[caption id="attachment_7818" align="alignnone" width="497"]
The lights on your router blink Morse Code messages... Okay, that's a lie.[/caption]
After a thief stole my friend's iPad last Friday. Apple made sure that the new one she bought had the content and settings of the old one. There was only one glitch: she couldn't connect to her Wi-Fi at home.
Her home network was visible in the iPad's list of available networks, It's entry showed a locked icon denoting it was encrypted and required a password. When she clicked on he home network it just failed to connect, except occasionally for a moment. It never asked for a password.
She spoke on the phone with two tech support people and one technician from Shaw Communications, her Internet provider. She also made one or two trips to her Apple reseller. The technician suggested her wireless router wasn't broadcasting a strong enough signal, but no one she spoke to could give her a solution. A service visit was scheduled for Thursday.
She told me all this Sunday morning. I thought the fault was possibly a corruption of the password setting stored in the iPad, or maybe the router itself was faulty.
Together we went back to her Apple reseller. We knew her network password, and I wanted to know how to make her iPad forget her home network. Apple staff explained it, and also suggested the modem might be broken.
At home her Shaw wireless Internet was provided by a SMC8014 series router. Before I did anything with the iPad I checked the router's physical connections, particularly the antenna. Every cord seemed properly plugged in, but the antenna, which had a screw-on mount to the router, was a bit loose. I tightened that.
You have to connect the iPad to one first, just like you normally would, in Settings, under Wi-Fi Networks > Choose a Network...
In iOS7 each network name in the list has a little red circle right beside it containing the letter "i" for "info." Ealier iOS versions had a blue arrow instead. You tap that circle or arrow and click the Forget this Network button at the top of the new window that appears.
I was able to click the "info" button and "forget" the network while the iPad was trying to connect.
[caption id="attachment_7815" align="alignnone" width="497"]
The screw-on antenna can be almost connected and almost disconnected at the same time.[/caption]
The home network still appeared in the list of available Wi-Fi connections but when I clicked on it this time, an authentication box appeared for me to type in the password. After I typed it in and pressed Connect, the iPad successfully connected.
Hooray! But here's the thing; I'll never know, but I think the only thing wrong was that the antenna connection had somehow gotten a bit loose. That could have reduced the signal strength, but also explained how my friend had occasionally been able to connect for a moment-or-two.
Providing good tech support over the phone isn't easy; I couldn't do it, but even so I was surprised that no one she spoke to advised her to check that everything was plugged in nice and snug. It never hurts to check. Maybe the hardware looks dead because someone accidentally unplugged it. Don't laugh, it happens. And I think that's sort of what happened here.
The lights on your router blink Morse Code messages... Okay, that's a lie.[/caption]After a thief stole my friend's iPad last Friday. Apple made sure that the new one she bought had the content and settings of the old one. There was only one glitch: she couldn't connect to her Wi-Fi at home.
Her home network was visible in the iPad's list of available networks, It's entry showed a locked icon denoting it was encrypted and required a password. When she clicked on he home network it just failed to connect, except occasionally for a moment. It never asked for a password.
She spoke on the phone with two tech support people and one technician from Shaw Communications, her Internet provider. She also made one or two trips to her Apple reseller. The technician suggested her wireless router wasn't broadcasting a strong enough signal, but no one she spoke to could give her a solution. A service visit was scheduled for Thursday.
I was broke, why couldn't the router be broke also?
She told me all this Sunday morning. I thought the fault was possibly a corruption of the password setting stored in the iPad, or maybe the router itself was faulty.
Together we went back to her Apple reseller. We knew her network password, and I wanted to know how to make her iPad forget her home network. Apple staff explained it, and also suggested the modem might be broken.
At home her Shaw wireless Internet was provided by a SMC8014 series router. Before I did anything with the iPad I checked the router's physical connections, particularly the antenna. Every cord seemed properly plugged in, but the antenna, which had a screw-on mount to the router, was a bit loose. I tightened that.
To forget a Wi-Fi network
You have to connect the iPad to one first, just like you normally would, in Settings, under Wi-Fi Networks > Choose a Network...
In iOS7 each network name in the list has a little red circle right beside it containing the letter "i" for "info." Ealier iOS versions had a blue arrow instead. You tap that circle or arrow and click the Forget this Network button at the top of the new window that appears.
I was able to click the "info" button and "forget" the network while the iPad was trying to connect.
An explanation with wiggle-room
[caption id="attachment_7815" align="alignnone" width="497"]
The screw-on antenna can be almost connected and almost disconnected at the same time.[/caption]The home network still appeared in the list of available Wi-Fi connections but when I clicked on it this time, an authentication box appeared for me to type in the password. After I typed it in and pressed Connect, the iPad successfully connected.
Hooray! But here's the thing; I'll never know, but I think the only thing wrong was that the antenna connection had somehow gotten a bit loose. That could have reduced the signal strength, but also explained how my friend had occasionally been able to connect for a moment-or-two.
Providing good tech support over the phone isn't easy; I couldn't do it, but even so I was surprised that no one she spoke to advised her to check that everything was plugged in nice and snug. It never hurts to check. Maybe the hardware looks dead because someone accidentally unplugged it. Don't laugh, it happens. And I think that's sort of what happened here.
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