03-24-2008, 10:14 PM

I am hoping that one of you can help me out. Every time I try to use Wifi at home, the iphone connects to the network but I get a message that says "safari can't open the page because it can't find the server." I know that my wifi and cable internet connection are both working because I have two other computers that work fine. I am also able to use my iphone to log in to my router. Everything is correct for the IP, subnet, router, and dns.

Here's the confusing part to me: the Wifi will work normally when I connect to a hotel network by going the firewall/login screens that they put up for their guests to login through.

Restarts and restores do not solve this problem at all. Any ideas that could help? Thanks!

08-28-2008, 07:52 PM

Originally Posted by theponcacitykid

I am hoping that one of you can help me out. Every time I try to use Wifi at home, the iphone connects to the network but I get a message that says "safari can't open the page because it can't find the server." I know that my wifi and cable internet connection are both working because I have two other computers that work fine. I am also able to use my iphone to log in to my router. Everything is correct for the IP, subnet, router, and dns.

Here's the confusing part to me: the Wifi will work normally when I connect to a hotel network by going the firewall/login screens that they put up for their guests to login through.

Restarts and restores do not solve this problem at all. Any ideas that could help? Thanks!

I am having the exact same problem. I'm using a white 3G. It worked great for a while and then just stopped on day. My girlfriend and her brother are experiencing the same thing on their and my network. Does anyone know anything?

08-28-2008, 09:36 PM

I found a solution!!

Yep, that solved my problem too. So a precise walkthrough for the solution:

1) Go to settings, Wi-Fi, choose the network and hit the blue button. Touch "Forget this network" and confirm.
2) Now go back into Wi-Fi settings, choose the network again and join it.
3) Now hit the blue button and go down to the DNS line. Select the line and drag your finger to the left until you find the first DNS entry (entries are separated by commas). In my case, for instance, the first entry was 192.168.1.99--a local address on my network.
4) Use the backspace button to delete the first DNS entry.
5) Touch "Wi-Fi Networks" to go back.
6) Open safari and try visiting a site by URL: www.apple.com for example.

This worked for both my iPhone 3G and iPod Touch. There was no need to reboot the router, reset my network settings, or anything like that--just follow the steps above.

Incidentally, the DNS address I had to delete--192.168.1.99--was actually a static address on my network that I had allocated to my printer. So it was a very bad guess on the iPhone/iPod Touch's part as to where the local DNS server would be. But someone else's comment rings true, that the bug seems to be in the iPhone OS and has to do with falling back to the next DNS address if the first one fails--or falling back in a timely manner.

Yeah, you're welcome, Apple engineers. We're happy to do your work for you and pay for it too!

08-28-2008, 10:37 PM

Originally Posted by mshale

I found a solution!!

Yep, that solved my problem too. So a precise walkthrough for the solution:

1) Go to settings, Wi-Fi, choose the network and hit the blue button. Touch "Forget this network" and confirm.
2) Now go back into Wi-Fi settings, choose the network again and join it.
3) Now hit the blue button and go down to the DNS line. Select the line and drag your finger to the left until you find the first DNS entry (entries are separated by commas). In my case, for instance, the first entry was 192.168.1.99--a local address on my network.
4) Use the backspace button to delete the first DNS entry.
5) Touch "Wi-Fi Networks" to go back.
6) Open safari and try visiting a site by URL: www.apple.com for example.

This worked for both my iPhone 3G and iPod Touch. There was no need to reboot the router, reset my network settings, or anything like that--just follow the steps above.

Incidentally, the DNS address I had to delete--192.168.1.99--was actually a static address on my network that I had allocated to my printer. So it was a very bad guess on the iPhone/iPod Touch's part as to where the local DNS server would be. But someone else's comment rings true, that the bug seems to be in the iPhone OS and has to do with falling back to the next DNS address if the first one fails--or falling back in a timely manner.

Yeah, you're welcome, Apple engineers. We're happy to do your work for you and pay for it too!

That doesn't make any sense, your DNS server address is given to your by your DHCP server AKA your router, and is your router would also be your internal DNS server which forward its requests to the one it obtained from your ISPs DHCP server. Somehow you must have manually put in a DNS server address.

08-31-2008, 10:48 PM

Actually no... I never even went into the wifi settings until just then. My first DNS address wasn't actually my router, it seems it was just a random jumble of numbers... but yeah... weird how all of my friends who own an iPhone somehow put in their DNS addresses manually... umm, no LOL.

09-02-2008, 02:07 AM

several of us at work use multiple wifi networks regularly and to be honest, this is the first instance of something like this I've heard.

What he's saying though is that your DCHP server sets the DNS servers.

09-03-2008, 09:45 AM

I knew that, but tons of my friends are having the same problem. and I know that they are not the kind of people to just go setting manual DNS servers in their phone. I can assure you that I never touched the DNS sever settings. And if you look through where I found that solution (in the Apple support forums, I'm sure you will see the many people with the same problem. A quote from the solution:

But someone else's comment rings true, that the bug seems to be in the iPhone OS and has to do with falling back to the next DNS address if the first one fails--or falling back in a timely manner.

helps me out here because, yeah, there can be 2 DNS servers, but if one fails, then it needs to fall back to the second before the OS throws back errors.

09-03-2008, 10:31 AM

I've accessed probably 10 or 12 different wireless networks in the past month and had zero issues.

09-03-2008, 11:21 AM

Originally Posted by baggss

I've accessed probably 10 or 12 different wireless networks in the past month and had zero issues.

Me too... It only happened at my house on my Home network. The only thing that is on my home network: 1 Desktop, 2 Laptops, a wireless printer, and my iPhone and occasionally another iPhone and Laptop.

My Girlfriend, and her brother had the same issue at her house, and I told her about this solution, and bam, it fixed it. Trust me, it's nothing that we are doing, because she didn't even know that you could check your IP address by hitting the blue arrow next to the network you are connected to...

09-03-2008, 12:30 PM

I may not be seeing it since I have an Airport Extreme at home. I have 5 Macs, 1 PC and my iPhone (printer is hooked up to an Airport Express) on it.

09-03-2008, 05:15 PM

Originally Posted by baggss

I may not be seeing it since I have an Airport Extreme at home. I have 5 Macs, 1 PC and my iPhone (printer is hooked up to an Airport Express) on it.

Now that you say that, it may be related to the type of router. I drive a linksys WRT54G, and my girlfriend drives a linksys N router... so it could be related to linksys too... interesting.

09-16-2008, 10:20 PM

I am not that wifi-literate. But the solution above WORKED perfectly.

I had the exact same problem -- Linksys router with WEP security, everything else on the network working fine. iPod Touch could connect to the WIFI but would not connect to the internet (showed WIFI connected in settings, but browser would not get online).

Followed the instructions above on this thread and it nailed it -- works fine now.

THANKS!

09-17-2008, 12:43 PM

Originally Posted by quincycat

I am not that wifi-literate. But the solution above WORKED perfectly.

I had the exact same problem -- Linksys router with WEP security, everything else on the network working fine. iPod Touch could connect to the WIFI but would not connect to the internet (showed WIFI connected in settings, but browser would not get online).

Followed the instructions above on this thread and it nailed it -- works fine now.

THANKS!

Awesome! Glad it worked for you. I'm pretty sure that the fallback issue was addressed with the new 2.1 iPhone firmware.

09-17-2008, 01:20 PM

Originally Posted by mshale

Now that you say that, it may be related to the type of router. I drive a linksys WRT54G, and my girlfriend drives a linksys N router... so it could be related to linksys too... interesting.

Sounds more like its related to a bug in the firmware of the iPhone.

06-28-2010, 09:28 AM

Yay! I don't know why it worked, but it did. I ran through Apple's protocol to fix it and nothing happened. I had just one DNS listed, so I deleted it. It came back. Deleted again, and this time a typed in one from my MacBook that was connected to the network. It worked! Thanks.