iOS10 WiFi Keeps forgetting hidden network

actually I spoke too soon - this afternoon it's stopped connecting automatically to the hidden wifi.

We have around 2k ipads connected to a hidden SSID. And experiencing 2 types of problems.

1:

We usually had (pre ios 10) wifi profiles losing their password. You could see the network when the profile is installed but when you connect it wil ask for an Password (28 character key.. joy :-))
Re pushing the profile solved that problem!

2:

After IOS 10 we have a lot diapering of the network. the iPad just can't see it any more, while the profile is still installed.

Easiest way to solve is to add the network name (whit capitals.. as it is) and try to connect without password.

9 out of 10 will be able to connect again. If unsuccessful re pushing the profile is than the next step to solve it.

Hope someone finds this useful till apple solves the problem

eps forgetting hidden network I am on iPhone 6S iOS version 9.3.3 I want to update iOS 10 on Smart Mobile network. At my work place we have hidden wifi network. It was working fine. But after my upgrade to iOS 10, the phone keeps forgetting the hidden network every time it goes another wifi network (say at home). My other colleagues who has iPhone 6 or 6s does not have any issues. Any help is appreciated.

I have updated to iOS 10.1 and continue to have this problem. I have tried all of the network resets, reboot phone, power cycle router, and nothing works to solve the problem. One thing I have noticed is that the problem does not occur on my iPhone 5s until the battery reaches 50% power or less. Above that the phone always reconnects to my home hidden network when I get back into range.

iPhone 5, same problem. Forgets my hidden home wifi network. I was wondering why used more cell data than my teen last month!

I have an update - I don't think battery life has anything to do with it after all. Strength of the wi-fi signal probably does, as my fully charged phone lost its wi-fi connection overnight when it was in a part of the house where the wi-fi signal isn't so strong. I've been reading a lot about how an iOS device will continually broadcast the SSID's of networks it knows trying to hook up to one of them, which is why the device can hook up to a router that is hidden (not broadcasting its SSID). This explanation is used to basically tell people they are wasting their time hiding their networks. I disagree - there are several holes in that argument. But back to the issue at hand, I discovered that when my iPhone 5S with iOS 10.1 cannot make a wi-fi connection to my hidden home network, if I re-enable the broadcast of the SSID on the router, the phone immediately makes a wi-fi connection. So now what I think is that in iOS 10 Apple must have disabled that constant broadcasting for known networks, forcing us to give up not necessarily security, but definitely privacy, by forcing us to enable SSID broadcast on our routers if we want our iOS 10 devices to automatically connect.

Update, iOS 10.1, 5S, I reconnect about 75% of the time.

I think you explanation is very plausible and certainly fits what I have been experiencing both on 10.02 and 10.1.

I have this issue with ipad mini 2 since upgrading to IOS 10, but it never happens on IPhone SE with IOS 10. I hope it is not an Apple's attemp to enforce users to through away their old hardware and replace with very expensive new one. *kidding*

After upgrading to iOS 10.1, I was still having the issue. So, I manually connected to the hidden network and then did a 'Forget This Network' (by going into Settings>Wi-Fi><ssid> ℹ button). I then added the hidden network again from scratch.

Am not certain this entirely resolves the issue, but it connects more frequently than before. HTH.

We have seen this issue in our business ,with over a hundred users reporting unable to access hidden wireless networks since updating to iOS 10. I suspect this means that many others are not reporting the issue.

We have 7500 iOS device users.

We have been using our mdm platform (AirWatch) to re-push a profile for the hidden network and this will normally get the iOS device reconnected, but it will drop again. This of course is hacking of the guys on the IT Service Desk.

Because we're a retailer our network team are reluctant to make the network visible in our branches, but we may be forced down this route.

Would be nice to know if/when a fix is coming so that we can make an informed choice.

I've got the same question with slightly different hardware. iOS 10, iPhone 6.

Unfortunately the first thing we ALWAYS do is restart the hardware - hard reset and soft reset. The problem still happens. If it helps any, I didn't notice this behavior until the 10.1.1 (14B100) update. The network is WEP, and my phone now tells me that this isn't a secure network and maybe I should change it to something else; that isn't an option.

My guess: since I didn't notice the "WEP is not considered secure" message before I'm wondering if there's a switch in there that wants my phone to forget unsecure networks.

I continued to have the problem of not reconnecting to my hidden home network after updating to 10.1.1 on my iPhone 5S. I tried the solution mcgowan posted of explicitly telling iOS to forget the hidden network (which means I first had to manually make the connection), powering the phone down, restarting it, then entering the hidden network from scratch. I did this a couple of days ago and so far the phone has automatically reconnected each time I've returned home. I don't know if this is a forever fix, and I realize this isn't an attractive fix for organizations with lots and lots of devices. I still think Apple broke something in iOS 10 and they need to address it. NOTE: one of the first things I tried when I first noticed this problem was to reset the network settings: general/reset/reset network settings. While this did remove the settings for my hidden home network, as well as my VPN settings, I couldn't automatically connect to the hidden network after re-entering the settings. So apparently explicitly forgetting the network does something different than resetting the network settings.

Hi all,

why Do You don't accept that this problem is definitely an iOS 10 Bug ? It is device independent, it is provider independent and resetting network settings and devices is completely useless and wastes only your time.

--> ITS APPLE'S TURN TO FIX THIS ISSUE, NOTHING ELSE !!!!! <--

The problem appears after You have connected to a 'not hidden' wifi network (somewhere else) and after that want to reconnect automatically to the before well known hidden network. As long as You stay always at the same hidden network and never change it, reconnecting works fine. After changing from hidden to another not hidden network and come back, You manually have to add your hidden network again. Then it works again as long as You stay in this same hidden network and don't change it.

@Apple: Can You please confirm, that this issue is on your 'to do list' or do You still say there is no issue ?

I have the same issue on the iPhone 5s with iOS 10.1. In the evening I usually walk to our bedroom and there turn it to flight mode before I go sleeping. Our bedroom is far away from our router and is not reliably covered by our WiFi network, but networks from surrounding buildings are visible, though locked. In the morning when I turn off flight mode, it won't auto-reconnect in about 70% of the cases. Usually when returning home in the evening it will automatically reconnect, but not always. For example, today I connected to a public network during daytime, and now after returning home it didn't reconnect. I opened the WiFi settings panel and it showed the (hidden) name of our network momentarily, but it disappeared after a fraction of a second. Also, it does not list the names of any of the other (visible) networks, while the MacBook Pro sitting on the same desk "sees" about 7 of them. But now I made the SSID of our network visible and at that very moment the iPhone was instantly connected. However, I don't want to keep the SSID visible. Therefore, please fix this bug a soon as possible.