Q: How to fix iTunes 10.6 iPhone's USB Personal Hotspot problem

From time to time I lose my network settings. I was told by my provider that they just reset them occasionally. So you have to go onto your phone and reset them too. The following instructions are what works for me everytime. You can also use these instructions in parts or in whole. I have only deleted anything the one time. I no longer find it is necessary. The real trick is to be patient. The phone has to connect to the network, the laptop has to connect to the phone watch and wait. I haven't downloaded iOS 7 yet, it may need me to reset things again.

1. unplug iphone from laptop, then restart laptop
2. reset network settings on iphone: Settings/General/Reset/Reset Network Settings
3. power off iphone and then restart iphone
4. turn off wifi and hotspot on phone
5. plug iphone into computer with usb cable
6. open System preferences/network preferences on MacBook
7. hit the "+" sign in the lower right hand corner of the connections panel
8. name the connection your iphone's name, or an easily recognized name
9. turn Personal Hotspot "on" in the iphone settings/Personal Hotspot
10. wait for the iphone to connect, watch and wait for connection to go green in the MacBook's Network preferences panel, it takes a few seconds
11. if not connecting, try turning Hotspot connection in iphone Settings off and back on again, be patient

Good Luck

Message was edited by: thinkOTB

I have been having problems with Personal Hotspot both wifi and USB for a while and thanks to the threads have noticed the problem is with AppleUSBEthernetHosts.kext as well.  Trying to load that file generates an error in /var/log/kernel.log about a variable that is out of date.  The version of AppleUSBEthernetHosts.kext I had was 2.3.6 and this was not working with the latest iTunes 11.1.3, Lion 10.7.5, and an iPhone 5 running IOS 6.  By using Time Machine to go back to April 2012 I found version 2.2.0 of AppleUSBEthernetHosts.kext and replaced the 2.3.6 version and loaded it with kextload and the error message no longer appears in kernel.log.  Personal Hotspot USB works fine now, as do other basic features (such as using iTunes 11.1.3 with the iPhone).

I fixed the problem with Personal Hotspot wifi by simply staying on the Hotspot screen (which allows you to turn Hotspot on and off) while looking for my phone to show up in the list of wifi networks on my MacBook Air.  Also, I would make sure to turn ON wifi on my phone before turning Hotspot on.  It had the unintuitive consequence that when I navigate to the Hotspot screen, the wifi connection to my home network turns off and gets replaced with my LTE 4G access while on the Hotspot screen.  This seems to work, whereas navigating away from the Hotspot Screen (after turning on HotSpot) before looking for the wifi network on the MacBook Air results in the iPhone wifi not showing up on the list of wifi networks.  It was a repeatable experience.

Sorry - a minor correction.  The file that worked for me is the 2.2.0 version of AppleUSBEthernetHost.kext and it dated to April 2011.

Thanks for the simple fix bud!

Had been messing around for hours trying to get the bloody thing fixed by more complicated methods with no success then saw your post and bang, done in couple of minutes.

Cheers!

Hi !!

What happen if I have Iphone 6 with iOS 8, and I need iTunes 12 ??  I have macbook end 2007 with LION 10.7, and I can't connect with USB, and I can't install iTunes 10.6, because I need iTunes 12.

What can I do ¿?¿?

Thanks for help.

Siniestr0 wrote:

What happen if I have Iphone 6 with iOS 8, and I need iTunes 12 ??  I have macbook end 2007 with LION 10.7,

You need to update to the latest Mac OS 10.7.5.

Apple menu > App store > Updates.

I can't, because this is the last OS can use my Laptop MacBook 2007.

Siniestr0 wrote:

 

I can't, because this is the last OS can use my Laptop MacBook 2007.

Uh, if you have 10.7 as you stated ("I have macbook end 2007 with LION 10.7") you can update to Mac OS 10.7.5...

I have 10.7.5  but I mean I need iTunes 12 for iOs 8 and for resolve my problem, everyone has iOs 6

Siniestr0 wrote:

 

I have 10.7.5  but I mean I need iTunes 12 for iOs 8 and for resolve my problem, everyone has iOs 6

Then download iTunes 12 here -> http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

It will work on your computer.

If I download last version of itunes, USB connection it's not possible, that's the problem, I have Last version of iTunes installed, and my problem is USB connection for share my internet on my laptop.

Siniestr0 wrote:

 

If I download last version of itunes, USB connection it's not possible, that's the problem, I have Last version of iTunes installed, and my problem is USB connection for share my internet on my laptop.

I have no idea what this means...

Hi,

I had a similar problem but my resolution was much simpler than deleting /System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBEthernetHost.kext and reinstalling iTunes.

I deleted the USB interface in Network Preferences and then used Time Machine to restore an older version of /System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBEthernetHost.kext.

I then rebooted and it all sprung back to life.

Apple Support were next to useless and ended up telling me to reinstall the operating system - including a format of the hard disk! Seriously?

If you get this problem it is clear that the configuration file has gone awry and if you have Time Machine you can be up and running in minutes.

Hope this helps.

Bryon

I'd tried to restore the errant kext file from Time machine, and it failed but it seems that  I did not go far enough back in time. I eventually went back to mid 2011; a  restart later:  Voila! Perfecto! Cowabunga!

Thanks to the community.

the answer lies in this page

Get help with Personal Hotspot in iOS - Apple Support