IOS “Sleeping” Connectivity Drop

Bugs and Support
#1

In the last week or so, my iPad (v14.2 and 14.3) has experienced the disappearing riders internet connectivity drop on a fairly regular basis during rides. I can restore the connection by tapping the Home Screen button and then immediately re-entering the Zwift app. (So if I’m on top of it, I can only lose about 1 second of connection and stay with my peloton.)

So I think that my iPad is putting the internet connection to sleep after a certain amount of time rather than any issue with the connection to my router. But I don’t see any setting to override this behavior.

Is anyone else experiencing this? A friend, also running Zwift off iOS on his iPad had the same problem.

#2

Hi @Rob_O_Brien
Question: at any point are you checking texts or email or changing songs on Spoitfy?

For mobile OS’s - if you background the Zwift app, you can have symptoms like this because the operating system will priority battery savings on backgrounded apps.

#3

@shooj, no – I’m not doing anything with the iPad except running Zwift. It remains running and the screen stays on (and on Zwift).

The connectivity drops happens at inconsistent intervals, so it seems like it wouldn’t be a time-out setting. But I can “fix” it so instantaneously that I don’t think it’s a router connection.

#4

If other avatars disappear around you and you’re left alone in the world - that’s typically a sign of your internet connection dropping from the server. This can happen within the house if WiFi is interrupted, or it can be upstream of your home.

I took a quick look at your latest partial log file that gets sent to our server, and uploaded that to zwiftalizer.com. Here’s what that log file shows:

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You can check this for yourself by locating your log files and using zwiftalizer.com

There are indications of network interruptions and also Bluetooth interruptions. Both Bluetooth and WiFi can use the 2.4 Ghz frequencies, so when I see both types of signal disruptions, I’d suspect some interference in that band. I might suggest changing the channel your router uses to broadcast that 2.4 Ghz spectrum… Are you comfortable looking into the how-to for your brand of router and tweaking those settings?

There are some other things you can do to improve your internet connection. Let’s also consider those steps.

#5

Hi to anyone following along. This appears to be neither a network connection issue nor a Zwift issue, but an iPadOS (14.3) or iPad hardware issue.

The same connectivity drop occurs on 4 different iPads of various vintages and across apps (including HBOMax, YouTube, and FiosTV).

I ran Zwift on a PC with no issue. I have also run speedtests and have an extremely strong connection. I checked out the log file from my 25 Jan ride on zwiftalizer and see no issues whatsoever.

I’m still investigating the fix and will update if I find anything.