iPhone Wifi Internet problems with Hub 3

[Jobie]

I have having daily intermittent problems with my two Apple iPhones with Wifi internet and my Virgin Media Hub 3, which is rendering my home Wifi to be pretty much useless.   

The devices appear to connect to my Wifi but internet doesn’t work.  Sometimes on the iPhone WiFi settings it will say “No Internet Connection”, but not always.  However there will be no internet connection on the iPhones regardless.  

I have a wired PC, two laptops and an Android device on WiFi, and also a smart TV on the WiFi and these ALL work perfectly – the problem only appears to be with the iPhones.  (I have an old iPad Air 2 and this works fine also).

My two devices are an iPhone 11 and an iPhone SE.  Both will connect to the internet on WiFi networks outside the house (eg. My workplace) and work without any problems whatsoever.

If I do a “forget this network” and rejoin, sometimes the device will reconnect, but to be honest it is driving us crazy as my home WiFi is effectively useless and is constantly eating up mobile data. 

Doing a power off/on will sometimes resolve the problem but it is guaranteed the problem will occur again within a few hours, if not sooner.

I have tried – pin Resets, splitting the wifi Bandwidths to separate SSIDs. Static IPs, all to no avail.  I have had a Virgin engineer visit and of course his basic diagnostics found no problems.

I am at the end of my tether with this.  Is anybody able to advise?  Thanks in advance.

[John_GS]

Good morning all, thanks for posting. Sorry to hear of this issue with the iPhone. I know Apple has just done a software update, can you confirm - has this been done on the affected devices? Should be 15.5. Best,

[Jobie]

Hi, 

I can confirm both iPhones are running iOS 15.5

I have done another pin reset on the hub, and the problem still persists. 

To confirm again, the iPhones have no problems at all getting onto other Wifi networks - it is just my home Wifi that is the problem.

This morning both devices would not connect to my WiFi.  (typically on the iPhone is shows a tick next to my Wifi SSID as if it is connected, but underneath it says "No Internet Connection".  However my wired internet connection is working absolutely fine and has no issues at all - so there is an internet connection!)

I have had to power down the hub, and do a "forget this network" and re-add my network several times on my iPhone, and eventually I got connected. How long the wifi connection will last is anyone's guess... probably an hour or so and I will have to do the same thing again.

[David_Bn]

Thanks for coming back to us @Jobie, can you please advise us if the connection issue with the iPhones is still ongoing?

Have you possibly been able to connect to a different Wi-Fi connection that is Virgin Media?

Has this fault been reported to Apple?

Kindest regards,

David_Bn

[Jobie]

Hi David,

Apologies it has taken a week to respond.  I have been wanting to try connecting to my neighbour’s Virgin wifi to prove it works, which I finally managed to do today.

The problem is still ongoing.   My iPhone 11 pretty much refuses to connect to my Wifi under any circumstance. I have just taken it to my neighbour’s house and hey presto it connected instantly to their Virigin Wifi internet, as you would expect.    On returning home, I have no Wifi internet.  (Like I have said previously, it looks like it is connected to Wifi on the iPhone - displays a tick next to my Wifi SSID as if it is connected ok, but also sometimes says “No Internet Connection”).

My iPhone connects to my works internet every day without any problems – I only have connection problems at home.

I have a HP Laptop, ASUS Laptop and a Zebra Android device, and all these are connected to my home Wifi internet without any problems whatsoever.

I haven't reported this to Apple as it really does appear to be an issue with my Virgin hub and not with Wifi connections in general.  I proved the point today connecting instantly to my neighbour's wifi!

Many thanks

Jobie

[jbrennand]

Have a look at this first.
____________________

After a MacOS/iOS update, it may auto turn on Automatic Proxy Discovery for all Wi-Fi networks - so turn it off in network settings as per message 7. In iOs go to Settings>WiFi> tap the blue”I” icon and scroll down and make sure Configure Proxy/‘ is set to off

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Networking-and-WiFi/Hub-5-macOS-Monterey/td-p/4885920

Also check that Configure IP & Configure DNS are set to automatic.

What DNS servers are you using? - can you change it to the free Cloudflare and/or Google ones on...

1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8 respectively Although, I am not sure you can change, unless you use your own router in modem mode

[Paulina_Z]

Hi @Jobie,

Thank you for coming back to us about your ongoing WiFi connection issue with your Apple products.

Have you been able to go through the checks that @jbrennand suggested? Have they been helpful?

I have been able to run some internal checks on our systems and I cannot see any issues with your power levels. All of your WiFi settings look good from our side as well. However, as you stated that your bands are on separate bandwidths. Would you be able to reset your Hub again to see if this can help your WiFi connection issue?

Have you been able to take a look at our WiFi Faults page to see if it can help at all?

Let us know how you get on. 

Thank you.

[Jobie]

So, I reset my hub for the upteenth time:  My bands are no longer split.  I reset my iPhones network settings.  Both are on Automatic DNS and IP.  Yesterday I could not get either my iPhone SE or iPhone 11 onto my Wifi all day.   I tried manual DNS as suggested, to no avail.

As I have said previously, I have a HP laptop, an ASUS laptop, and a Zebra TC52 android device, all connected and working perfectly to my wifi.

Today I went to two neighbours, next door and three doors down, both with Virgin broadband.  Both my iPhone SE and iPhone 11 connected instantly, perfectly, to these networks, without any messing or changing settings.  However, I get back to my house and they refuse to connect to MY hub.  I can even connect to next door's wifi from my home with no problems.  My Wifi just doesn't work with either of my iPhones.

[jbrennand]

All I can suggest (I an no expert!) is to look in the Settings of the two devices and select your preferred SSID and press the blue "i". Drop down to the IP address and note the Numbers. then do the same on a couple of device that connects fine. Compare the numbers.. do they "appear" to be in the same "range". I am in modem mode and mine are all 10.0.1.xx. So all fine.

Tell us what they are. And if they aren't close... try changing "Configure IP" from "Automatic" to manual and change the IP to one that is within your range.

May not help but worth a look.

[Hayley_S]

Hello @Jobie,

Welcome back, thanks for posting.

I am sorry for the issue with your Wi-Fi connection to your mobile phone.

Please can you update us on how it is for you now?

Many thanks,

[Jobie]

Hello Hayley

The problem still persists. I am struggling to get my iPhone 11 to connect at all to the internet on my Wifi (as said previously, it has no problems connecting to internet on next door’s Virgin wifi). My iPhone SE will occasionally get Wifi internet connection, but not reliably to any extent (again, it works on wifi everywhere else - works all day long on my work's wifi, just not my Hub 3).

To prove the point, I tried another iPhone – a 6S – which had never been onto my Wifi, and that wouldn’t work either (ie, says its connected to the Wifi, but has no internet connection). My two laptops and Zebra android device don’t have any problems at all.

I noticed on my hub connected devices list (identified by device MAC address) that the IP address it lists sometimes doesn’t match the IP address on the iPhones. Eg. Connected devices says my iPhone 11 has ip 192.168.0.52, and on the iPhone Wifi setting it says it has 192.168.0.110.

I tried adding reserve rules on the hub and static ips for my iPhones, but this doesn’t work either.

I've tried resetting/forget network settings on iPhone,  hub restarts etc etc... nothing fixes it. TBH it really shouldn't be so difficult. It never used to be - The Hub 3 has worked for years without any problems and only became problematic in the past few months. I actually believe it has got worse over the past few weeks..

I am now at the point of looking at an alternative provider. My wifi is unusable on my iPhones and is costing me money each month with additional mobile data.