New iOS bug can disable your phone’s WiFi; here’s what you can do to stop it

Users can stay safe by disabling their WiFi connection when they are out of range of their known networks. — Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Apple iPhones are well known for their stability and reliable software experience, but even iOS occasionally suffers from bugs that can somewhat impair the functionality of their pricey handsets.

A new report suggests that a software bug, a new variant, on a recent Apple iPhone version can prevent users from accessing WiFi networks.

Apple iPhone: Communications breakdown

Last month, we reported that a researcher had found a bug on iOS 14 that would prevent users from connecting to a WiFi network. At the time, it was discovered that users who tried to connect to a network with a specific name had the WiFi functionality on their devices disabled.

This would reportedly prevent them from connecting to other networks, which meant that Apple features like AirDrop that rely on WiFi would no longer work.

It was previously discovered that connecting to a WiFi network with a percentage sign in the network name would disable the WiFi functionality on an iPhone running iOS 14, since the operating system processes the word after the symbol as a command.

However, at the time, the researcher had stated that users could recover WiFi connectivity by going to the device’s settings and tapping the reset network settings option.

New variant of bug on the prowl

However, a report by Business Insider states that the same researcher has discovered a new variation of the bug that could prove difficult for users to deal with. The report states that when an iPhone is within the range of a WiFi network called ‘%secretclub%power’, it will disable the WiFi connectivity on the device.

Unlike the previous version of the bug, users don’t even need to connect to the network to be affected, the report states, and users only need to be within range of the network to be affected.

How to save your iPhone

While users were previously able to reset the device’s network settings to fix the disabled WiFi functionality, the report states that with the newly discovered bug, connectivity might not be restored with the same method.

It appears that only a hard reset of the device, or restoring a previous backup of the device before the WiFi functionality got disabled should bring back the functionality, according to the report.

Apple has not yet issued a statement on the alleged bug, but users can stay safe by disabling their WiFi connection when they are out of range of their known networks. – Hindustan Times, New Delhi/Tribune News Service