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Personal hotspot falls asleep...

Hello everyone!

I've searched the discussions but can't seem to fnd this issue (maybe it's my wording??) and I know I can't be the only one experiencing this issue. Check it out, this is whats happening...


I recently bought an iPad 2 wifi (LOVE IT), opting not to pay extra for 3G since my iPhone 4 has a personal hotspot built in. And this was a good idea I think, but I'm having what I believe to be an odd issue. Maybe it's normal but knowing Apple like I do I doubt this is a feature :) Anyway I enabled the hotspot on my iPhone and looked at iPad network connections. There it was ready to connect! That worked great. The problem, though, is that it drops after not being used for a while and the only way to reconnect it is to go to the iPhone Settins > Personal Hotspot and turn that feature off and on again.


This is kind of annoying because I would have thought that once it's enbled, any time I wake my iPad up it would reconnect to the iPhone if it's in range of the iPad. Am I just wishful thinking or do I have to go into the iPhone and iPad settings every single time I want to use the hotspot feature. You'd think it would attempt to work similarly to how my MacBok Pro and iPhone get along. The difference being it's using USB I suppose. Every time the two connect, the hotspot kicks in and I can hop on the Internet from the laptop.


Am I just wishful thinking or is this how everyone does it... dodging the Hotspot Settings Shuffle ;)


Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this!!

iPhone 4, iOS 4.3.1, 32GB

Posted on Apr 21, 2011 3:45 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on May 25, 2011 2:37 AM

That note is from


From: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2756

And, if I understand correctly, if you leave your iphone on the the Settings --> Personal Hotspot screen, than it shouldn't stop broadcasting.

17 replies

Apr 21, 2011 4:05 AM in response to ADoxtater

If you leave the Personal Hotspot screen or put iPhone to sleep, iPhone only broadcasts the Wi-Fi network for an additional 90 seconds. If no devices join the Wi-Fi network during that time, iPhone 4 stops broadcasting your Wi-Fi network. You can start broadcasting your Wi-Fi network again by tapping Settings > Personal Hotspot. This is by design to conserve battery.

Jul 6, 2011 12:41 PM in response to ADoxtater

I think it's important we draw the distinction between the hotspot disabling if no client has connected and the iphone dropping an already existing connection. personally, even when i am on the personal hotspot screen on my iphone (and my screen is active), my ipad 2 almost instantly loses a connection once i start to use data on the ipad. tried resetting network settings.

Jul 18, 2011 9:30 PM in response to ADoxtater

Personal hotspot in my experience is good for checking an email thats it, beyond that it'll make you tear your hair out.


I have an iphone 4 4.3.3 and use the hotspot to connect to a laptop and ipod touch 4g 4.2.1 and it is useless. I get kicked off anywhere from 1 minute to 60 minutes, without auto reconnection. Both devices disconnected at the same time also, so it's got to be a fault with the iphone.


And yes people need to realize the distinction between not having a active connection and having the iphone shut it down to conserve battery and just having the iphone blatantly loose connection.


MINE LOOSES AN ACTIVE CONNECTION

Oct 16, 2011 1:35 PM in response to wjosten

Ihave a iPhone 4S and didn't want the "Personal Hotspot" feature, but when I go to Network features, it's always searching for .... whatever. My worry is that the device is always looking for ... whatever... wasting battery, or putting unneeded wear and tear on itself. It also could just be trying because I'm looking at the Network options and as soon as I leave the page it doesn't bother... but I would think that it would eventually stop trying and just prompt an "Inactive" or something.


Your thoughts?

Nov 21, 2011 1:44 PM in response to ADoxtater

I t

Have the same issue my iPhone 4 keeps dropping its connection and my laptop does too, but when I go to the phone to switch on and off the phone thinks the connection is still live. Anyway I think it's quite telling that nobody from apple has commented on any of the several posts on this topic! Must be a fault they can't fix as yet! Best keep upto he software updates that keep coming out maybe one body will love it

Dec 7, 2011 4:26 AM in response to ADoxtater

BELIEVE I HAVE THE ANSWER!


Go to Settings > General > Auto-Lock > Check "NEVER"!


I just upgraded to have the hotspot so I could use my MacBook Pro on the road where there isn't an ethernet or Wi-Fi connection and had the same problem. The connection seemed to disconnect after a minute or two. I could reconnect it by turning the Personal Hot Spot off and back on again, but of course this was a pain. My first thought after reading the posts above was the phone was trying to conserve battery power and Apple had probably devised an auto shut down function. When I called the help desk, we discussed this theory and the technitian suggested the above procedure. He said there was no documentation at Apple for a solution and asked me to first, confirm the timing of the drop, then change the Auto-Lock. Wha La!


It's been a few days now without any issues other than one drop and I believe that was caused by a calendar allert. That doesn't happen frequently enough to be a bother and so far it was a one time occurance. One other fix the technitian suggested was to reset network setting(Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings). This was done prior to the Auto-Lock change and it didn't improve the network connection, so it may not be of help.


Hope this is of great help to you all!

Feb 17, 2016 2:19 AM in response to ADoxtater

I had the same problem as the original poster and connecting via Bluetooth instead of WiFi fixed it for me. I now turn off WiFi on my iPad unless I am at home when I use it to connect to my home WiFi router.


Device IPad Air 2 with iOS 9.2.1 connected to personal hotspot on iPhone 6 with iOS 9.2.1


I know this thread is quite old, but the question and answer is still relevant and will hopefully help somebody.

Personal hotspot falls asleep...

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