iPad and wifi-related question

[avevale_intelligencer]

Jan relies on talking books. She has her iPad with her in hospital, which has the Audible app installed, and the hospital theoretically provides wifi, but after the first day we've been unable to download any books on to the iPad. (It's an iPad 2, still running iOS 6 because the new look that came in with 7 shows Apple's usual indifference to the needs of the partially sighted. I know iOS 8 is better and easier and whizzier and all that, but Jan can't use it so that's that.) I used up her free entitlement to the hospital's wifi trying, and when I tried to buy her some extra time I found the payment form did not include one of its required fields, which made it basically stupidly impossible. But that's another problem, and if I ever find out who's responsible...well. Anyway.

So I dug out my portable hotspot, charged it up, put fresh credit on it, and lugged it in today, and the thing still won't download. Or access the internet at all.

The wifi works, the iPad knows the password and connects perfectly well, and in the past has worked fine with it. It has plenty of free space. I've looked at the settings. I've done everything I know how to do except perform a full factory reset. I've switched it off and then on again.

The only thing I can see that looks as if it might have something to do with it, mainly because I don't know what it means, is an odd little icon up in the top right hand corner of the screen, of a lock with a clockwise arrow going round it. I haven't been able to identify this or get rid of it.

I am helpless, frustrated and close to tears of rage over this. Jan is being very nice about it ("It's just life," she says) but I need to find a solution.

Can anyone help?

Comments

[emsy.livejournal.com]

The icon is to lock screen rotation on the iPad so it shouldn't have anything to do with it. When I use Audible on my iPad mini I buy the book on the website, then refresh my library in the app. As long as "cloud" is selected at the top the new book should appear in the library. I use Audible all the time, at which point are you getting stuck?

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

The book appears in the library, I tap to download, it says "Waiting..." while the little whirligig goes round at the top left, and then it says "Error: tap to retry." Da Capo ad nauseam.

Ah, so that's what it is. I should have known that. Thank you.

[were-gopher.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a corrupt file

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I'm now downloading the books on to my iPad (which is running the current iOS but is otherwise identical) and it seems to be working okay, if very slowly. As a short-term solution, though not ideal given the iOS 8 difficulty, I'm hoping it will work, and maybe if I bring hers back here I can explore the problem in greater depth. Or maybe it all still won't work and I'll never know why. If it is a corrupt file, it must be something basic to interfere with the internet as well.

I'm just so tired, and I wish this problem hadn't happened.

[emsy.livejournal.com]

It can get a little fussy if you're not using a "regular" wifi network so I don't know if it's because you're on a portable hotspot? Did you get the same probs downloading over a regular wifi connectoin?

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

The first day, when she was just admitted, it worked okay on the hospital wifi. Then they moved her to a different section and it wouldn't. Doctors, patients and visitors were startled by the sight of a tall hairy idiot wandering around the corridors poking furiously at an iPad and muttering to himself. (I did stop short of sitting on what was now someone else's bed because it had worked there before. That might have been a little hard to explain.) And then the hospital wifi dried up, and so on.

It's downloaded things using the portable hot spot before, so I don't know why it should cut up rough now. I'll try it on our home network this evening, if Jan can make do with mine for a while. Then we'll see.

Pain in the whatnots anyway. Thank you for helping me think about it.

[hms42]

Just as a FYI, the iPad 2 can run iOS 8.4.1 which is the current OS. As for not upgrading, I can understand about that.

Just a warning, once you upgrade to 8.4.1, you can not go back down to iOS6

[alun dudek (from livejournal.com)]

I take it from the above that Jan is doing better than she was. Which is at least one bit of good news in amongst all the crap you have been getting.

Send her my love and respects, and tell that she, and you, are in my thoughts (for whatever good/comfort that might do/offer).

Take care.