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Morac

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Dec 30, 2009
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676
Apple Support had me Reset Network Settings on my iPhone 12 Pro Max running 15.0.1. After doing so I went to join my local network and was prompted for my password. I also have a MacBook Air and iPad Pro and they were still connected to said network, so I would have expected the WiFi password to come over via iCloud Keychain, but it did not. I then joined another network and again was prompted for the WiFi password. I even tried moving my iPhone near my iPad and Mac and wasn't asked to transfer the password over.

I checked my Mac's advanced network settings and I can see that the all my preferred networks are there.

I tested iCloud Keychain, by adding and removing some passwords and they synced over to my iPhone so iCloud Keychain is working.

Any idea how long it should take to sync the WiFi networks over to my iPhone and is there any way to check if they are there?
 
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scfrazer2019

macrumors newbie
Jul 5, 2019
29
20
Apple Support had me Reset Network Settings on my iPhone 12 Pro Max running 15.0.1. After doing so I went to join my local network and was prompted for my password. I also have a MacBook Air and iPad Pro and they were still connected to said network, so I would have expected the WiFi password to come over via iCloud Keychain, but it did not. I then joined another network and again was prompted for the WiFi password. I even tried moving my iPhone near my iPad and Mac and wasn't asked to transfer the password over.

I checked my Mac's advanced network settings and I can see that the all my preferred networks are there.

I tested iCloud Keychain, by adding and removing some passwords and they synced over to my iPhone so iCloud Keychain is working.

Any idea how long it should take to sync the WiFi networks over to my iPhone and is there any way to check if they are there?
I have been having issues with xfinity hotspots, so I just reset network settings. First off, my connection to sites is instantaneous now. Glad I did the reset.

what I noticed when trying to join my wifi, if you click in the password as if you were going to paste, a little thing that looks like a scanner pops up. If you click it, it tells you to move close to another iPhone, iPad or Mac to get password. Try that.
 

BigBlur

macrumors 6502a
Jul 9, 2021
804
936
I could be mistaken, but I believe reset network settings removes all the remembered Wi-Fi networks from your keychain. At least that has been my experience. Do your Wi-Fi networks show up in the Keychain Access app on the Mac? (Can search “AirPort network password” to see them all.) If not, the only way to get them back into keychain and syncing to all your devices is by re-joining the Wi-Fi networks again.

The method you used by checking the Mac’s advanced network settings only shows the networks that are remembered locally or were pulled down from keychain. I don’t think they’ll sync back into keychain (and to your phone) until you remove and re-join them again, or re-join using the phone.
 

Morac

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Dec 30, 2009
2,296
676
Yes they are still showing up in the Keychain airport passwords.

There appears to be a bug in Big Sur though as my iCloud chain was showing as empty despite having stuff in it. At some point “Keychain Access” started to crash every time I opened it until I deleted the GUID folder in the Keychains folder. After that and rebooting I could see the iCloud stuff including the airport passwords. Keychain still sometimes shows iCloud as empty or closes itself, so I’m wary of using it in Big Sur.
 

papbot

macrumors 68020
May 19, 2015
2,297
1,076
In the past resetting network settings would knock all your devices off WiFi networks. Several months back an Apple support rep wanted me to that on my phone and I mentioned this to him and he said it now only affects the one device, my phone. He was right, I only had to rejoin my network on the phone, all my other devices were left untouched. Makes it less of a pain to try - even though it rarely accomplishes anything unless you’re having problems with your cell network.
 

Morac

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Dec 30, 2009
2,296
676
Yeah that was changed a year or two ago, though normally once you join your network all your Wifi passwords come back. Maybe it takes awhile though.

Resetting the network isn’t exactly painless though as it does a number of things including:

1. Changing the name of the device.
2. Disabling Wifi calling (for phone it also disables it on other devices).
3. Turns off personal requests on HomePod.

I also think it broke Bonjour on my iPhone. Prior to doing the reset I would see my iPhone broadcasting a “companion-link” service and name over mDNS. Now it doesn’t broadcast anything. All my other Apple devices: Mac, iPad, HomePod and Apple TV, still broadcast that. I’m not sure what it does. I’ve read it’s related to Air Play 2, but it doesn’t seem to have broken any features. Still I don’t like when things suddenly behave differently.
 

Morac

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Dec 30, 2009
2,296
676
Sorry to bump this thread, but I did another reset network settings on iOS 15.6 because of cellular issues and I think I know what happens with the passwords.

First resetting doesn‘t disable personal requests on HomePod or at least I didn’t need to re-enable it this time.

Second, according to Keychain on my Mac, all network Wi-Fi passwords were deleted from iCloud Keychain, but it appears that devices make a local copy of iCloud Wi-Fi passwords in the system keychain. What that means is other devices on your iCloud account won’t lose their Wi-Fi passwords if you reset network settings on a device, but newly devices won’t get passwords until manually re-enter the password on one of your other devices. In my case the only Wi-Fi passwords that showed up in iCloud Keychain were the ones I re-entered on my iPhone.
 
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