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iPhone Hotspot keeps disconnecting

iPhone's made hotspot only works steady with Apple computer. As soon as you use it with any other computer, it keeps randomly disconnecting over and over again. No matter if you keep your screen on or off, phone is in low power mode or not, if you have the latest iPhone or not, etc. It is impossible to do any quality work on your laptop using iPhone's hotspot. It has nothing to do with software updates or anything like that as I am always running the latest version of iOS. I have read on the internet so many threads about this. It is something that Apple just refuses to fix for years. Or does that on purpose.. Whatever the case is - it is absolutely not nice, as it resembles the quality of Apple's products and service. So frustrated and disappointed.....


[Re-Titled by Moderator]

iPhone XS Max

Posted on Feb 23, 2023 7:24 AM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Jun 9, 2023 6:41 AM

Someone mentioned in their replies on here, that this could help:

Settings - Personal Hotspot - Maximise Compatibility.


I was excited, as I thought that just maybe Apple has noticed this issue and provided a solution.

Noot!


This feature has shown up recently as it has never been there before. I have turned it on. Still the same problem persists. Not sure what this feature does in that case. Also this feature can be found on my iPhone Xs Max, however, it is not there for my iPhone SE 2016. So this magic toggle button that does nothing is probably made only for iphones that run the newest soft.


So few of my observations to make the hotspot work a little longer than usual:


1) Restart your phone, before using it as a hotspot;

2) DONT use your phone. (if you receive a message, email, any notification, be strong - do not touch your iphone. As the hotspot will be lost in 9 times out of 10)


These are quite a meaningless suggestions. Meaning - it should Just Work without any "just dont breathe" adjustments. Plus - it does not mean that your hotspot will be steady, it just gives you more chance that it wont turn on 10x in 30mins, but maybe just 5x.


For all who wonder:

1) As hotspot is turned on, it is used instantly and non-stop, so it does not turn off just because there is no activity;

2) You can keep your iphone locked or unlocked - it does not matter. It will turn off anyways.

3) It still works perfect with any Apple computers, laptops.


Imgine running your online store and adding new stuff to your store. Imgine picking out and uploading 70 images to your multiple listings.. Imgine noticing, that while images seem to be loading, your internet has been disconnected. Imgine understanding that your images wont be uploaded when you reconnect, so you have to do it all over again. And imgine this happening several times a day.


If you have stumbled upon this threat and have a similar issue, please spare a minute and press the "me too" button, or even better - write your own comment. Even if it will still say "me too". Hopefully that will gain the required attention from Apple and this issue will be fixed with iPhone69 or something..


If Apple thinks that it is most important that the connection is steady within Apple ecosystem so that customers are forced to buy only Apple products.. I dont know about you, but Id rather sell all my Apple products and buy some universally working gadgets instead.

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147 replies

Aug 29, 2023 1:01 AM in response to Kristaps_6000

Whilst I appreciate it's potentially a bit more cumbersome, i'm trying the "wired" approach. Annoyingly you need to have iTunes installed to make the wired approach work. So far i'm having success with it, but would be good to understand if people are still having issues with wired, or is it only "wireless" hotspot.


That said - adding in the incredible frustration at how poor the wireless hotspot has been though. It's another tick in the "Quality of iPhone/Watch noticeably degrading over the past 5 years" box.

Sep 5, 2023 5:25 AM in response to Kristaps_6000

I also tried every single thing that I found on the web - the hotspot on the iPhone 14 pro max is super unreliable. The only way I managed to get is stable was with a cable. But that basically kills the whole convenience factor. I'm not sure if it's due the hardware or the software, but it's been a lot more unreliable with iOS 16.


Hope they can figure out how to resolve it with software.



Oct 31, 2023 7:02 AM in response to Kristaps_6000

It is the same for me when connecting my Win10 laptop wirelessly to the 13 mini, disconnecting radomly every few minutes. But it does work reliably via USB cable. Annoyingly you have to have iTunes installed for this to work (why???).

It works wirelessly with my iPad aswell. In fact, it works so good, that it drains the phone's battery overnight, if I forget to turn off wi-fi on the iPad. So much for disabling the hotspot if there's no traffic ...

Oh, and another one, which does not really belong to this subsection, but anyway ... As of iOS 17, I cannot connect to my car's bluetooth anymore. Yes, it's an old BMW, but still, a month ago the thing was working flawlessly. S#tshow.

Oct 31, 2023 7:15 AM in response to Kristaps_6000

Best Solutions ::


if iphone keep disconnect hotspot mobile internet with window devices, better to connect laptop or other devices once with wifi internet connections (not iphone internet connection or mobile internet connection).


you need to connect iphone & window devices with wifi internet connection once. take your devices to where proper office or home or public wifi connection available then connect both the devices with wifi for some time like an hour.


Sometime you can try connect only your iphone with wifi connection. becuase now a days we are all having unlimited mible internet connection. may be some technical issue or software not updated properly. so connect your iphone with wifi connection when ever available.


Then smoothly it will keep connecting iphone and windows laptop by iphone hotspot mobile internet.

Oct 31, 2023 7:48 AM in response to karuppannan

Best Solutions ::

Option 1,

if iphone keep disconnect hotspot mobile internet with window devices, better to connect laptop or other devices once with wifi internet connections (not iphone/android internet connection or mobile internet connection).

you need to connect iphone & window devices with wifi internet connection once. take your devices to where proper office or home or public wifi connection available then connect both the devices with wifi for some time like an hour.

Option 2:

Sometime you can try connect only your iphone with wifi connection. becuase now a days we are all having unlimited mible internet connection. may be some technical issue or software not updated properly. so connect your iphone on wifi connection when ever available. still this not work follow option 1 steps mentioned above.


Then smoothly it will keep connecting iphone and windows laptop by iphone hotspot mobile internet.

please click helpful icon below if this works..

Oct 31, 2023 7:50 AM in response to shadowSun

Best Solutions ::

Option 1,

if iphone keep disconnect hotspot mobile internet with window devices, better to connect laptop or other devices once with wifi internet connections (not iphone/android internet connection or mobile internet connection).

you need to connect iphone & window devices with wifi internet connection once. take your devices to where proper office or home or public wifi connection available then connect both the devices with wifi for some time like an hour.

Option 2:

Sometime you can try connect only your iphone with wifi connection. becuase now a days we are all having unlimited mible internet connection. may be some technical issue or software not updated properly. so connect your iphone on wifi connection when ever available. still this not work follow option 1 steps mentioned above.


Then smoothly it will keep connecting iphone and windows laptop by iphone hotspot mobile internet.

please click helpful icon below if this works..

Nov 3, 2023 1:41 AM in response to iziizinkosi

Please connect your iPhone with any WiFi once, if not connected for longtime. Once you connected then try. If same keep disconnecting hotspot with window laptop. Do same thing for your windows laptop to connect with wifi once, (not with hotspot through android or iPhone mobile internet.) better to do same, iPhone and windows laptop to connect with same WiFi one time for atleast an hour or less or more. It will resolve the issue. It was my experience.

Nov 16, 2023 7:40 AM in response to Kristaps_6000

Same problem with iPhone 15 after update to 17.1.1, Apple is doing this on purpose, I think they have some kind of setting in a device but we are unable to get through it. The 5G network and data was also disrupted during the call before resetting the network settings. Now it seems to have been fixed, but now also facing some network bandwidth issue and always changing from 5G to 4G to G, don't know why. I have Airtel 5G network with full coverage.


Nov 16, 2023 10:06 AM in response to karuppannan

Thanks for the response, but It is disable by default. Plz suggest me any other option if you have because after the n/w setting reset phone keeps shutting down the hotspot and also i can see there is changes in network bar for a second while hotspot disconnected and then regain the network, it feels like someone hacks my phone and feels like supernatural activities

Nov 17, 2023 9:57 AM in response to SachinMalkar

I also updated to 17.1.1. ... The situation seems to have improved dramatically...


I'm not sure if this is due to Apple's update or my provider (T-Mobile) fixing some issues....


No more unexplained interruptions... Some glitches still do occur on my AppleTV which sometimes "forgets" it's connected to my AppleID for HomeSharing, until I open the iPhone's settings about the personal hotspot, which seems to instantly restore connectivity...


It's currently Voodoo...

Nov 24, 2023 9:28 AM in response to Kristaps_6000

Finally after looking for days how to solve this I can share what worked for me. This is for when iphone was dropping personal hotspot with my pc over cable. I reset the settings of ethernet card on MY PC. Reseting iphone network settings didint work, even factory reset didint help. So I went to the Ethernet connection that my iphone created and I choosed reset network, that more or less wiped all the settings of PC network card and it worked. Hope it will work for you guys.


I can add that for example different iphone was working with my PC but my iphone had that issues. So I think it had to "start over" with fresh settings on PC.

Nov 24, 2023 11:49 AM in response to karuppannan

Thanks karuppannan for reaching out!

That's one of the things that I already tried (and failed), among other things, like "forgetting" networks and re-connecting. Yes, that will help. But only until the next breakdown. Disabling maximum compatibility hasn't helped me, nor has reducing network to 4G.


The only thing I find interesting is that, as soon as I "wake up" my iPhone, and go to settings, and select the settings for "Personal Hotspot" (without tickling any of the settings...), everything turns back to normal. All dependent devices auto-re-connect... Second iPhone, iPad, AppleTV, an HP Laptop on Windows...


I'm anything but an expert, but I put the blame on iOS...

iPhone Hotspot keeps disconnecting

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