iOS 13 Personal Hotspot VPN Passthrough Bug

Using my iPhone 8 Plus running iOS 13.2.3, I am unable to connect to my work VPN using the iPhone personal hotspot. This was not an issue on iOS 12 or iOS 11. There have been no changes to the work VPN. I can confirm this by using my wife's iPhone 6 running iOS 11 and personal hotspot allows the VPN connection. I have tried personal hotspot using USB, Wifi and Bluetooth but no success. All other functions of personal hotspot appear to be fine - it's just that the phone is blocking the VPN passthrough. For clarity, I am not referring to the actual iPhone creating the VPN, I am referring to my Windows 10 Pro laptop creating the VPN when my iPhone is simply being used for personal hotspot.


I have tried "Reset Network Settings" and "Reset Location & Privacy" on my phone but to no avail.


My colleague has also tried his iPhone X running iOS 13.2.3 on his Windows 10 surface pro and he has the exact same issue.


We are using a Cisco Meraki VPN - Layer 2 Tunnelling Protocol with IPsec (L2TP/IPsec). Setup instructions provided by Meraki can be found here: https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Client_VPN/Client_VPN_OS_Configuration#Windows_10


If I use any other form of internet connectivity other than my iPhone, the VPN works perfectly well. The common denominator is iOS 13.

iPhone 8 Plus

Posted on Dec 9, 2019 6:05 PM

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Posted on Dec 9, 2019 6:43 PM

My colleague just found the answer: disable IPv6! In Windows, go to the adapter properties for the network connection (not the VPN connection), i.e. "Apple Mobile Device Ethernet" and uncheck IPv6. Test now.


You *may* need to also uncheck IPv6 under the VPN properties (in the "Networking" tab).


Seems there is an issue with iOS 13 where a server can be pinged or on IPv6 but then iOS 13 doens't fall back to IPv4 if the connection doesn't go all the way through...

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 9, 2019 6:43 PM in response to fotoruss

My colleague just found the answer: disable IPv6! In Windows, go to the adapter properties for the network connection (not the VPN connection), i.e. "Apple Mobile Device Ethernet" and uncheck IPv6. Test now.


You *may* need to also uncheck IPv6 under the VPN properties (in the "Networking" tab).


Seems there is an issue with iOS 13 where a server can be pinged or on IPv6 but then iOS 13 doens't fall back to IPv4 if the connection doesn't go all the way through...

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iOS 13 Personal Hotspot VPN Passthrough Bug

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