On April 12th, we first reported that Princeton University’s IT department issued a statement suggesting that iPads were disrupting campus Wi-Fi networks. The department recommended that students not attempt to connect their iPads to campus networks “until the issue is fixed,” and said iPads may be blocked on a per-device basis to “maintain the stability and reliability of campus network services.”
The department now says that the issue is due to the fact that the iPad does not renew its DHCP lease when its screen is off but continues to use the same IP address. Princeton claims that this can cause network disruption issues, and it may also cause the iPad to lose connectivity when waking from sleep–an issue we’ve reported on extensively.
Princeton has now offered three potential (lackluster, from a user standpoint) workarounds for the issue:
- Turn off Wi-Fi before sleeping. Princeton says users should navigate to Settings -> Wi-Fi and turn off Wi-Fi before pressing the sleep/wake (lock) button, then turn Wi-Fi back on after waking the iPad.
- Turn off the iPad instead of putting it to sleep. Hold the sleep/wake button until the power-off slider appears, and turn the device off completely instead of putting it to sleep.
- Don’t allow the iPad to go to sleep. If the iPad never goes to sleep, it will never stop renewing its DHCP lease. Tap Settings, then General, then choose Auto-Lock option; select Never.
If you’re experiencing the disconnect-from-network-when-waking-from-sleep issue (and aren’t connected to Princeton’s network), try the fixes listed in our iPad Wi-Fi troubleshooting guide.