Wi-Fi connections in iOS 16.4(.1(a))

Since I upgraded my iPhone 8 to iOS 16.4 (and then 16.4.1) I seem to have Wifi connection issues. At home it usually connects right away, but it either doesn’t connect to public networks or drops the connection almost randomly. iOS had this problem a couple of years ago, although I forgot which version that was.

On one public network I seem to have fixed it by playing around with the Wifi settings (i.e. “Ask to join Networks” and/or “Auto-join Hotspot”, but I am not on that network now, so cannot confirm). It seems that iOS 16.4 has changed that setting without asking me, as I didn’t have any problems for several years.

Any other insight or fixes for this?

I presume you’ve tried resetting all network settings?

I am reluctant to reset everything as this would lose all my known networks etc., wouldn’t it?

Rebooting doesn’t work, and previous versions worked too, but since I had the same problem a few years ago I suspect it must be an iOS issue.

Maybe it has something to do with my sluggish iPhone 8 which is often choking on iOS 16.4.

Yes, it does. But, despite that significant drawback, it generally fixes issues like you’re describing.

As I hard as it is for me to be recommending this… ;~}

My iPhone 12 mini had numerous issues w/ all releases of 16.4.x. I actually backed out 16.4.0. But particularly wonky Messages w/ 16.4.1…

iOS 16.5 seems to have fixed it all.