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Anyone else's Face Time dropping the wifi connection?

W

WilliamG

macrumors G4
Original poster
Mar 29, 2008
10,056
3,978
Seattle
For some bizarre reason, after a little while of using my Face Time, the call freezes and it tells me it needs a wifi connection. I can see the 3G symbol in the top left, and then the wifi comes back a few seconds later...

Very bizarre...
 
WilliamG said:
For some bizarre reason, after a little while of using my Face Time, the call freezes and it tells me it needs a wifi connection. I can see the 3G symbol in the top left, and then the wifi comes back a few seconds later...

Very bizarre...
Click to expand...

I realize I'm bumping a pretty old thread here but this is happening to me too and it's driving me nuts. Anyone else experiencing this? It only seems to happen to me at home (Time Capsule with cable internet access) but I really don't use Facetime enough when I'm in other places with wifi to say with 100% certainty that it's isolated to my house. All I know is that virtually every single one of my facetime calls is dropping after a few minutes and my phone shows a 3g symbol instead of wifi (the calls start on wifi). Any ideas?
 
Yes, another old thread revived from the depths of h.....

..anyway

I use facetime almost daily and have not ever had this problem. Never been dropped either. I've seen a slowdown from time to time, but thats due to the bandwidth issue.

Check the signals on both wifi and make sure you've got more than 1. Also, if it keeps dropping wifi restart both phones and try again. See what gives.
 
iceterminal said:
Yes, another old thread revived from the depths of h.....

..anyway

I use facetime almost daily and have not ever had this problem. Never been dropped either. I've seen a slowdown from time to time, but thats due to the bandwidth issue.

Check the signals on both wifi and make sure you've got more than 1. Also, if it keeps dropping wifi restart both phones and try again. See what gives.
Click to expand...

Appreciate the help. Yes, I've checked my wifi signal and it's very strong when I'm using facetime (the wifi router is just down the hall from where I'm generally on my facetime calls). It shows 4 bars of wifi on my phone so it can't be an issue of signal strength. I'm wondering if maybe just the slightest drop of signal (complete drop that is, not just a minor drop in signal strength) is enough to terminate a facetime call. Also, if that is the case, I don't know if there's anything that can be done about it because I don't really see any robust wifi settings that I can mess with on my iphone. I've already reset the time capsule and my cable modem several times and I've rebooted my iphone, reset the network settings. etc. Not sure what else I can do but I am on the phone with Apple support as we speak. Hopefully they can help because this is certainly killing my facetime experience completely.
 
zenio said:
Normal
Click to expand...

Huh? What's normal, dropping the facetime call? If so, that's unacceptable. Why would you ever use it if it's going to drop the call every few minutes? I don't believe for a second that this is normal.
 
Dropping a wireless connection very often is not normal.

Another question, during facetime you're connected to another Mac/iPhone. You mentioned that your connection on wifi is dropped and then you only have 3G.
Does this happen while you're downloading a large app or other items while connected to that wifi access point?

Have you tried using a different wireless connection as well?
I would try those two things. If you get the same drop of wifi on a totally different wireless point, make a genius appointment. They can look it up and probably swap it out for you.

If it doesn't drop on another WAP, try and change the channel its using. Same results, get a new WAP.
 
iceterminal said:
Dropping a wireless connection very often is not normal.

Another question, during facetime you're connected to another Mac/iPhone. You mentioned that your connection on wifi is dropped and then you only have 3G.
Does this happen while you're downloading a large app or other items while connected to that wifi access point?

Have you tried using a different wireless connection as well?
I would try those two things. If you get the same drop of wifi on a totally different wireless point, make a genius appointment. They can look it up and probably swap it out for you.

If it doesn't drop on another WAP, try and change the channel its using. Same results, get a new WAP.
Click to expand...


Connection doesn't seem to drop when I'm doing anything else on wifi (I'm going to run slingplayer on wifi for a bit to confirm that but I've never had a problem with it dropping like I do with facetime). I can also facetime on my mac when connected to the same wifi network and that doesn't disconnect. I've facetimed a couple of times on other wifi networks and those calls didn't drop either.
 
Just wanted to post an update in case anyone has any ideas for me. I was able to complete a 10+ minute facetime call at my mother's house yesterday (Verizon FIOS with wifi built right in to the router) without the call dropping. When I got home I ran my slingplayer software over my wifi network for over 20 minutes and had no problems there. So to summarize:

Facetime via iphone on home wifi network disconnects constantly.
Facetime via mac on home wifi network works fine.
Facetime via iphone on mother's wifi network works fine.
Slingplayer via iphone on home wifi network works fine.

It seems like the only problem I'm having is uisng facetime via my iphone on my own wifi network. What could the problem possibly be?
 
psywzrd said:
Just wanted to post an update in case anyone has any ideas for me. I was able to complete a 10+ minute facetime call at my mother's house yesterday (Verizon FIOS with wifi built right in to the router) without the call dropping. When I got home I ran my slingplayer software over my wifi network for over 20 minutes and had no problems there. So to summarize:

Facetime via iphone on home wifi network disconnects constantly.
Facetime via mac on home wifi network works fine.
Facetime via iphone on mother's wifi network works fine.
Slingplayer via iphone on home wifi network works fine.

It seems like the only problem I'm having is uisng facetime via my iphone on my own wifi network. What could the problem possibly be?
Click to expand...

What type of router device do you have? It could be set up to timeout connections or something.
 
ulbador said:
What type of router device do you have? It could be set up to timeout connections or something.
Click to expand...

It's an Apple Time Capsule. If it was a timeout issue, wouldn't it also kill my slingplayer and my facetime calls via my Mac as well though?
 
WilliamG said:
For some bizarre reason, after a little while of using my Face Time, the call freezes and it tells me it needs a wifi connection. I can see the 3G symbol in the top left, and then the wifi comes back a few seconds later...

Very bizarre...
Click to expand...

Mine does the same thing. Yet that said I have no use for it anyway, just thought I'd try it. Perhaps by the next iOS release, Apple will have it debugged.
 
wifi connection lose during facetime and failed calls during facetime

i have the same issue i was thinking it was because the iphone 4 white phone just updated too was the issue but i thank god its not just me of course i hope they fix this issue i would recommend for everyone to look at the console log on the iphone config utility they have on the apple site you can use that to see if errors are present i am goin to send another post so you can see what the logs look like. another thing you should do is report to the apple iphone support to create tickets on the issue the more tickets the more they will see how real the problem is thank you all for time you take to read this if you have any questions feel free to ask me ttyal.... :apple::apple::apple::apple::apple::apple::apple:
 
Same situation, WiFi drops for everyone when using FaceTime

Hello,

I just bought an iPhone 4s and when using facetime my router restarts and is unable to connect again. I have to manually unplug it to get it to work again.

Any luck solving this??
 
I've been having the same problem and it's the weirdest computer problem I've ever had. I have 3 computers running off my router and I've never had any issues. Even the 4S doesn't have any issues until I try to use Facetime. Once I use Facetime, it works for between 10 seconds and a couple minutes and then it freezes, I lose connection, and it restarts my router. I really don't understand that at all; is it using some sort of magic Apple laser to destroy my router? Is this military grade cyber warfare? I thought the fairy magic world of 1's and 0's was pretty well understood by now so why is one of the most respected technology companies in the world putting out a device that causes such mayhem?
 
wufnu said:
I've been having the same problem and it's the weirdest computer problem I've ever had. I have 3 computers running off my router and I've never had any issues. Even the 4S doesn't have any issues until I try to use Facetime. Once I use Facetime, it works for between 10 seconds and a couple minutes and then it freezes, I lose connection, and it restarts my router. I really don't understand that at all; is it using some sort of magic Apple laser to destroy my router? Is this military grade cyber warfare? I thought the fairy magic world of 1's and 0's was pretty well understood by now so why is one of the most respected technology companies in the world putting out a device that causes such mayhem?
Click to expand...

Its not the device, apple laser or military cyber warfare.
Its a wireless router issue, it probably needs a firmware update.
Every router I used to facetime worked fine and never had that issue. So its gotta be a few ones that choke when they're used for facetime calls.
 
I updated the firmware, of course. As for bogging it down, I really don't see how that's possible. I've a 10Mbit connection and my router so far can use every bit of it, even when across multiple computers. My upload bandwidth is the same as my download. I can stream DVDs (both ways, if need be) but can't receive and send VGA quality video? If it was bogging it down, wouldn't it cap at my ISP limit rather than my router since my router is capable of speeds faster than my internet? Are Facetime bytes different from other computer bytes?

Something seems amiss. In the past 12 years or so of using wireless networks I've never had any piece of hardware or software "choke" down a router and cause it to reset. Every time I've hit some sort of cap, the software either adjusted quality, slowed down, or disconnected. None of these events caused my routers brain to short circuit and reset. I hope Apple can get their new toy to play nice with others soon, I really love Facetime :(
 
wufnu said:
I updated the firmware, of course. As for bogging it down, I really don't see how that's possible. I've a 10Mbit connection and my router so far can use every bit of it, even when across multiple computers. My upload bandwidth is the same as my download. I can stream DVDs (both ways, if need be) but can't receive and send VGA quality video? If it was bogging it down, wouldn't it cap at my ISP limit rather than my router since my router is capable of speeds faster than my internet? Are Facetime bytes different from other computer bytes?

Something seems amiss. In the past 12 years or so of using wireless networks I've never had any piece of hardware or software "choke" down a router and cause it to reset. Every time I've hit some sort of cap, the software either adjusted quality, slowed down, or disconnected. None of these events caused my routers brain to short circuit and reset. I hope Apple can get their new toy to play nice with others soon, I really love Facetime :(
Click to expand...

When I said choke the router I didnt mean bogging it down speed wise.
Its just a software issue that causes that, not the down or upload speed.
I bet if you use another router it will be fine.
 
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