iPhone 17 Pro Max devices experience Wi-Fi connection issues on enterprise Wi-Fi 6e network

We are experiencing an issue with iPhone 17 Pro Max devices connecting and staying connected on an HPE Aruba Enterprise wireless network. The Network is broadcasted on AP-635s and this network is using 5GHz and 6GHz antennas with wpa3-aes-ccm-128 to RADIUS PEAP with TLS 1.2 and 1.3 enabled. We also have opmode enabled so that devices not capable of handling wpa3 can use wpa2 and still be allowed, though wpa3 is preferred.


The devices regularly go into a connection loop where they connect but aren't actually connected then 2 minutes later say they are disconnected.


Last year we had a similar issue due to the wireless certificate update which the iPhone 16 Plus and above would not prompt the end user to update so it would keep failing the handshake even though it would show the user as connected. We solved this by simply forgetting all related networks, restarting, and rejoining. This allowed the user to be prompted to accept the new wireless certificate and everything was fine.


This year the iPhone 17 Pro Max are acting the exact same but nothing we try works. Here is our list of troubleshooting steps:

  1. Forget all associated networks
  2. Remove al VPNs
  3. Restart
  4. If fails, reset all network settings
  5. Restart


Is anyone else having an issue like this? The network is a modern enterprise WiFi-6e network and is not an outdated home router and this only happens with iPhone 17s. My assumption is that this is related to WiFi-7 settings somewhere on the device. Any help is appreciated.

iPhone 17

Posted on Sep 9, 2026 9:28 AM

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2 replies

Sep 9, 2026 3:02 PM in response to burthws

Based on your network configuration, you are dealing with a known architectural conflict between newer iOS device behaviors and legacy WPA3 Enterprise Transition Mode settings. The iPhone 17 Pro Max is Apple's first Wi-Fi 7 device, and its updated networking stack reacts very aggressively to enterprise transitions and security parameters.

Because client-side resets are not working, the issue must be resolved on your HPE Aruba infrastructure and RADIUS servers

iPhone 17 Pro Max devices experience Wi-Fi connection issues on enterprise Wi-Fi 6e network

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