Please help: wi-fi will not switch-on

By steven carey, 7 October, 2013

Forum
iOS and iPadOS
Hi all, I am using an iPhone 4s and running the new IOS 7.02. My iPhone has been running fine apart from the well discussed bugs we are all experiencing. At my University, we have just switched-on EDUROAM (an education-based Wi-Fi system that allows members to use Wi-Fi in any participating institution). I know my iPhone worked fine on Wi-Fi up until Thursday or Friday of last week but I started to see the '3G' sign at the top of my iPhone around then (before this I was getting 2 or 3 bars on Wi-Fi with the names 'Sky' or 'EDUROAM' next to the bars for Wi-Fi) which I would have expected. However, I am now on '3G' all the time and when I go to and then 'Wi-Fi> or whatever that button is, VO says 'location is improve when Wi-Fi is switched on' or words to that effect. When I try to switch-on Wi-Fi the button to do that is greyed-out and Wi-Fi will not switch-on. At the end of last week, I was looking at all the items on settings to see where IOS 7 has changed. Might I have switched something off which now effects Wi-Fi or is it something else? At work Wi-Fi works fine on my work-station and lap top and my colleagues have 2 or 3 bars on their phones. I am writing this post from home and my lap top works here also and there are four other phones and computers all with operating Wi-Fi networks. Thank you, Steve.

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Comments

By Jakob Rosin on Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - 22:47

Have you tried 1. restarting your phone? Maybe its just a hardware or software glitch, wich is solved by restart. 2. Full cycling your phone battery, by killing it fully and charging up to 100%. I don't see how this could be help but maybe. 3. Restoring your device from backup, while wifi still worked? (now if you have hardware or software issue, and you are having your backups in iCloud, you might run in to problems when trying to download the backup, since you can't do it over 3g, so make shure to back up your iPhone to your computer first. I have never seen dimmed wifi icon on an iOs device. I have read of it, usually this indicates a hardware malfunction.

Hi Jacob, Thank you for these suggestions. I have already tried the first one and that did not work. The second does not seem logical for a Wi-Fi problem but I'll give it a try tonight when the battery becomes flat if I do not plug it into the mains. The third however seems a bit drastic,although it must be my last resort. Do you think a network reset might help? If I cannot get it to work; do you think an Apple Store might be the best solution? I am in the UK so they are a bit scarce but we do have one about 20 miles from here in a place called Lakeside, a large (in British terms) shopping mall. Steve.

By Esther on Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - 22:47

Steve, Here's the link to Apple's Support document for this issue:IOS: Wi-Fi settings grayed out or dimhttp://support.apple.com/kb/ts1559 They suggest that you go to Settings > General > Reset and use "Reset Network Settings".  Failing that, try a software restore. Out of curiosity, did your WiFi work correctly before installing the Eduroam certificates?

 

By Brooke on Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - 22:47

In Settings, General, Reset, there are two options that might be worth checking out. The first would be the Reset Network Settings button, which sounds like it would definitely be worth a try. The other would be the Reset All Settings button; I'm not sure how much use that one would be, but it could be worth a try if the first doesn't fix the problem. Also, have you tried doing a reset, the one where you hold the home and sleep/wake buttons down simultaneously for about 10 seconds?

By steven carey on Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - 22:47

Dear All, Thank you for your comments and suggestions. I tried the network reset last night and the hard reset as suggested and there is no change. However, it has been made worse! My phone still works fine but if I click on the Wi-Fi button now, I just get a frozen phone, which then (after about 10-seconds) makes lots of clicking sounds and returns to the home page. I am now at a loss. I'm still waiting for my phone to run out of battery (I don't seem to be getting the same problem as some as my battery has now lasted for 30-hours and still has 30% battery left). I have seen however that lots of iPhone 4s users are having the same problem after doing a search on Google last night. This is where I got the idea for a network reset. For some reason another recommendation was to take any apostrophe's out of the phone name, which I've done and this still does not solve the problem. I need to get this sorted because I get my new iPhone 5s today and my 4s is going to my daughter and I did not reckon on her having a phone that looks like new but has a Wi-Fi problem, she is only 15! There was also some talk about this being an IOS 7 bug and we would have to wait until 7.0.3 for a fix. Does anyone know about this? Esther, I have thought that EDUROAM might be the problem but I loaded it last Monday and the problems did not start until Thursday or Friday. However, one problem I did find was that I could only enter my staff username and password if I wanted to accept the certificates. It EDUROAM would not accept the certificates if I wrote-in the full recommended username i.e. the username plus the @ university name, which must mean I cannot use EDUROAM outside my own University. Steve.

By allseed on Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - 22:47

Hi, This is probably obvious but have you attempted to gut the phone and restore it or reset it? Thanks!

Dear all, Thank you allseed, done all that but it didn't make any difference. However, I did do the following and something did happen. Last night I did a network reset. At that point the freeze started, so I could not 'see' anything on the screen, it was just frozen for ten seconds until I found myself back on the home page. This morning at work, I waited for the phone to run out of battery, charged it and now I find that the Wi-Fi page is back to normal. That is, I have the normal page with the Wi-Fi button saying 'on' and not greyed out. I can control that and I canalso control the 'ask to join network' button. However, I am still not displaying any nearby Wi-Fi connection points. We have three here which include EDUROAM and three Anglia Wi-Fi points. None of these are displayed for connection. Steve.

Dear All, Alseed, I think you are right. I called the Apple Store and they agreed. They said that I should book an appointment to go and see them. They suggested that it might be a hardware failure due to the new IOS 7.0.2 being loaded and the iPhone eventually giving up the ghost. I am surprised though because it is only 16-months old and I keep it in very good condition - it actually looks brand new according to my daughter. However, continuing on from the last chapter of the story. When I got home my new iPhone 5s was there. That's now set-up and working a treat. The iPhone 4s however is now working fine. When I say fine, it is a little intermittent with Wi-Fi going in and out but it is useable. We have a 38Mb fibre link at home and I'm getting 3 bars on Wi-Fi with the 4s, although it does drop-out now and again. Does anyone think it is worth us going to the Apple Store, booking an appointment and getting a new 4s? They say that they will check it for faults and depending on what is wrong they will charge me between £0.00 and £136.00, that's up to about 350 Dollars I believe. Is it worth it for a new iPhone 4s? Steve.

By Rob on Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - 22:47

I had a similar problem with my iPhone 4S a couple of times recently. This probably will not solve both your home Wi-Fi and university network problems. My problem was that my desktop computer that connects to the router by ethernet cable could get to the internet etc, but all of my wireless devices could not connect to my home network. To solve this problem, I recet the router by unplugging the power and then plugging in the power cable after about a minute. Then all of my wireless devices could locate and connect to my home network. I didn't think of this solution at first since the desktop computer could get out through the router to the internet with no problem.

I definitely don't think it's worth spending $350 on repairing an iPhone 4S. Granted, it's just my opinion, but it might be cheaper to try and get your daughter a new iPhone 5C. If the cost were lower, I'd say it may be worth it, but not with the possibility of having to spend so much.

Hello, I too, do not believe you should have the 4s repaired or replaced. I know that you live in the U.k but across the pond, Radio Shack, Wal-Mart and Best Buy are currently subsidizing the I phone 5c for $45 with a two year contract. That is better hardware in the 5C then in your 4s. I don't know what $45 is in pounds, but I'm pretty sure you will have retailers just as competitive with their pricing of that model if not now; soon. That is the better choice in my opinion. -Andrew-

Dear Andrew and others, Did you spot my deliberate mistake? Of course, I got it wrong. £130 is not 350 dollars at all, it more like 200 Dollars I think? I've also had a quick look at the prices over here. The suppliers are pretty much the same for contracts and the iPhone 5c is about £37 per month for a two year contract with a free phone. This comes with 200 minutes of talk time, unlimited texts and 500 mb of data. £37 is approximately 55 Dollars I think. Is it still worth going for an iPhone 5c or shall I get a new iPhone 4s from Apple in exchange for the one that doesn't work too well? Also, I've looked all over Apple and I don't see a money exchange programme in the UK like the one described. Steve.

Hello Steve, I still say that you should get the 5c. The 4s will really slow down over the next IOS upgrade cycle. The 5c hardware will be able to handle IOS 8 when it is released just fine. I fear that it would really affect the 4s negatively; but I have to have my device perform as close to new as possible, so for others, the lag time might not be an issue. Just my two cents. -Andrew-

By steven carey on Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - 22:47

Dear all, My daughter and I set-up an appointment at our nearest Apple Store last night for them to evaluate the fault with the iPhone 4s that I gave to her (the one with the Wi-Fi greyed out problem). I fully expected to have to pay £139 or 210 dollars for a replacement if they couldn't fix it. As others have already suggested, it was a hardware fault which could not be fixed. However, rather than having to pay out, I found out that the iPhone was still under guarantee and we got a direct free of charge replacement. This new iPhone 4s, which is running IOS 7.0.2 has no lag at all and is as fast as my new iPhone 5s when loading apps. Aparently, I only had one-year Apple Care support with the iPhone but UK consumer law says that with the Apple Care I get two-years cover on product operation and because it is in mint condition, they had no argument that I'd looked after it well. With this new iPhone 4s comes a new year of Apple Care cover and a further UK consumer law replacement cover for mechanical breakdown. My daughter is very happy as she has a brand new iPhone 4s which still retails in the UK at £429 or 630 dollars. She would not have got an iPhone 5c because we wouldn't be able to afford one at the current contract rates. This consumer law only applies to Apple products bought directly from Apple. On this occasion, thank you Apple. Thank you, Steve.