How do I fix connection drop when Mirroring iPhone to MacBook Air?

I was having this exact same issue and couldn’t find a single solution. Every fix I came across was for iPhones that wouldn’t connect at all, but like you, mine was connecting for 1-2 seconds before disconnecting with the “Connection Interrupted” message.

After weeks of troubleshooting — restarting all my devices, force restarting, disconnecting and reconnecting, forgetting iPhone on Mac iPhone Mirroring app (and vice versa), tweaking every single network and Wi-Fi setting imaginable, contacting IT about router settings (I’m on campus Wi-Fi), reaching out to Apple Support on three separate occassions, logging in and out of iCloud on both devices, manually changing DNS settings (even though I had no idea what I was doing), deleting VPNs and proxies, and even spending 5+ hours reinstalling macOS Sequoia in recovery mode which an AppleCare advisor suggested — I was completely stuck.

Finally, a senior AppleCare advisor (shoutout Tim!) helped me realize the solution was so much simpler than expected:

Change the Private Wi-Fi Address setting from “Fixed” to “Rotating” on both your Mac and iPhone.

Apparently, on some public networks, the default setting is “Fixed” for security reasons, but iPhone mirroring requires it to be “Rotating” to work properly. Here’s how to change it:

1. Open Settings on both your iPhone and Mac.

2. Go to Wi-Fi.

3. Tap the (i) icon next to your Wi-Fi network on iPhone / click Details next to your Wi-Fi network on Mac.

4. Find Private Wi-Fi Address with a dropdown menu next to it.

5. If it says Fixed, change it to Rotating. (If it’s already set to Rotating, unfortunately, this might not be your fix.)

6. Restart both your iPhone and Mac.

7. Enjoy seamless iPhone mirroring!

I totally understand how frustrating this issue is, so I really hope this helps someone who’s been struggling as much as I was! Let me know if this works for you!

The jesor_ solution is correct, thank you! I compared the settings in two modems. By one the iphone mirroring worked, and with the other didn't work. The only difference was in the Wi-Fi Channel number. Only in certain channels it works. For me, in the 2.4GHz frequency, only Wifi-Channel 6 works, and in 5GHz frequency it worked only when I set the IEEE802.11 Mode on 802.11n and the Wifi-Channel on W52.

I recently had issues with connection interrupted on my Mac mini M4 & iPhone 16 Pro Max after updating the OS to 18.2 on the iPhone and 15.2 on MAC OS. On top of this, I recently updated my network settings to enable firewall. I disabled the SW firewall under my network settings, but the issue still occurred.

To remedy the issue of "Connection Interrupted", I did the following.

1. Disable the firewall under the network settings
2. Reboot both the Mac mini M4 and the iPhone 16 Pro Max

Apparently there are a few issues, one that the SW firewall will not disable without a reboot. Another issue would be is that once the SW firewall is enabled, the OS cannot discern trusted connections in its firewall. This may not be the solution for all users, but for me this appears to work for now.

The jesor_ solution gave me good hint -> wireless configuration.

I am using Shaw/Rogers modem with Wifi-6 capability. Both my iPhone and Mac are using 6Ghz band, and the mirroring interrupts every 6 seconds. Then I turned off the 6G band, making both devices connect to 5G band, and the issue is gone.

Not only this is fixed, the continuity camera in wireless mode is working smoothly too between the 2 devices. With 6G band it was almost unusable.

sagiv257 wrote:

you really think it boils down to somthing my company is running in the background? i mean i had used it yesterday, in the office, for a full day it was working perfectly.

Were you in the office when it wasn't working?

so is there anything i can do to escalate it? can i open a support case to Apple? do i need to ask the IT team to open the support case on behaf of the company? where do i go from here?

Apple's going to be a dead end. Your IT team is your point of contact. The problem here is that managed computers typically have custom configuration and software installed that we don't have. Some of the things that we would suggest trying, like removing antivirus, you can't do.

The firewall is a configuration setting that seems to be causing lots of problems. Since it is turned off by default, and is known to be majorly buggy, that's the first thing to test. Another problem that people are reporting is the new setting for "rotate Wi-Fi address" in Sequoia. I don't think that would be a problem in your case since you said you aren't using a VPN and you turned off the firewall. But who knows? That's the problem with IT managed devices, best I can do is give you suggestions you can't try, and make random guesses that don't seem like they would help.

I forcibly closed the iPhone mirroring app and reopened it, and it started working again. Clearly, it’s a bug that Apple isn’t paying much attention to.

Thanks for your response. Disabling the VPN did the trick!

+1 Turn off VPN on your MacBook if it's switched on, and it will work immediately. I think it's bonkers and doesn't apply with Apple's policy to be privacy friendly. Now Apple's gone the China way. No way José in San Jose this gels with me. Work out a policy consistently or I will drop your MacBook as Joe Rogan and Adam Curry did.

Make sure you aren't using a VPN and you have all firewalls and other "security" apps disabled.

I have the same problem, the temporary solution was to modify the wireless configuration of my router by manually changing the 5GHz channel to something other than automatic.

Same here. Turned off VPN and iPhone connected immediately.

I turned off VPN and it works flawlessly

update: two things had worked for me in resolving this issue, you could try either one of them:

1: switching off icloud private relay.

2: disconnecting my mac from the network (not switching off wifi but disconnecting from the wifi network).

they're not exactly solutions yes, but temporary fixes you could try.

really wish apple would comment on this issue

Can confirm, the solution posted by jesor_ (splitting 2.4 ghz / 5 ghz / 6 ghz bands into other networks worked for me.

oh and another update: weirdly when i leave my iPhone right next to my MacBook, on the right-hand side, iPhone mirroring works flawlessly, moment I keep it in my pocket or even 6 inches away from the MacBook I get that annoying "connection was interrupted dialog".