iPad bug interfering with Princeton's network | Hacker News Reader

iPad bug interfering with Princeton's network

helpdesk.princeton.edu

21 pointsallyt13 comments

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Heh, sounds familiar: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/071607-duke-iphone.htm...

But then again, it wasn't Apple's fault…

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/072007-cisco-iphone-du...

"Have you tried turning it off and on again?"

It's interesting that there are enough of the devices on campus to actually cause problems.

One misbehaving iPad is enough to piss two people off.

This is hilarious:

"Until a fix is provided by Apple, OIT recommends not connecting your iPad device to the campus network as it is likely it will malfunction."

I find this funny too. Just as technical, only more jargon.

"These devices are continuing to use an IP address they have been leased well beyond the time they should. (In technical terms, the device's DHCP client software stops renewing its lease, but the device keeps using the IP address after the DHCP lease expires. This is not a WiFi issue.)"

Why do you find this funny? It's a concise, relatively jargon free, precise description of the problem. If it's true, it's also a pretty blatant bug - it's one thing not to release your DHCP lease. It's another thing entirely _to continue communicating with an IP address from an expired lease_.

The only possible excuse (for the network stack developers) is that your parent operating system suspended, and that you weren't able to track how much time had passed - but, iPads (in my limited experience) are pretty good at tracking time.

iPad (that is, iPhone OS) could be better at setting the time. I was completely unaware I had to do that until I tried using the App Store. I wasn't prompted to enter the time when I first started the device, the time didn't synchronize with iTunes and there doesn't seem to be support for synchronizing with Internet time servers.

Maybe they overlooked this because iPhone gets the time from mobile networks?

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear -- I found the two sentences from the I quoted from amusing because the both descriptions are technical, while "in technical terms" a touch moreso, but the former doesn't strike me as layman friendly.

I have noticed this in my home wifi network. Also, I get frequent disconnects on my Sprint Overdrive hotspot.

My Macbook Pro crashes my router at home every hour or so when I'm using OS X. Using Ubuntu or Windows causes no problems. It's not related to the number of devices, there are many laptops that come and go.

Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised to find out it's a long embedded bug.

Wow, that would drive me nuts.

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