iPad Not Connecting to iPhone Personal Hotspot

Hi there!

I have a iPhone 15 Plus running iOS 17.5.1. I also have a 6th Generation iPad running 17.5.1 as well.

The iPad cannot complete a connection to my Personal Hotspot on my iPhone.

The iPhone appears as a WiFi option on iPad. When I try to click on it, the iPhone (called “iPhone 15 Plus”) moves up to an active connection but has a spinning ‘in progress’ wheel to the left of the iPhone name. It also shows it in “Low Power Mode”.

Sometimes it will come back with a “Unable to connect to iPhone” pop up error message. Other times it will linger for minutes in the same state (not being able to connect but attempting to, as described above). Less often are when there is no error message and the connection just disappears.

For reference:

• both the iPhone and iPad in this instance have had their networks reset via “general-reset-reset-reset network settings”. Both have successfully reconnected to my home WiFi afterwards (by resubmitting the network password)
• auto-join hotspot is “ask to join” on the ipad
• when the iPad is attempting to connect, it seems to be given an IP address automatically and I can see the subnet address as well.
• disabliny “low power mode” on the iPad for the iPhone connection doesn’t seem to change anything.
• The personal hotspot on my iPhone has “Allow others to join” enabled. It also has a password that the iPad has asked for before attempting to connect to the personal hotspot.
• Family Sharing is on, set to automatic for the Hotspot.
• Maximize compatibility is on.

finally, the iPhone and the iPad can establish a Bluetooth connection to each other and can connect successfully. But no internet for the iPad when this is done.

any ideas?

thanks in advance for any time you take to provide an answer.