Help an iPad find better Internet connection

Q We have two PCs and two iPads, but only my iPad 2 is having trouble doing Internet searches and playing streaming videos.

I get error messages that say Apple’s Safari Web browser can’t find the server or that there’s a “playback error” on a video. Sometimes a download continues indefinitely.

I’ve tried deleting unused apps and old email, deleting and then reinstalling apps, clearing the Safari browser cache memory, switching airplane mode on and off, updating the iOS operating system and shutting down and restarting the iPad, but nothing solves the problem for long.

What should I do?

Your iPad doesn’t have a good Internet connection, and there are several potential causes.

In case you’re not getting a strong cellular or Wi-Fi signal, move closer to a window or a Wi-Fi router.

If that’s not the problem, check whether your iPad is linking to your Wi-Fi router properly. To do that, disconnect the iPad from your Wi-Fi network (the network will then revert to the iPad’s list of available hot spots). Go to Settings, then Wi-Fi, then click the circled blue letter “i” to the right of your Wi-Fi hot spot. Then choose “forget this network.” Now select and sign into your network again and see if your iPad’s Internet service is working correctly.

If that doesn’t work, try resetting all the iPad’s network connections. Go to Settings, click General and choose Reset. Then click “reset network settings.”

If that still doesn’t work, it’s possible that your Internet connection is being interrupted by a quirk in the Safari Web browser. The browser sometimes has trouble exchanging information with the Internet’s Domain Name Servers (DNS), which are the computers that convert the English language Web addresses we use into the IP (Internet protocol) numerical addresses that the Internet utilizes.

To fix that, you need to change the DNS server to which Safari connects. Go to Settings, click Wi-Fi and click the circled blue “i” next to the name of your Wi-Fi network. Find DNS in the list and erase the settings to the right of it. Now type in 208.67.222.222 (the IP address of a server operated by OpenDNS, a unit of Cisco Systems) or 8.8.8.8 (the address of a server operated by Google Public DNS). Safari should work properly with either of those servers.

My iPad 2 and iPhone 6 access email accounts from Gmail and cox.net (run by Cox Communications). But several years of “sent” emails appear to be missing from both mobile devices. I’ve started sending copies of my “sent” emails to my inbox so they won’t be lost. What’s wrong?

You haven’t lost your “sent” email; it just isn’t where you expected it to be. Your email archives, including “sent” messages, remain on the Gmail and cox.net mail servers. Any “sent” email that predates your iPad and iPhone probably wasn’t sent to those mobile devices because you didn’t specifically request it. To download earlier “sent” email to your mobile devices, go to the “sent” mailbox, put your finger on the first message, swipe downward and release.

This story was originally published May 27, 2016 at 1:49 PM with the headline "Help an iPad find better Internet connection."