My mum has got an ipad for xmas and she can't connect it to her WIFI network at home. When she enters the correct wifi password the ipad says it can't connect. It can connect to one open network. Other devices can connect to her wifi without problems. Any ideas what could be the issues?

If the password is case sensitive, remember that unless you tap on the Shift "key" on the iPad's virtual keyboard, it will be typing lowercase characters (despite the "keys" displaying uppercase characters)

The password is all lower case so I guess this isn't a problem then

Is there any custom security on the Wifi? Ie MAC address filtering etc...

What kind of router is it?

It is neatgear, WG614 i believe. I had mac filtering on but I got my sister to turn it off. Then her friend has connected his smartphone to wifi without problems so I think it must be an ipad issue. I am going to get screenshots from the ipad screen so I will post them here once I have them.

I just wonder if there is a setting on ipad that excludes some networks from connecting. Something that could have been pressed by a mistake...

Is the iOS system on it up to date? I think there were issues with WiFi connectivity on the initial iOS 6.0 update - I think they've resolved that with the latest patch (6.0.1 or 6.0.2 ?). You can update via the iTunes software it's linked to (Mac or PC) if you can't connect to another wireless network.

Also worth trying, insert a $ symbol at the beginning of the password. Sometimes, depending on type of encryption, inserting a $ symbol before you type in the actual password can enable it to recognise the password correctly. Don't ask me why, but this goes back a few years on certain Mac hardware and certain combinations of router/encryption.

Finally, here's how to reset all network settings back to default...
http://blogs.aerohive.com/blog/the-wi-f ... le-devices
...and try again from scratch.

Yep, it is.


I've told my sister to try that, didn't help.


This is a big worry, I had high hopes for reseting settings but it didn't help either. Ipad rebooted but still not luck with the connection.

I will get her to try and connect the ipad to some other protected network and also try to get another device on my mum's wifi to eliminate either ipad of router being a problem here. I will update here once I know more.

Sounds baffling - usually, the iPad should see the network, ask for a password and you're done. It's will do DHCP automagically, so this seems odd.

So, things I can think of to check:

You say that passwords are all lower case, but the OS font makes it hard to differentiate between Il (that's a capital i followed by a lowercase L). Even though they are quite different, the O and 0 characters can be confused. So be sure that characters are not being confused in this way.

Another problem I have with some passwords - especially those which are random strings of characters - is muddling them up. I am especially bad with typing in software serial numbers. Be sure that you are not transposing characters.

Resetting the router to its default state is a good idea. Hopefully, the admin software that it comes with will let you save the current state and reloading later. If I am debugging my network, this is what I do before mucking about with it. It may be that the is a setting that is rejecting the iPads connection. Switch things on (or off) in a systemic if way to determine what is or is not causing the connection to be lost.

I have been doing some looking stuff up for you. I am unable to sleep so thought I'd see what I can find.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/26 ... 0&tstart=0 - this suggests changing the broadcast channel.

An old thread, but may offer some help: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=67240

Another thought - how many other devices a connected to the network? Is there an ISP mandated limit? If so, try disconnecting everything else from the network and seeing if that makes a difference. IIRC, some ISPs have a 5 device limit imposed on the network.

We've had a bunch of iPhones with dodgy Wi-Fi and Bluetooth come through (4 and 4S), they only get a signal if you are within 1M of the access point. It seems that Wi-Fi isn't one of Apple's strong points...

I can't imagine how that would be implemented, unless you're using an ISP provided router.

But the iPad doesn't recognise the text box to be a password box...

Bet you 20p the first letter is going in as a Capital...

If it's the iPad's standard join a WiFi dialogue, then it will display it as a password box with the masking bullets.

If the WiFi is behaving like the log ons you get from The Cloud, then it will be up to how the WiFi serves the web page you need to log on to - if it's not a password field, then it will be a plain text one. I expect that's not happening in this case though.

I talked her through pretty much all I could think of regarding the router:

We have switched off the password protection but Ipad can't even connect to open unprotected network (it can still connect to neighbour's open network)
We have changed wifi channels
We have changed band, trying B and G separately and together
We have checked that mac address filtering is not turned on
We have reset the network setting as suggest above
There were only two other devices (pc and a smarthphone) connected to the router and lan ip range was set from 1-254. I've had as many as five devices connect to it before.

As I said before, two smartphones can connect to the wifi without any issues.
Today she will try to connect the ipad to another protected wifi at friend's house. I will report once I know the result.


This is not possibe tbh. It was hard enough to get my sister to login to the router and change few settings with me talking her trought it step by step over Skype. I can't risk my mum not having internet access for months if something goes wrong.

I noticed today that my iPad was having problems tethering to my iPhone even though it had been linked before. It might take a number of attempts to get them to link to each other.