of all this crap, first my iPhone now my iPad, i just wish apple would do something about it!! Update 3.2.1 hasn’t fixed it either… Thanks apple won’t be buying anything from you again for a while.. If this was Microsoft, Im not sure they’d be able to get this much slack as apple have with not following hardware standards

  • trev

    The iPad is not as good as other devices at wireless but will connect flawlessly using the right configuration. My problem was repeated attempts to connect and then the wireless signal would drop to low after use. I changed from b\g to g only, used WiFiFoFum (cydia app) to find an unused channel, changed to a static IP and now do not worry about position or case. The wireless stays connected with full strength even after wakeup. router – dsl-640T (aus)
    What config change or wireless router purchase fixed it for you?

  • trev

    edit to the above. Among the configuration changes I made was to change from WPA to WEP seurity

  • Ori

    Another wireless victim here. Fix please.

  • Fernando

    I’ve used my iPad in my house network fine since day one. Because I leave in an isolated place, I have no security implemented, that is no password neede to connect to WiFi network.

    Last month I’ve bought an MiFi 2352 Vodafone flavour, and from the beginning the connection was instable. I’ve tried a lot of mix changes in Router configuration, read a lot of artivles on the net, and I finnally have a stable connection, and I am fully happy with my IPad WiFi acting as it was a 3G. Now I pay the same To Vodafone and I am able to share that connection for my other mobile devices (Blackberry and several PCs).

    My current configuration on the router: WPA, channel 11 and only 802g. Works great. Before iPad loose the connection and the password and it was a nightmare.

    I hope it can help.

  • Grant

    We have two ipads in our house. Both drop the connection and are so slow to download. It’s a pain, apple have released a bad product with bugs. I guess apple would rather have the money now than happy customers!

    No user accounts, no printing we can live with ….just, but no connection is a joke! Apple are becoming the new company we all love to hate! My I phone looses it signal when I hold it and steve tels me to hold it differently! Great…..thanks Steve your a real friend.

  • Mart

    I cannot even access my wifi, it keeps asking for my password, and then rejecting it stating it is an incorrect password. Changing my password made no difference. Very frustrated and angry as I have no problems with my Macbook and wifi. Any suggestions?

  • Dave

    I’ve traced my problem to an Acer notebook used by one of my sons. When the acer is on, both my iPad and my daughter-in-law’s iPad start recycling through the connection repeatedly.

  • Richard

    Bought a new iPad 3 days ago. Have spent 3 days trying to get to work. Went to Apple store and spoke directly with tech support today. Once I shared I had VZ Fios Actiontec router at home….it was over. Apple guy said this is an ongoing issue with no official fix, and blamed it on Verizon router default as WEP. He said WPA might work better but no gurantee. Asked why the MAC and iTouch work, but not iPad…and he said it is built on newer technology. Asked him if I might be better off returning iPad and he empathetically smiled. Will get money back and wait for Apple to fix this problem.Love the device but will wait and see if Santa will bring a fix for the iPad this Christmas.

  • Audrey

    I found one solution to the problem is to adjust up and down the brightness control setting. Sounds strange, but it works for me

  • Charlie

    Can somebody help…for some reason I am unable to “join” my WiFi – when I type in my password, the “join” is grayed out…My iPhone works fine on the same WiFi

    • Arun Pingaley

      Charlie… I understand that if your password is too short, this can happen. Try using a longer password.

    • Thghgh

      Restart your iPad

  • Anndrufke2002

    my ipad wants the password because i cannot to the internet

    • Monica Skop

      same with mine

  • Laucer2000

     Hello, OK what if my password is suddenly not accepted, spoke to the telephone/DSL techs already and they say its all ok,..???

  • Doodlex2

    So as smart as Apple is in developing pretty amazing technology & apps…they couldn’t foresee this problem? One of the big things about iPad’s is their portability. Nice of them to suggest solutions, but I have no idea how to do what is suggested above.  This iPad was a huge investment for me and I have frequent wireless troubles.  Am a very unsatisfied customer!

  • Parishowardhall

    HI,  My ipad was syncing with my home wifi and one day i turned it on and wouldn’t! I have the right password etc.. but when i put it in it comes up with a message “Unable to join network” I have also tried to reset it and that doesn’t work either!

    • zeppellina

      I have had my ipad for one year now, and had no problems until the last ipad upgrade, and now my ipad says it is connected in `General settings` under wifi.. but my emailer says no connection, and my safari browser says not connected to the internet.
      This is really annoying as everything was fine before the last upgrade.
      I think this one is down to apple.. if anyone can help, please post your thoughts.
      I spoke to technical support at apple, and they suggested I reset under network settings..did this…no joy. For them to give any further assistance would cost £25.. which I think is a bit of a cheek, as this is starting to look like a “known” apple issue.

      • Asuatk

        same problem, at home ! But I can connect easily using my IPhone like a modem.

  • Chwong82

    If you have a laptop whic connect to Cable internet, just install ‘Connectify’ and share the internet..Solve the problem..

  • shwarger654

    i managed to fix this problem. I went out and bought myself a toshiba tablet. The ipad has sat in the corner of my desk ever since. the droid tab has had 0 issues (well, so far touch wood), and actually does useful stuff, like reads pdfs and, you guessed it, stays connected to my wifi!! this is one person who’ll never buy apple again. 

  • Sharon99199

    I want to throw my ipad out the window.  Every 5 minutes I have to turn wifi off and then back on to get a connection.  What a $700 pc of crap.

    • http://twitter.com/boardtuned Frank Stehl

      It’s not your iPad (which is not a PC!) it’s you… 

    • http://twitter.com/boardtuned Frank Stehl

      please feel free to sent the “piece of crap” to me, instead of throwing it out the window. I’ll pay the shipping.. It would be a shame for the nice gadget.) 

  • Sharon99199

    I want to throw my ipad out the window.  Every 5 minutes I have to turn wifi off and then back on to get a connection.  What a $700 pc of crap.

  • Dianey53

    i have a new iphone and now i cannot get on internet with my ipad2.  settings says its on. i have rebooted    unplugged   turned off  and shut down,  please help

  • Sswapna

    Hi,
    First lett me thank you for the info on this bloG.
    I got an iPad 2 from Canada. I live in India. Why does my iPad nota connect to my wi-fi without the vodafone network? Will I have to pay for the vodafone network? Can I change m network to another service provider?
    Thanks
    Swapna

  • KAP

    My Ipad 2 hooked up fine to my home wifi, then I bought an iphone 4s, now both are very slow to connect to home system. What can I do to fix this? I have adjusted brightness controls as stated in other posts on another site, no difference,