Date: 201309
Location: ZZZ.ARTCC, US
Flight conditions: VMC
Aircraft: Commercial Fixed Wing
Operator: Air Carrier
Operating under: Part 121
Flight plan: IFR
Mission: Passenger
Flight phase: Cruise
ATC / advisory: Center ZZZ
Aircraft component: Tablet
Component problem: Design; Malfunctioning
Reporter organization: Air Carrier
Reporter function: First Officer
Human factors: Human-Machine Interface; Distraction; Communication Breakdown; Workload
Anomaly: No Specific Anomaly Occurred All Types
Detector: Person Flight Crew
When detected: In-flight; Pre-flight
Result: General None Reported / Taken
Contributing factors: Equipment / Tooling; Manuals
Primary problem: Ambiguous

Narrative: During flight I was denied access to the stored company database on my iPad and remained locked out for the remainder of the flight. The message I received was: 'ERROR You have exceeded the maximum number....' Nothing worked in order to regain access to the stored company database. All other applications in the iPad were accessible.Sequence of related events. Sunday - I was able to get online at home prior to my trip and update my stored company database. There were no issues with connectivity at home.Sunday at my crew base while flight planning I attempted unsuccessfully to connect to the domicile WIFI to check something in the stored company database and to update WSI. With multiple attempts I was not able to login to the domicile WIFI. I tried all the normal fixes like 'settings' and 'work online.' I shut down the iPad and restarted. I asked for help from those pilots around me. All to no effect and I was never able to get online while in the domicile. I was able to access the stored company database while in flight on the way down to our foreign airport with no problems.Monday and Tuesday - At the layover hotel in foreign airport; I again attempted to access a wireless network at the hotel with no joy. I again checked the settings and restarted the iPad. At the hotel the iPad showed that it was connected to the hotel wireless; but it would not access any online content. I could not update the stored company database; I could not open any browser pages; and I could not update any email. While at the hotel I was successful in using the wireless access on both my personal laptop computer and iPhone.Tuesday - While enroute to our domicile I was in the stored company database and reading some information when; with no action from me; the stored company database closed and when I tried to reopen it. It would not accept any login information and I continued to get the error message posted at the top of this report. This specific problem should not be happening. The iPad is not ready for use as a standalone document system until its reliability is improved. As a more general complaint; I continue to experience random closing of applications on my iPad. In my experience this occurs at least once per trip when either the stored company database; or WSI; simply closes for no apparent reason while it is being used. I can usually reopen the application and continue what I was doing but it is very annoying and indicative of some type of system instability.




Synopsis: A pilot's company issued iPad was intermittently unable to access some flight critical documents either on the ground or in flight and occasionally shutdown certain applications making the device an unreliable tool.