No EE Wifi on London Underground with iOS 14.4.1 - FIX

[indieboy]

Since updating to iOS 14.4.1 I’ve not been able to connect to wifi on the London Underground.

I can see the wifi network and when selected, the iPhone tries to connect but an error message “Unable to join the network “EE WiFI-Auto”. Doesn’t matter which station, if I’m in transit or waiting on the platform, it would not connect. Connecting to other wifi networks were not an issue.

Something was wrong with EE auto connect sign in.

I call EE and after a load of troubleshooting questions which were all rubbish:

Have I reset the device - Classic IT turn it off and then back on
Have I erased network settings - NEVER DO THIS. It makes your life hell
Have I cleared cache - I should but does not make a difference.

They refreshed my network settings. This worked and was able to auto sign in to the London Underground wifi.

The troubleshooting customer service does is useless. It wastes time and makes more of an issue for you in the long run having to sign into networks again and input the password etc. Just ask them to refresh the network settings and if that doesn’t work, then go through the troubleshooting. 

I really don’t know why EE doesn’t save everyone’s time and do that first before doing the long winded troubleshooting.

[Chris_B]

@indieboy  You’ll be surprised how a network reset can resolve network connection issues. not just a WiFi connection but cellular connection issues also.   Apple would advise this also. Yes it’s a pain but it can help most of the time and just doing a simple off/on is always worth a try. Again Apple would suggest this.  It’s not alway a line reset from EE end that fixes connection issues.   Sometimes it’s your device that’s the problem but you don’t know until you try. 

[indieboy]

@Chris_B Totally disagree.

It's lazy IT. 

The fact of the matter was the iPhone was having auto sign in issues only with the EE wifi, no other wifi networks. To suggest that all network settings needed to be erased to clear the issue is totally lazy. If I was having issues connecting to other wifi networks then erasing all network settings would make sense.

Yes, it means customer support has a clear playing field to work from but the problem is if you don't listen to the problem and use some standard common sense it causes more hassle.

My point is EE customer support could offer the network refresh first. This worked. I didn't do any of the troubleshooting they suggested because I knew it was an issue with iOS 14.4.1 needing to refresh the certificates from EE. It's pretty basic. To go all nuclear again is lazy. That goes for EE and for Apple.

[Chris_B]

@indieboy   So if it was a device issue what you do then ?  Things have to be eliminated before you can try something else as it’s called problem solving. Don’t forget it was a software update on the device that caused the issue in the first place so you start with the device.  And if you didn’t do any of the suggested things how do you know that they might of fixed it as a network reset it just that but from the device. 

[indieboy]

Again @Chris_B I disagree.

If EE tests new iOS updates before they go public so they're aware of issues then maybe they would have realised standard troubleshooting isn't needed. A simple task of refreshing the network settings is all that's needed.

Like I said in my previous posts. I ignored the troubleshooting because I know for a fact that those steps are useless for the issue I was facing. The steps to eliminate would have caused my more problems than it's worth, like like many other customers.

Customer services refreshing my network settings from the backend did the job. I didn't have to do anything extreme for this to fix the issue.

Again if I had issues connection to other networks then of course basic troubleshooting like erasing network settings, clearing cache, hard reset and then the extreme of resetting the device and recovering from back up would have been the natural steps. But this issue was specific to not being able to connect to EE's wifi on London Underground. That tells you something is wrong with the certificate after installing a new iOS.

My intention with this post was to help folks who have iOS 14.4.1 and use wifi on the London Underground but are having problems connecting (especially as lockdown is coming to the end and might only find out they have problems later). How to fix it.

I did not create this post to have an IT protocol discussion because your argument flawed. There are better ways of providing support. Being creative and using common sense rather than following a tick box list which is useless and wastes everyones time.

[Chris_B]

@indieboy  It was an incremental update from Apple it was not a network settings update.  And you are assuming just because you had this issue that EE would of had the issue also when testing the iOS beta.  Don’t forget you are not the only one using an iOS device that had this update and you will be in the very small minority who might of had or be facing this issue.    It was a iOS update that caused the issue it wasn’t a network settings update that caused it. 

[indieboy]

Wow @Chris_B.

You really need to read what I said and stop being an EE fanboy. You're really muddling a lot. Step away from the keyboard and switch to decaf.