remote hotspot failure unable to start personal hotspot

Question

Level 1

8 points

remote hotspot failure unable to start personal hotspot

Hi there

Got an iPhone 5s and iPad 4th gen both running iOS8.0. On the iPad I can see my 5s which shows battery, signal strength etc, however when I attempt to start the personal hotspot remotely, I get "Remote Hotspot Failure - unable to start personal hotspot on <my device name>".

I've ensured that both devices are logged into the same iCloud account. Both devices have had full network settings reset and the iPhone 5s was actually set up from new recently also. Using pesonal hotspot as normal works however I wanted to enable the remote part as it would be handy.

Anyone got any advice?

iPhone 5s, iOS 8

Posted on Sep 22, 2014 6:52 AM

Reply

Answer 1

numanoids Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 1, 2014 12:55 PM in response to numanoids

Hey all, i updated both my ipad and iphone to 8.0.2 and I'm still getting inconsistency. Almost seems like they have to have been on the same wifi network recently (i.e. hours) in order to use the remote hotspot.

Tried it on the train coming back from work this afternoon and had to resort to manually turning hotspot on. The remote attempt from ipad to iphone actually did turn hotspot on but didnt get any further.

I'm afraid it definitely isn't as seamless as its been portrayed as which is a real shame.

Also I'd love it if family account members could see each others devices too as i think this would be an excellent feature.

Reply

Answer 2

Feb 3, 2017 11:41 AM in response to baretive

Hi baretive,

I did it what you have adviced. But it wasn't enough in my case. I just realised, that my iPhone's device name differs from the one registered in iCloud. So I did the following steps on both devices (iPhone and iPad):

GO to Settings/iCloud/AppleID/Devices.

It siple shows your device names registered in iCloud but it seems that with these steps the device synchronizes its own Device name to iCloud, from where the Guest device gets this information every time it tries to connect to the hotspot.

May be I'm not fully right, but it worked for me and it seems to be stable.

Thanks for the idea!

Reply

Answer 3

Feb 25, 2017 10:35 AM in response to PeterCsongedi

On iOS 10.2.1 I have no Settings>iCloud>Apple ID. And no Apple ID if I try Settings>iCloud>iCloud Drive. The ID at www.iCloud.com and on my iPhone are identical, letter for letter including capitalization.

Reply

Answer 4

Feb 25, 2017 6:34 PM in response to ISA AYDIN

Why don't "we" recognize the solution? I guess it we have become leery of making setting changes. I went down many paths until I finally reset network settings. Night and day difference.

Given the huge memories of our devices, we forget the bad old days of memory fragmentation. As the size of the memory pieces gets smaller, it takes longer and longer to move them around so that we can find the size we needed.

See "Simple solution to a very annoying computer problem"

http://magree.blogspot.com/2017/02/simple-solution-to-very-annoying.html

Now if I could find a simple solution to being signed into Apple.com but not being signed into communities:(

Reply

Answer 5

Feb 26, 2017 1:54 PM in response to Mel Magree

The "reset network" solution didn't last long. I reset it twice already today.

On my MacBook Air I am given a long list of neighbors' wi-fi addresses, but not that of my iPhone right next to my laptop. I had a connection about an hour ago and then moved around the house with my iPhone. When I came back to my sleeping MacBook, it recognized neighbors' wi-fi addresses but not my iPhone.

I got a connection after some minutes of toggling Cellular Data and Personal Hotspot.

Interestingly, I just woke up my iPad, clicked Settings>Wi-Fi and was connected right away.

Fragmentation probably isn't the problem. I have about 45GB available on my iPhone.

I wonder how things might work if I put my MacBook, iPad, and iPhone to sleep, and then try putting the iPad online first.

Be back soon, I hope.

Could iOS 10.2.1 be worse on this problem than whatever I had before. I think it was just last week that my iPhone was updated at a coffee shop.

Reply

Answer 6

Feb 26, 2017 2:12 PM in response to Mel Magree

I turned all my devices off and then back on. In two tries of turning Cellular and Personal Hotspot on I had my MacBook and iPad connected.

What will happen this evening, tomorrow, and the day after? I wish I could say that I'll get a fast connection each time.

Reply

Answer 7

numanoids Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 22, 2014 7:19 AM in response to numanoids

Was doing a bit more testing after posting this and the scenario to get it working seems to be strange.

If both iPad and iPhone are on the same wifi network, then creating the remote hotspot works fine (counter intuitive if you ask me.)/

Forget the previous wifi network and it still carries on working.

Reboot both devices after forgetting the wifi network and it doesn't work anymore.

So it doesn't appear to work as seamlessly as first claimed unless i've got a really weird setup.

anyone else able to confirm this behaviour?

Reply

Answer 8

baretive

Level 1

5 points

Sep 25, 2014 11:56 AM in response to numanoids

I'm having the same problem with my iPhone 5s and a iPad mini retina , both on iOS 8.0.

Surprisingly it did work today for 5 minutes when I was on the road, but it hasn't worked since.

Is it a bug in ios 8?

Reply

Answer 9

SMELTN

Level 1

10 points

Sep 26, 2014 9:21 AM in response to numanoids

I am having the exact same issue. it will not connect at all

Reply

Answer 10

baretive

Level 1

5 points

Sep 26, 2014 2:48 PM in response to numanoids

Think I found a solution : I changed the name of my iPhone in settings, and it seems that it is working now.

Reply

Answer 11

avkraev

Level 1

4 points

Sep 26, 2014 4:39 PM in response to numanoids

I can't connect my iPad to iphone6, both are on iOS 8. Get a message "Remote Hotspot Failure". Apple fix it pls!

Reply

Answer 12

Jan 5, 2015 4:07 AM in response to numanoids

Reply

Answer 13

iamjedi

Level 1

4 points

Sep 29, 2014 12:56 PM in response to numanoids

I'm having the same issue. I have an iPhone 6 running iOS 8.0.2 and an iPad Air also running IOS 8.0.2.

On the iPad I see my name listed under personal hotspots but when I chose it I am never connected. Eventually I received the error "Remote Hotspot Error". What's weird is that the name that appears in the wifi name is my full name and not the name that appears under General > About > Name.

This is the zero configure hostpot functionality that is suppose to be part of Hand Off and not the carrier hotspot stuff.

Reply

Answer 14

Oct 1, 2014 12:02 PM in response to iamjedi

iamjedi: I have your exact setup and the same exact problem.

Reply

Answer 15

iamjedi

Level 1

4 points

Oct 1, 2014 3:26 PM in response to justinsane1

I seem have it working now. I had to reset all settings on my iPad. I noticed the name of the Wi-FI network was showing my iPhone 5 name and not my iPhone 6 name. Since there's no way to forget the personal hotspot I needed to clear the settings. I tried to just clean the network settings but that didn't work. I had to reset all settings.

Reply