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iOS Apps Cannot Use Cellular / Mobile Data (3G/4G LTE) After iOS 9 Upgrade


ios-9-problems

After upgrading your iPhone / iPad to iOS 9, it’s impossible to enable (or disable) the mobile data (cellular data in the US) switch. This means you cannot connect or access iOS apps over the 2G, 3G, 4G LTE network.

This is a known issue visible on devices running iOS 9.0 firmware.


Ale on Twitter (link) notified us of this issue. If you pick up your Apple iPhone or iPad, go to the Settings -> Mobile Data (or Settings -> Cellular if you are in the US), you will notice:

  • Apps that are using mobile data (with the switch green in color)
  • Apps that are not using mobile data (with the switch white in color)

Say that you have activated two apps to use mobile data on your iPhone / iPad devices that were running on iOS 8 firmware. Then, after upgrading to iOS 9, only these two apps can consume data over 2G/3G/4G LTE.

Other iOS apps cannot use mobile data. You cannot toggle the switch as it is stuck and frozen despite swiping left and right – and therefore all your third-party and native iOS apps do not have access to the Internet.

ios-9-cellular-data

“Mobile Data” switches are broken. Pic credit: Ale.

We have talked to an iOS developer to find out the reason behind this, but it is one of those weird issues with no specific answer. Even Apple hasn’t openly acknowledged this cellular issue yet.

Twitter users, on the other hand, are frustrated, calling iOS 9 “stupid” and hating Apple for causing this trouble with the cellular data switch.

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When users found out that iOS apps cannot use cellular data. Pic credit: Twitter.

What’s worse? Even after updating to iOS 9.0.1, which Apple released on September 23rd to fix all kinds of issue, the cellular toggling issue remains as it is.

On the Apple forum, there’s an ongoing discussion with over 7 pages from users who are frustrated and waiting for a quick fix. Because, ultimately, we are talking about accessing the Internet – using various iOS apps like WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Gmail, etc.

Post from the Apple forum (link):

-> Since I’m careful with roaming charges, I disabled most of the apps from the mobile data setting page before I left, so I could read mail abroad without using a lot of data in the background.

After upgrading to iOS 9, I can’t seem to enable mobile data for any new apps.

Is there any way to fix this problem?

Despite talking to many other users facing this issue, we conclude that a permanent fix doesn’t exist yet – you can try resetting the network settings, reinstalling iOS 9, or even do a hard reset – nothing brings the mobile data’s switch back to life.

For now, a temporary solution is to downgrade from iOS 9 to iOS 8 firmware to make the mobile data button usable once again.

Or you can wait for the next iOS update (although if you can’t live without 3G/4G LTE anymore, then downgrading is a better choice).

Update September 26th, 12:30 AM: We have now published a complete guide to fix cellular data issue. Note that this is a generic guide – that does not fix the problem right away, and we are relying on your responses to get the “ultimate” solution. Read the post here: