WiFi networks auto-delete or lose saved passwords from both iPhone and MacBook Pro

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Level 1

6 points

WiFi networks auto-delete or lose saved passwords from both iPhone and MacBook Pro

Last year I moved to Sweden from USA, and this year I finally got around to changing my iPhone's carrier to a Swedish one. I have no idea if that is related, but I began noticing this issue roughly around that time, though I can't say for sure.

Both my iPhone (2nd gen SE latest iOS 16.4.1) and my MacBook Pro (2015 retina, Monterey 12.6.5) started forgetting WiFi networks or losing passwords to WiFi networks everywhere I go. As in, I come home from work or something like that, go to use my laptop, and I have to either 1) re-find my WiFi router's name and re-enter the password or 2) the name is saved but I have to re-enter the password. Ditto for my iPhone. It's not router specific, place specific, or device specific. Both my iPhone and MBP lose saved WiFi routers (if I go into networks, they're gone, it's a blank list as if I've never connected to a network on the device) at home, at my girlfriend's place, at work. The list of networks my MBP had from years of use is gone.

Not sure if this is related, but I always have to re-verify my browser to log on to my Apple account as well, even though I'm using the same browser from the same place each time.

It's like my phone and laptop both just lost the feature whereby they save networks and/or passwords. If it just happened to my iPhone after switching to a different SIM card, that would at least make sense (though I would still need help fixing it). But this makes no sense to me.

Thanks for any help!

iPhone SE (2nd generation)

Posted on Apr 24, 2023 10:44 AM

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Answer 1

Ben_Z1

Community Specialist

Apr 26, 2023 10:51 AM in response to geniusbits

Hello geniusbits,

If you are having issues with saved Wi-Fi passwords on multiple devices, let's first use the following articles to check if the passwords are being saved on each device:

• Find your saved Wi-Fi passwords on iPhone or iPad - Apple Support

• If you need help with your Wi‑Fi password - Apple Support

If your devices are saving the Wi-Fi passwords as expected and this continues to occur, please provide more details about when this happens so that we can further isolate this issue.

Cheers!

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Answer 2

geniusbits Author

Level 1

6 points

Apr 27, 2023 12:38 AM in response to Ben_Z1

My devices save the passwords until they don't. That is to say that for some amount of time, a network I've connected to will be saved on either my iPhone or MBP, but a day or a few days later the device will ask either for the password again or completely forgot the network. I'm attaching a picture of my MBP WiFi networks in settings (I don't know how to find all of my networks in my iPhone, but it has the same problem), there used to be dozens or hundreds of networks there. Now, it's just my work, my apartment, and my iPhone (which never goes away). My girlfriend's apartment WiFi network, which I connected to last on Sunday or so, is gone. Every network I add, including work or my own apartment, periodically disappears in a way that has never happened in the many years I've had MBPs.

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Answer 3

UTBadger

Community Specialist

Apr 27, 2023 7:17 AM in response to geniusbits

Hey geniusbits,

Thanks for all the details you’ve provided. Since everything is set up properly to remember these networks, the best thing to do from here would be to reach out to Apple for further support as this would be unexpected behavior based on the settings you have enabled. They can be reached for support using this link: Get Support

Take care!

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Answer 4

geniusbits Author

Level 1

6 points

May 3, 2023 3:08 AM in response to UTBadger

Hi, this link doesn't seem to have an option for when you have a problem with two devices. That's the weird thing, is that both of my Apple devices are doing the same thing with forgetting WiFi networks and passwords

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Answer 5

UTBadger

Community Specialist

May 3, 2023 8:01 AM in response to geniusbits

Hey geniusbits,

You can’t start a case with two devices at the same time. Just set one up with one of your devices affected and let the advisor you speak with also know that your other device is also impacted by this behavior.

Take care!

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Answer 6

mr.udav

Level 1

0 points

May 15, 2023 12:26 AM in response to geniusbits

I have the same issue started since I've updated iOS on my iPhone to 16.4.1.

Looks like keychain could not save the same WiFi password from Macbook and Iphone. I have several networks that i'm using from macbook only and they are ok, but networks that I use from iPhone and macbook always forget passwords...

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Answer 7

geniusbits Author

Level 1

6 points

May 15, 2023 12:37 AM in response to mr.udav

Yes that seems to be what it is, although I didn't try using just MacBook on any of these networks. I cycled iCloud off and on (which was a pain, I had to switch credit cards on Apple Pay Wallet because the one I had on there wouldn't let me re-authenticate outside of America), and then turned off keychain, and since then both devices have been saving networks and passwords as normal.

This is very annoying because I never chose to use iCloud keychain, it was an automatic thing. I try to keep everything I can locally saved and not on the cloud, and they just default you onto these cloud services then when the service messed up and ruins how your device works, there's no help for it.

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Answer 8

ron2you

Level 1

8 points

Jun 6, 2023 9:40 AM in response to mr.udav

I am having same issues.. wifi password randomly disappears from saved wifi passwords on different apple devices (laptop, phone, ipad, mini..).. it is a new development.. maybe related to upgrading to 16.4.1 but not sure.. and happens very randomly.. can't correlate to any particular activity.. e.g. just 15 min ago lost wifi at home and to rejoin it asked for the wifi password again.. something definitely is broken with keychain sync via icloud.. now, how to fix this ?

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Answer 9

geniusbits Author

Level 1

6 points

Jun 6, 2023 2:17 PM in response to ron2you

My solution was to turn off iCloud keychain on both devices (MacBook Pro and iPhone). Ever since I did that and went through adding WiFi networks to both, I haven't seen any of them or their passwords deleted. It's some sort of issue within the keychain iCloud function.

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Answer 10

Jun 11, 2023 9:19 AM in response to geniusbits

If you have iCloud Keychain enabled if any password is deleted from one device it will be removed from all devices. One likely explanation is that you share a Wi-Fi network with others, and one of them deleted a Wi-Fi password.

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Answer 11

geniusbits Author

Level 1

6 points

Jun 11, 2023 11:50 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

I can tell you that I don't share my home WiFi network with anyone else, and yet every couple of days the passwords or networks would be deleted from my iPhone, MBP, or both. Same with my gf's apartment, and I can guarantee you that she wasn't deleting the passwords from her devices every other day.

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Answer 12

ron2you

Level 1

8 points

Jun 12, 2023 1:06 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

yup, same.. don't share my icloud for someone else to delete.. and yes it worked fine for years.. had all kinds of wifi passwords stored.. now I pull it up and there are maybe 10 on my laptop.. some that I've had to re-add over and over.. like they keep disappearing.. and yet on my phone I see ~50 or more.. clearly icloud isn't correctly syncing things anymore and in fact occasionally deleting things too..

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Answer 13

Jun 26, 2023 9:34 AM in response to geniusbits

Yup, happened to me last week when I started setting up a new laptop last week. Suddenly some wifi passwords disappeared from all of my iCloud Keychain devices. Not just that, but the keychain entries that were just on the System (not iCloud) keychains for those devices also disappeared. Happened to my existing laptop and iPhone. So I manually put them all back in, and had to copy the ones that only existed on the System keychain over to the iCloud Keychain. Now, a few days later, it happened again. The keychain entries for the wifi networks that I currently use have disappeared for a second time.

There's definitely some bug happening.

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Answer 14

geniusbits Author

Level 1

6 points

Jun 27, 2023 12:40 AM in response to PieNotCake

After this going on for a couple of months for me, I found the only way to "fix" it is to turn off keychain completely and manually enter all WiFi networks on both devices.

Luckily for me, I never wanted to use keychain anyway, it must have been turned on automatically at some point. It never annoyed me to have to manually enter networks and passwords, but having to enter them EVERY OTHER DAY for no reason at all due to some stupid bug in a feature I didn't even turn on myself, now THAT was annoying. I've very tired of these "improvements" to user experience constantly backfiring and making things worse than before, even when you don't choose to use them they still default you into it half the time.

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Answer 15

ron2you

Level 1

8 points

Jun 6, 2023 5:54 PM in response to geniusbits

but that defeats the whole purpose in being able to use iCloud Keychain and only have to enter it once on any device with same iCloud login..

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WiFi networks auto-delete or lose saved passwords from both iPhone and MacBook Pro

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