Logs related to Wi-Fi firmware

[kullerhamPster]

Hi. Yesterday I noticed some odd log files on my iPhone 14 Pro, named WiFiFWTrap (followed by a timestamp).

There are four events in total, where the oldest dates back to September 30 and iOS 16.0.3.
Afterwards, it didn’t happen for quite some time, but then three times with only a few days in between.
I didn’t notice any problems with my Wi-Fi connections. I can’t even tell if it’s related to a specific network or not.
I’m just a bit concerned about the existence of these logs and therefor would like to know if anyone else is seeing those events.

 

[jw154j]

Hi. Yesterday I noticed some odd log files on my iPhone 14 Pro, named WiFiFWTrap (followed by a timestamp).

There are four events in total, where the oldest dates back to September 30 and iOS 16.0.3.
Afterwards, it didn’t happen for quite some time, but then three times with only a few days in between.
I didn’t notice any problems with my Wi-Fi connections. I can’t even tell if it’s related to a specific network or not.
I’m just a bit concerned about the existence of these logs and therefor would like to know if anyone else is seeing those events.

I see the same thing. Kinda concerning, IMO.

 

[Samdh90]

Interesting, I don't see anything like that on my 14 pro. If it helps, I did not restore from a backup with this phone, thought it would be best to start over with the upgrade. With that said, it could be related to something specific with certain wifi configurations. If you are not seeing any issues yourself, I would not worry so much. If it was in fact firmware, I would think that we all would have the same or similar errors.

 

[bransoj]

I’ve got a few of these in my iPhone 12 so not an iPhone 14 specific thing.

 

[kullerhamPster]

From what I can tell, it happened with different WiFi networks on my device. I also got one such event on my iPad Air after I have discovered the entries on my iPhone.
A colleague of mine had no such entries on his iPhone 13 Pro, even though his device is probably connected to the same Wifi while at work as mine is.

As the log file says something about a watchdog, I would guess that it's caused by some component of the firmware that does not respond after a some time and might thus get killed/restarted.

 

[Samdh90]

From what I can tell, it happened with different WiFi networks on my device. I also got one such event on my iPad Air after I have discovered the entries on my iPhone.
A colleague of mine had no such entries on his iPhone 13 Pro, even though his device is probably connected to the same Wifi while at work as mine is.

As the log file says something about a watchdog, I would guess that it's caused by some component of the firmware that does not respond after a some time and might thus get killed/restarted.

Hi bud,

I am not sure if this is really helpful or not but a few things come up when I was looking at watchdog and IOS. It appears to be a self-termination procedure of apps that run for extended amount of time. Probably for security and performance if I had to guess. More information here;

iOS Watchdog Terminations and How They Can Stem From Background Tasks

iOS Watchdog Terminations are system kills for violating resource limits. Avoid them in background tasks by calling endBackgroundTask and adding expiry handlers.

blog.embrace.io

Thank you.

 

[kullerhamPster]

Hi bud,

I am not sure if this is really helpful or not but a few things come up when I was looking at watchdog and IOS. It appears to be a self-termination procedure of apps that run for extended amount of time. Probably for security and performance if I had to guess. More information here;

iOS Watchdog Terminations and How They Can Stem From Background Tasks

iOS Watchdog Terminations are system kills for violating resource limits. Avoid them in background tasks by calling endBackgroundTask and adding expiry handlers.

blog.embrace.io

Thank you.

Thank you for the link. Even if the WiFi firmware is surely treated differently compared to a normal app, I think the procedure is basically similar: If something takes too long, the system terminates that component.

Fun fact: It's a good idea to include watchdogs in your software/hardware:
https://www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs614/1999sp/papers/pathfinder.html

 

[Maymacx]

Hi. I just found one of the mentioned wififwtrap-logfiles on my iphone.

This thread seams to be one of two threads on the complete internet covering this issue. Have there been any findings in the meantime wether this is a real issue? Or was this logfile maybe just introduced with ios 16 and the majority of people just dont look at the analytics data?

I would highly appreciate some feedback. Thank you!