iPhone 16 Hotspot Not Working With iMac 2020

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Level 1

8 points

iPhone 16 Hotspot Not Working With iMac 2020

I can connect my iPad Pro to my iPhone 16 using Personal Hotspot, both are OS 26. The iPad gets access to the internet via the iPhone 16's Personal Hotspot.

However I can't connect my iMac OS 26 to my iPhone 16 Personal Hotspot, the WiFi makes the contact and shows as being connected, but data does not flow, unlike the the iPad that works fine,

On the iMac the iPhoneA Hotspot is shown as a hidden network, it is worth noting that on the iPad the Hotspot is not shown as being a "hidden network", below is a screen dump of the iMac WiFi connection.

I've tried just about everything to sort this problem out, all to no avail.

I use terminal with the ping command to verify if there is any data exchange.

iMac 27″, macOS 26.3

Posted on Dec 21, 2025 7:53 AM

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Answer 1

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,904 points

Dec 21, 2025 10:39 AM in response to DougFo

We don't know what has been installed on the iMac so to help us see if there is a problem such as third party:

Antivirus
Cleaning
Security
VPN
Maintenance

apps that are installed please do the following.

It will help us get a good idea of what is causing your problem if you provide a report of your system, that way we do not have to play 20 questions with you. The report we are requesting does NOT provide any personal information and is extremely safe to use. Please navigate to www.Etrecheck.com and download the free version of EtreCheck. Once you have you downloaded the app and installed it, please run the report and save it. This report will help us get a good idea what has been installed on your system and help us be able to diagnose what may be wrong.

When you have your report, you can attach it when you reply to this message and we can then review it and help you determine what is needed to get your system running well again.

For instructions on how to download your EtreCheck report and attach it to your reply to this message please click How to use the Add Text Feature When Post… - Apple Community It is helpful to us if you download the report to your Desktop.

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Answer 2

DougFo Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 22, 2025 5:23 AM in response to rkaufmann87

Hi rkaufmann87

ChatGPT sorted the problem for me, here's what it advised me to do.

The single most important red flag 🚩

⚠️ Network interface explosion

This is the standout issue in the entire report:


Interface en49: Mobilebroadband 28
Interface en50: Mobilebroadband
Interface en51: Mobilebroadband 29
...
Interface en86: iPhone USB

You have dozens of stale / ghost MobileBroadband interfaces.

That is not normal.

On a healthy Mac you’d expect:

en0 → Ethernet
en1 → Wi-Fi
maybe 1–2 extra interfaces (Thunderbolt bridge, USB tether)

You have 40+ mobile broadband interfaces.

This strongly suggests:

Repeated creation of iPhone / USB / hotspot network services
macOS never properly cleaning them up
Routing confusion when the iPhone hotspot appears

This perfectly explains your symptom:

Wi-Fi connects but no packets flow

Because:

macOS connects
But routes traffic to the wrong interface
Your ping goes nowhere

Your iPad works because iPadOS has a simpler, cleaner network stack and no legacy interfaces.

Likely root cause (in plain English)

Your iMac’s network service database is polluted with legacy mobile interfaces, causing incorrect routing when an iPhone hotspot is present.

This is very consistent with:

Intel Macs
Long-lived systems
Multiple iOS versions
USB + Wi-Fi hotspot use over time
macOS 26.x (Tahoe) being new and buggy

You’ve basically hit an edge case Apple hasn’t cleaned up properly.

What I recommend doing (safe + reversible)

Step 1 — Reset network services (the clean way)

This is the key fix.

System Settings → Network
Click the three dots / … → Edit Locations
Create a new location (e.g. Clean)
Switch to it
Restart the Mac
Re-add only:

- Wi-Fi
- Ethernet (if used)

Then:

Reconnect to iPhone hotspot
Test ping again

This forces macOS to rebuild routing tables without legacy cruft.

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Answer 3

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,904 points

Dec 22, 2025 9:07 AM in response to DougFo

I am pleased you figured it out on your own, however you should know the EtreCheck report found a large number of problems. I will list some of them, not necessarily in order.

First is there is no backup of the computer. This is a serious issue, it means if something happens to the storage then will have lost ALL of your data. DO NOT think that Cloud storage is backup, it is NOT, it is simply a method for you to access your data on multiple devices. At the very least you should be using Time Machine to backup. THIS IS CRITICAL!!!

You have a large variety of external HDs connected that. have a variety of formatting schemes. This means care has not been taken to standardize, which means you have to rely on your memory to sort it out. You should think this through and determine what the format you need to use is for all the external drives.

You tend to download a lot of stuff which can come with risks if you are not meticulous about where this data comes from. In simplicity, you may be downloading malware you are not aware of. I would recommend using the free version of Malwarebytes and use this about 1x per month to see if you have downloaded any malware.

These are a few of the things I noticed, perhaps other users on the forums will find additional things. So for now, please start on these items.

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Answer 4

DougFo Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 22, 2025 3:11 PM in response to rkaufmann87

Thanks for the advice, I manually backup my data files, but I’d benefit by getting my head around using Time Machine.

I don’t download from suspicious websites, and the type of things that I do download are mainly technical data and the like, I don’t download software other than via The AppStore, I researched EtreCheck before downloading it.

Again many thanks to you for putting me onto EtreCheck and obviously ChatGPT, between both of you the problem has been totally resolved 👍😎

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Answer 5

DougFo Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 22, 2025 3:57 AM in response to rkaufmann87

EtreCheck Report

Many thanks for your reply, attached is the EtreCheck report.

Doug

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iPhone 16 Hotspot Not Working With iMac 2020

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