Personal Hot Spot
My iPhone Personal Hotspot is not connecting on my pC laptop. any tricks?
iPhone 13 Pro Max, iOS 15
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The Apple Support Community will permanently close on November 20, 2026. Starting today, the site will no longer accept new posts and is available in a read-only state.
You can continue to find trusted guidance and support on the official Apple Support site.
We want to thank the community members who have contributed their time and expertise to help others with their Apple products.
My iPhone Personal Hotspot is not connecting on my pC laptop. any tricks?
iPhone 13 Pro Max, iOS 15
If you have a VPN on your iPhone, turn it off, turn on the iPhone hotspot and see if your pc will now connect. I had the same problem. I tried everything I found on the internet for a fix, plus multiple calls to Apple and AT&T (my carrier). Somewhere along the line with upgrading the add on VPN was stopping the iPhone hotspot from connecting to the internet. My pc would show "connected, secure, no internet.
If you have a VPN on your iPhone, turn it off, turn on the iPhone hotspot and see if your pc will now connect. I had the same problem. I tried everything I found on the internet for a fix, plus multiple calls to Apple and AT&T (my carrier). Somewhere along the line with upgrading the add on VPN was stopping the iPhone hotspot from connecting to the internet. My pc would show "connected, secure, no internet.
Do you have other devices that are connecting to the same hotspot?
OGJOHNMEYER wrote:
My iPhone Personal Hotspot is not connecting on my pC laptop. any tricks?
Hot spot is a carrier specific feature, if your plan has hot spot capability...
How to set up a Personal Hotspot on your iPhone or iPad
I use iPhone as a hotspot for my Windows PC daily and found it takes many resets and toggling on/off for both iPhone hotspot and PC's wifi before the PC can see the hotspot in the list of wifi networks. Sometimes I just have to walk away in frustration for 20 minutes or so and then come back and try again. There seems problem in the iPhone or its OS since the PC sees all other wifi spots without fail every single time.
My plan does have a hot spot feature.
But it's very flaky. Sometimes my laptop will connect right away, though rarely, other times I have to shutdown and restart my phone to get it to connect.
The name of the phone doesn't show on the list of networks, so it's more than a hot spot issue, I guess.
Personal Hot Spot