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

I've read through all the posts.  This has been happening to me too, and started about the time everyone else has noticed it.  I have mainly been seeing it happen on my 2018 MacBook Air.  I don't think it's ever just dropped out while using it, only after it's gone to sleep or has been turned off, but far from every time.  I have not updated the MacOS because of software compatibility issues.  I'm using MacOS 10.14.6.  If there has ever been an update for Safari or a Security Update for this MacOS version I have installed it.

I also use a one year old iMac (Apple Silicone) that has the most recent MacOS fully updated.  I can't specifically recall having to reconnect to my wireless network which is connected but I get the internet from a direct ethernet cable connection to the modem.

One curious thing happened today which led me to finding this thread.  My iPhone 8 using the latest iOS wasn't connected to the internet.  I had just gone to use it after roaming away from my home network.  It wasn't connected when I went to use it, and this wasn't the first time for this device either.  This was a last straw for me having been typing in my network password so many times.  I went to google the problem.  When I woke my MacBook Air, it was connected, I got an alert asking me if I wanted to share my password with another device.  I acknowledged affirmative and right away my iPhone was connected to my network.  I wanted to make note of this because I don't think I saw this comment from anyone else and to me it indicates there is a tie-in with iCloud.

I know this is a thread that if there is a solution hopefully someone has shared that tip.  I was disappointed to get to end of the thread and not find a solution.  I have discovered it's not something imagined or unique to my network.  I also believe Apple does parse information from these threads and hopefully have realized this to be a real problem.  It seems to be wide spread and I couldn't pick out a single OS or age or type of hardware that is singled out.  It does seem to always comeback to keychain and the iCloud.  I won't speculate that these are the cause but they do seem to be related and probably to a most likely much deeper problem, thus the length of time it's taken Apple to fix it.

This also happened to me, and on some of the routers that are only used internally for an internal working network and not connected to an Internet it happened also. Five devices all at once all across all of its Wi-Fi connections. Also, it doesn’t allow me to share the Wi-Fi password or show it like it normally does. Definitely an Apple problem. No updates on Wi-Fi‘s.

I am having the same issue, but only between 3 devices that are always connected and on.

iPhone 12 pro max

iMac late 2013 21.5"

macbook pro 2012 15"

I have 2 more phones that sit around and are not connected or used all the time and 4 more macbooks that are on and off.

My iMac is a work system and has Synergy on it for KVM software over wifi. It will lose that bond as wifi is lost. I have to get my keyboard out and mouse to plug them in and re-enter the wifi password.

On my macbook pro 2012, I have software that fails its internet check and i have to re-enter the software keys to get it working again after connecting it to wifi.

This problem is trash and is really ruining the apple experience for me. I will chew through 15GB of phone data before i notice its not on wifi anymore because its not something i even think to check...

I keep checking this thread every few weeks in the hope that a reliable fix or workaround has been found. This is such a major inconvenience for something that “just worked” until some point earlier this year, especially when you use the same devices in three different locations in the course of an average week.

I have a MacBook Pro running Catalina, iPhone 11 Max Pro running 16.6, and an iPad 5th Gen running 16. All are signed in to the same iCloud account. They all forget wifi passwords if they are not connected to a particular network for a long-ish period. I haven't worked out exactly how long that period is, but in the case of my iPhone it's more than 12 hours and less than 48.

I've also noticed recently that if I put the MacBook to sleep overnight (manually) it forgets the password of the network it is still connected to. This does not happen after a restart or if it goes to sleep on its own, curiously.

If I enter a password on my phone first it will offer to share it with the MacBook when I go to connect that, but it refuses to do so for the iPad.

The fact that Apple devices still do not give an option to show the wifi password while entering it makes this terrible fault even worse. It's awfully tempting to change all these passwords to something super-simple that does not have to be entered with great care. Haven't succumbed to that yet.

I don't think this is the kind of problem where there is ever going to be a fix or workaround on our end. I suspect that its either a problem with apple's icloud software on their own server, that they can find and fix. OR it's something they broke with a software update, so the fix will be a security update for all macos and ios versions, hopefully going wayyyyyy back.

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.

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…

I am having same issue, started in recent weeks / month or so. It affects two different locations (200 miles apart) and 4 different routers, so it must be a fault with Apple devices, not the routers/network.

The same happens for all my Apple devices I’m logged into. All devices forget their WiFI password at the same time. A 2015 MBP, a 2023 MBA, Apple Watch, 3 Apple TVs, 2022 IPad Pro.

I don’t know if this is the same for everyone, but I have multiple wireless networks. One for my Kids and one for the parents. I only lost the password on devices that were actively running on my Kids network, but it was across all Apple device that happened to be on the Kids network. Those on the main/parental network and its password remained intact. I happened to be on my phone (13 pro max) and 2023 MBA and all Apple TV on the kids network at the time since I was adding Apple Watches for my kids to the network, so I happened to be on my Kids network at the time. My iPad, watch, old MBP were on the primary/parental network and were not affected. So somehow for me at least, it seems to have only affected Apple devices on the same wireless network and on the same iCloud account. Also note that even the Apple TVs that were sleeping were affected.

I’m having the exact same issue, my iPhone, iMac and IPad all disconnect from my home wifi and then keep asking me for the password

I have the same problem, and none of these solutions work. It only started about a month ago. I’m surprised this issue isn’t affecting more people. I am confident that it is a problem with keychain.

This is getting ridiculous. Having to type my password every day in 4-5 devices is no fun.

Silence from Apple is very concerning.

Has anybody called Applecare yet?

I wonder if this is more prevalent with hidden WiFi/SSID networks? I am running hidden, just changed it to visible and my Apple TV connected straight away.

Yes, so far that’s worked for me. Your iOS device will remember the password. You’ll just have to enter the password in again for a new device since it’s no longer storing the password in iCloud.