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Apple Acknowledges Personal Hotspot Issues Affecting Some iOS 13 and iPadOS 13 Users

Brian Y said:
Manual hotspot connections work most of the time for me, but I have never been able to get "Instant Personal Hotspot" to work reliably.
Click to expand...

All the Continuity stuff (Handoff, Personal Hotspot, Watch Mac Unlock, Universal Clipboard, …) started working far more reliably for me a few years ago when I did a (rather annoying) "purge" of sorts by taking each device one by one and logging it out of iCloud then back in.

That shouldn't be necessary and Apple needs to get their stuff together, but… y'know.
 
I just encountered this refusal to connect, but found a workaround:

Turning off Bluetooth on one or both devices so that it's not trying to negotiate the connection via Handoff/Instant Hotspot worked for me. In other words, I connected to it as a regular Wi-Fi personal hotspot with the "Personal Hotspot" setting opened on my phone so that it broadcasts as an available network; the same way I connect to it in Windows.

When done this way, the Network appears like any other Wi-Fi network in the same list as other Wi-Fi networks it can see, not the special privileged status it appears as when Handoff/Continuity is enabled.

It's disappointing that by trying to make things easier, they've made it less reliable. It has long been this way from memory. I don't really need Handoff so I'll just keep Bluetooth off for now.
 
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I had a feeling it was a bug. Had hotspot connection issues for several weeks or longer IIRC. Would have to restart both mac and iphone and then repeatedly turn on and off wireless hotspot and wireless on mac. i rely on hotspot for delivering content and this was a big fail. i was on mojave btw. a workaround was to edit location in wifi but then when i had to connect home i had to change location. i upgraded to catalina recently and the problem stopped.
 
simonmet said:
I just encountered this refusal to connect, but found a workaround:

Turning off Bluetooth on one or both devices so that it's not trying to negotiate the connection via Handoff worked for me. In other words, I connected to it as a regular Wi-Fi personal hotspot with the "Personal Hotspot" setting opened on my phone so that it broadcasts as an available network. In other words, the same way I connect via PC.

When done this way, the Network appears like any other Wi-Fi network in the same list as other networks it can see, not the special privileged status it appears as when Handoff is enabled.

It's disappointing that by trying to make things easier, they've made it less reliable. It has long been this way from memory. I don't really need Handoff so I'll just keep Bluetooth off.
Click to expand...
Thank you. This worked for me right away on my MacBook. It absolutely refuses to connect until I disabled Bluetooth on my phone.
 
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goonie4life9 said:
That's not possible. This is the first time anyone at Apple has ever heard of this issue, and they talk to millions of people a day. Have you tried doing a fresh installation of iOS? ;)
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Several fresh installations on new devices. It's still a hit or miss when I try to tether any of my phones to my MBP (previously the 2017 15" and now the 16")
 
can APPLE get us the downloads for iOS 13.4 and 10.15.4 ASAP?
They are saying the internet is crashing and under strain due to all the people around the world on the internet together
watching movies and streaming games
 
iosuser said:
Thank you. This worked for me right away on my MacBook. It absolutely refuses to connect until I disabled Bluetooth on my phone.
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Glad I could help.

For the record, after connecting this way (the old fashioned way) I tried reenabling Bluetooth and it worked again via Instant Hotspot (which is what Apple calls the easy/quick connect feature). So it works again for now anyway, until it won’t and you have to resort to the traditional method again.

The Instant Hotspot feature is very buggy. Maybe Handoff/Continuity in general.
 
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I'm not sure, but does it also depend on the phone company's network policy? Some still don't allow or at least limit tethering on phones.

Last year, I had no problems with the hotspot mode on the road. With 2 kids in the back using an iPad and a crappy Android tablet watching films or playing games, and one navigation unit (traffic data), my SE's hotspot worked fine. We travelled roughly 2500km through several countries in Europe, switching between providers without noticing much. Yes, in some rural regions the network speed was limited to 3G or even 2G, but it worked for most of the trip.
The only thing I've noticed though is that the iPhone's hotspot seems to hide its SSID when in normal use. And there are lots of wifi devices that do not (re)connect easy with an AP that has a hidden SSID. Our iPad Air has no trouble reconnecting if the hotspot was disabled or out of reach temporarily. Especially when the iPhone's bluetooth was enabled, the iPad reconnects almost immediately. The Android or my navigation however do not reconnect right away. To speed that up I usually have to open up the hotspot setup in iOS to unhide the SSID temporarily. Only then the devices reconnect faster.
 
Two iPhone XS Max's in the house, one has no issues with Hotspotting, mainly iPad 10.5's (2 of those too). However, mine, connects (when it shows up), but if the iPad screen goes to sleep, connection lost, Hot Spot no longer visible. Several attempts switching on/off to get it to show and then 6/10 connection successful. Usually have to connect to the other iPhone that has no issues. Both phones and iPads using the latest software/updates. Frustrating it is.
 
Finally.. the issue is there since October 2019 for me and never got fixed. Apple said for months that it is an issue with the SIM-Card / contract / Provider..

The only way I could use the Hotspot consistently on my Win10 Lenovo was via USB Cable.

Hope they will fix it before iOS14.
 
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I found a reliable tip - if you open the hotspot screen on your phone when you try to connect, your other device will see it. Works every time for me in my Tesla...was flaky without screen open.
 
I use my iphone XS hotspot all the time currently running iOS 13.2

with iPad Air 3 (2019) works flawlessly everytime and never disconnects
with Amazon Firestick very often wont even appear, multiple off/on cycles of hotspot and wifi doesnt resolve sometimes just give up - when connected usually lasts an hour before disconnecting and i start the cycle again!
with Surface Pro 4 - often doesnt appear - cycle hotspot off then on, works 90% of the time but will disconnect after a few hours.
 
My iPhone X will work fine for up to an hour or so with USB then stall and I have to reconnect/airplane mode to get it to *possibly* work again. Sometimes it fails after 10 minutes or less.
 
Nope, still isnt fixed. My Windows 10 Thinkpad does not connect. Im at home most of the time anyways because of corona so it doesnt bother me that much anymore... but still sad that they werent able to fix it.
 
aerric said:
Nope, still isnt fixed. My Windows 10 Thinkpad does not connect. Im at home most of the time anyways because of corona so it doesnt bother me that much anymore... but still sad that they werent able to fix it.
Click to expand...

Have you looked on this page? iOS Hotspot hides its SSID so you need to configure Windows for this.

Of course you can always dump Windows. ;)
 
aerric said:
Nope, still isnt fixed. My Windows 10 Thinkpad does not connect. Im at home most of the time anyways because of corona so it doesnt bother me that much anymore... but still sad that they werent able to fix it.
Click to expand...
Or they are unwilling to fix it. Instead drag the issue long enough so people forgets about it. Hands tied to other stuff so no free time. /sarcasm

The best solution so far is connecting iPhone to windows PC using a cable while personal hotspot enabled. Works for me for over 48 hours uninterrupted. Wifi version would get lucky to stay connected for an hour.
 
Fairly sure i've got the same issue on ios 13.6 updated yesterday - I have an iphone xr with hotspot enabled and pair with friends ipad / iphone on a campsite. They work for so long then drop off, if they go into wifi they cannot see my phone and i have to re-enable the hotspot for it to show again. Strangely if i go on an android device or windows laptop, they do see my hotspot and can connect and work ok. is this the same issues reported here?

I would have hoped it would have been fixed on ios 13.6 by now!

Jamie
 
jamiem1987 said:
Fairly sure i've got the same issue on ios 13.6 updated yesterday - I have an iphone xr with hotspot enabled and pair with friends ipad / iphone on a campsite. They work for so long then drop off, if they go into wifi they cannot see my phone and i have to re-enable the hotspot for it to show again. Strangely if i go on an android device or windows laptop, they do see my hotspot and can connect and work ok. is this the same issues reported here?

I would have hoped it would have been fixed on ios 13.6 by now!

Jamie
Click to expand...
I’ve always had poor experiences with the hot spot feature on iPhones. They’ve always worked better on android devices. I‘ve been able to set up android phones as hotspots and leave them on all day without any disconnects.
 
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