Wi-Fi issues in smartphones are inevitable. They can occur at any time on various types of smartphones — old or new ones. And the highest-tiered devices like Apple’s newest and pricey iPhone XS is no exception. Fortunately, such problems can be remedied at home by some workarounds unless network outage or hardware damage is present. The main issue that’s addressed in this post is on the iPhone XS that won’t connect to a Wi-Fi network. Having no Wi-Fi access on such a hefty new device is truly a bummer and therefore must be resolved as soon as possible. To give you some hints on how to fix this issue, I’ve outlined a few helpful workarounds that are typically used to deal with Wi-Fi connectivity issues on an iPhone. Hope you’d find this context helpful.
Before going further, if you found this post because you were trying to find a solution to your problem, then try to visit our troubleshooting page as we’ve already addressed most of the commonly reported issues with the phone. We’ve already provided solutions to some of the problems reported by our readers so try to find issues that are similar with yours and use the solutions we suggested. If they don’t work for you and if you need further assistance, fill up our iPhone issues questionnaire and hit submit.
How to troubleshoot iPhone XS that won’t connect to WiFi?
Before you begin to troubleshoot your iPhone XS, make sure that you’re within your Wi-Fi network’s range. Your device wouldn’t be able to connect to the wireless access point if it’s too far from it. To ensure that distance isn’t an issue, retry connecting to your Wi-Fi network with your iPhone XS place closer to your wireless router/modem. If that still failed to work, then you may go ahead and start troubleshooting software problems on your iPhone XS with any of these subsequent methods.
First solution: Power cycle your router/modem.
When your phone is having problems with Wi-Fi Internet connection, the wireless router/modem may be going through some troubles too. Like mobile devices, network equipment can also experience random firmware issues and that’s when they would fail to work as intended. Should this be the underlying cause, rebooting the wireless router/modem could be a potential solution. That said, consider a router/modem power cycle as your first workaround. Here’s how it’s exactly done:
- Press or flip the Power switch to turn it off.
- With the router/modem turned off, unplug its AC adapter from the power source.
- After 30 seconds to 1 minute, plug it back in and then turn it on again.
- Wait until all the light indicators go green and stable. That’s an indication that the router is back up and ready.
Then re-attempt to connect your iPhone to Wi-Fi and see if the problem is solved. If the problem continues, then move on and perform the next workarounds to rule out software issues that might have prevented your iPhone from connect to Wi-Fi network.
Second solution: Toggle Airplane Mode on and off then soft reset your iPhone XS.
This is one of the simplest old tricks used by many to deal with minor Internet problems in smartphones and is still applied by end-users up to now. It works by promptly restarting the phone’s wireless radios by turning Airplane mode feature on and off shortly. If you wish to give it a shot, then here’s how the Airplane mode trick is done:
- Tap Settings from Home.
- Select Airplane Mode.
- Then tap the Airplane Mode switch to turn the feature on.
Restart or soft reset your iPhone then head back to Settings-> Airplane Mode menu, and tap the switch to turn Airplane Mode off again. For starters, a soft reset on the iPhone XS is carried out with these steps:
- Press and hold the Side button and either Volume button simultaneously for a few seconds.
- Release both buttons when the Slide to Power off command appears.
- Drag the Power off slider to the right to turn off the phone.
- After 30 seconds, press and hold the Side button again until the Apple logo appears then release.
Allow your phone to finish booting up then reconnect to Wi-Fi.
Third solution: Forget Wi-Fi networks on your iPhone XS.
Your phone might have been set to automatically switch to a stronger Wi-Fi network in range whenever the selected network is weak or unavailable. This shouldn’t be an issue if your device can access the Internet using other Wi-Fi network but then again, there’s a chance to have no Internet connection due to some restrictions. To make sure this isn’t the root-cause of the problem, forget/delete all saved Wi-Fi networks on your phone, set up your Wi-Fi network, then retry connecting. Here’s how:
- Tap Settings from the Home screen.
- Tap Wi-Fi.
- Find the Wi-Fi network you want to forget then tap the information (i) icon next to the network name.
- Tap Forget This Network.
- If prompted, read the warning prompt then tap Forget to confirm.
To configure your iPhone XS to stop from joining a network in range automatically, follow these steps:
- Tap Settings.
- Tap Wi-Fi.
- Tap the Information (i) icon next to the Wi-Fi network.
- Scroll to and tap the Auto-Join switch to turn the feature off.
Reboot/soft reset your iPhone XS to apply the recent settings changes.
Fourth solution: Reset network settings on your iPhone XS.
A messed up or misconfigured network settings on the phone are also among the possible triggers. This is usually the case when customizing network settings or when installing software updates that tend to override the phone settings automatically. To clear this out, performing a network settings reset on the iPhone can help. Doing so will erase the current network settings and then restore the default network values. Here’s how it’s done:
- Tap Settings from the Home screen.
- Tap General.
- Scroll to and tap Reset.
- Select Reset Network Settings option.
- If prompted, enter your device passcode to continue.
- Then tap the option to confirm network settings reset.
Allow your device to finish the entire process and then reboots by itself. After it reboots, you can start enabling individual network options and features you want to use on the phone including Wi-Fi.
Fifth solution: Restore factory default settings on your iPhone XS.
Performing a factory reset is often deemed among the last options when dealing with persistent software issues on the phone. It’s possible that your iPhone is going through some more complex system errors that make it failed to connect to the Wi-Fi network. To deal with such errors, a more advanced solution is needed including a full system reset. But before you do so, back up all your important files to iCloud or iTunes as they will also be wiped out in the process. If you wish to proceed with this reset, simply follow these steps:
- Tap Settings from the Home screen.
- Tap General.
- Scroll to and tap Reset.
- Select the option to Erase All Content and Settings. This is the option to master reset your iPhone XS.
- Enter your device passcode when asked.
- Then tap the option to confirm master reset.
Your iPhone should restart automatically as soon as the reset is finished. After it restarts, you can proceed with the initial setup. Enable its Wi-Fi feature then reconnect to your Wi-Fi network and see if your device is already able to connect.
If your iPhone XS is still unable to connect to your Wi-Fi network after applying the previous solutions, then you may contact your Internet service provider or Apple Support to seek more help in performing more advanced troubleshooting methods to configure your device in a way that would allow it to establish connection with your Wi-Fi network. If all your devices are experiencing the same, then the problem could be due to the wireless access point, which is your wireless router or modem in use. In that case, you can escalate the problem to your router/modem provider and get some help in applying necessary fixes.
Connect with us
If you need more help with the use of certain functions and features of the Apple iPhone XS smartphone, feel free to visit our Tutorial Page. There you can find a list of how-to contents, step-by-step tutorials, as well as answers to FAQs regarding iPhone XS. If you have other concerns or encountered some troubles while using the phone, you can reach us through this form. Just be sure to tell us more details of the problem or device issue(s) you may have and we will be more than happy to assist you further.