All of my devices forget all wifi passwords about once a week

Starting about a month ago, all of my Apple devices (2019 MacBook Pro with macOS 10.15.7, iPhone 12 Pro Max with iOS 16.4.1, and iPad Pro 2 with iPadOS 15.7.1) forget all wifi passwords. Each time, this happens to all of the devices simultaneously and I have to re-save the passwords on all of the devices again. The devices think they remember the networks, but either forget the password or the passwords are corrupted.


I cannot figure out what is going on or what is causing it. It seems like it might be linked somehow to iCloud or my Apple ID since it happens on all of my devices repeatedly and at the same time. I've found a lot of advice only, but none of it has helped so far.


Has anyone experienced this and know how to fix it? Thank you for the help.

MacBook Pro 16″

Posted on May 4, 2023 10:10 PM

Reply
137 replies

Sep 7, 2023 10:07 AM in response to ianfromquebec city

I have three MacBook Pros "MBP", two running High Sierra, one running Ventura. One of the High Sierra I carry with me to different work locations.


I have multiple iOS devices (iPhones, iPads, iPad Pro), and I carry two iPhone with me to different work locations. All my iOS devices are on the latest iOS (16.6)


I've been having this issue of the various devices forgetting WiFi password since about April or May 2023, around the time I upgraded my iCloud from the free 5G to the paying 2TB plan. But it could also have coincided with an iOS upgrade.


The issue has definitely nothing to do with my MacOS, since I didn't upgrade the MacOS at that time. Though I may have upgraded the Ventura; the High Sierra have been their latest versions.


Even when I don't move my MBP from site to site, after sleep or after restart, they will occasionally forget the password and I have to re-enter the WiFi password.


When I go to my my habitual work or home locations (I am a physician working at 5 different clinic locations), the MBP and the iPhones I carry with me will forget WiFi passwords, such I have to re-enter the password on each device before I can log into the clinic WiFi network. I need to connect to the clinics' network to use their network resources. Since each clinic has their own unique password, it can be quite frustrating.


Since Aug 1, Apple has reached out to me weekly, and I've helped them collect Analytics information from my iOS devices at the different sites - Analytics at the time the WiFi password was forgotten, and Analytics after the WiFi connects. I've sent them over 70 files (screenshots and Analytics) - totalling gigabytes of data. It's been a fairly time consuming process.


If any of you get contacted by Apple, try to collect data to submit to them. It's definitely an iCloud keychain problem, and they need to get to the bottom of this. What is seemingly an annoying problem now, could snowball into something bigger. Let's hope this issue is resolved ASAP.


Sep 8, 2023 2:26 PM in response to ianfromquebec city

Earlier this year? I had this issue with a Catalina iMac, iphone6, iPhone12, iPad Air3 and MacBook Air M2 all with the same ID. My memory isn't the greatest but I remember going through the iCloud and password security panels on each device and comparing them. I noticed that the panels didn't have the same features on each device and being a nurd programmer who knows about revisions, went through every iCloud and security setting on each computer looking for things to turn off and on, resyncing and rebooting with all the devices logged into iCloud.


If I recall doing this to one of them, don't remember which one, permanently effected the panels it could show. I didn't think much of it at the time but haven't had the problem since. I've been meaning to post about this for awhile but keep thinking Apple will figure it out. Maybe this will help.

Sep 13, 2023 4:28 AM in response to malloyca

An additional piece of information here I believe.

I have this issue since several months. Like many I also shared with Apple support my experience. So they are working on it.


A few days ago I was getting back home and my phone switched from 4G to my home wifi … no issue there. Then a few moments later I noticed that my ipad was not connecting to wifi, so the issue with the icloud password was happening.

Since my phone was still connected to the wifi I tried to share the wifi password with ipad (tapping close to ipad) Strangely enough, it never worked although my phone was connected to wifi.


In the end, I tried to deactivated and reactivate the wifi on my phone and this didn t work. As soon as I deactivated the wifi on my phone, it could never reconnect until I re entered the password !! And then sharing with my ipad worked as well.


So what I conclude is that loosing the password can happen any time … even when you are connected, but it doesn’t mean you will be disconnected.

I think when the wifi connection is established the encrypted key (the token) is kept whatever happens to the actual password. Probably the reason I couldn’t share my password at the beginning is that although I had a connection token on my phone, the password was gone already so nothing to share. Strange behavior…

Sep 22, 2023 3:43 PM in response to plasticjesus

Hello Everyone!


Potential solution here!


So while working with Apple Support now for quite some time.. we came across a solution that seems to work (and continues to work for me) and also seems to point to the issue being specifically tied to some corruption spreading to Keychain from some glitch in iOS 16.4. I have done this and have now gone a month without any WiFi disconnects.


Follow these steps EXACTLY:


MAKE SURE EVERY SINGLE APPLE DEVICE you own is updated to whatever highest version of its operating system it will support. So run Software Update on everything. The key is to bypass iOS 16.4.


Then:


  1. In your iCloud settings on EVERY device, turn off Keychain (macOS) and Passwords and Keychain (iPhone / iPad) on ALL of your devices.
  2. Power off / shut down / unplug EVERY SINGLE Apple device you own! And I mean EVERYTHING!
  3. Wait 30 minutes (this is important as it "disconnects" / "shuts down" any latent sessions between your devices and Apple's servers (according to the engineers).
  4. Power on all your devices and go into your iCloud settings and turn on Keychain (macOS) and Passwords and Keychain (iPhone / iPad) from the newest version of the OS to the oldest.


And that should do it! Has worked for me so far.


Post your results to see if anyone else still has issues.


All Best!!

All of my devices forget all wifi passwords about once a week

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.