P Diddy
Level 1 (10 points)

Q: Wifi networks keep reappearing in my iCloud Keychain

I am having a problem with wifi networks that keep reappearing in my iCloud Keychain, and no matter what I have tried, I can't get rid of them.

 

I have an iPhone, an iPad, an iMac and two MacBook Pros.  I have enabled iCloud Keychain on all these devices.  On one of the Macs, if I look in System Preferences / Networks / Advanced, I can see the list of Preferred Networks.  There are loads of them from various offices, hotels, airports etc I have visited.  Most are harmless, but I have two entries for public wifi networks which I no longer can use.  The problem is, when I am out and about with my iPhone, if I come in to range of one of these networks, my iPhone automatically connects to it.  However, as I don't subscribe to the network, I can't get any data throughput, but the iPhone wants to use wifi and not cellular data, so effectively I am offline.  I fix this by turning wifi off, but that is a pain.

 

I have tried a whole bunch of things, including:

 

  • Telling the iPhone to forget the offending networks - it works initially, but next time I visit that location, the iPhone connects up again
  • Deleting the offending networks on the Mac and letting iCloud Keychain sync the deletion to the other devices.  No luck, the networks reappear after a few hours
  • Reloading iOS entirely on the iPhone and iPad.  I didn't do a restore of any type.  No joy still
  • Resetting iCloud Keychain by turning it off on all the devices and entering a new code.  No good, the offending networks appear again

 

What I have had to do is turn off Keychain entirely, but this is frustrating and surely can't be how Apple intended it to be.

 

Any advice would be gratefully received.

 

Thanks

 

PD

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10), Late 2009 iMac 27"

Posted on Jan 1, 2015 2:50 PM

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Q: Wifi networks keep reappearing in my iCloud Keychain

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  • by P Diddy,

    P Diddy P Diddy Jan 29, 2015 9:36 AM in response to P Diddy
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Jan 29, 2015 9:36 AM in response to P Diddy

    Well, I have made some progress on this, and established that this actually is not to do with iCloud Keychain at all, so apologies to all the iCloud Keychain developers out there!

     

    The problem is that when I delete entries from the Preferred Networks list (System Preferences / Network / select Wi-Fi connection / Advanced, all looks great initially, but after a while the entries reappear.  They do this when iCloud Keychain is off, so they shouldn't be coming back from iCloud Keychain.

     

    I have turned iCloud Keychain off on all my devices, reset it, and then only turned iCloud Keychain back on on two iOS devices and one laptop, all three of which I rebuilt from scratch (and no restoring a backup).  iCloud Keychain has stayed free of the offending preferred networks. 

     

    I don't really want to rebuild my other two OS X machines just to clear down this list of preferred networks, does anyone know how to clean the list properly without the entries returning?

     

    Thanks

     

    PD

  • by mryeeguy,

    mryeeguy mryeeguy Apr 25, 2016 8:49 AM in response to P Diddy
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apr 25, 2016 8:49 AM in response to P Diddy

    If you're willing to take another look at iCloud Keychain settings, this issue may be occurring because (by default) "Approve with Security Code" is enabled in OS X iCloud Keychain settings.  That "Approve with Security Code" setting apparently enabled Apple to store a copy of your keychain in the cloud and the cloud copy overrides changes you've made (like removing wifi networks) on your local Macbook. 

     

    Try following the instructions at the bottom of this article:

    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204085

     

    Use iCloud Settings and turn off iCloud Keychain *and* be sure to turn off Approve With Security Code (that's apparently the setting that enables Apple to keep a copy of all your previously joined wifi networks in the cloud).  If you turn off iCloud Keychain and Approve w/ Security Code, and then Reset iCloud Keychain, that should get rid of your unwanted list of wifi networks.  After that, re-enable iCloud Keychain and make sure that the Approve w/ Security Code setting stays off.  You'll need to approve the addition of each new device to your iCloud Keychain from another device, but that's pretty straightforward.

     

    Good luck!