iOS 12 and Instant Hotspot Not Working

What worked for me was to delete a lot of old hotspot passwords that had accumulated over the years in my iCloud account.

I did the following on my Mac and now my phone appears at the top of the Wifi list (not sure which of these steps was the one that actually fixed it):

On a Mac that has iCloud Keychain enabled (so that passwords sync with iCloud):

-Open Network Preferences->Wifi>Advanced..., then delete all old Wifi Hotspot entries (iPhone, XXX's iPhone,...)

-Open the Keychain Access app and delete all iPhone HotSpot passwords from iCloud. (An easy way to do this is to enter iPhone using the search field, but don't just delete everything indiscriminately--you are looking for entries like "XXX's iPhone 6s" which are listed as "Application Password" in the System or iCloud Keychain). It can also be helpful to search on the "Date Modified" column so you can easily see which entries may be ancient.

After I cleared all of these stored passwords, my phone immediately appeared at the top of the Wifi connection list. I don't have an iPad, but I suspect that deleting these passwords from iCloud could help with your situation too.

For me there is also something weird going in in personal/instant hotspot in iOS 12 (12.1.2 for me) with iphone SE and IPad Pro 9,7.

In iOS 10 it worked perfectly, in iOS 11 I had to try to connect 2-3 times, but it worked and in iOS 12 it is a mess....

So after countless hours to figure personal-instant hotspot issues in iOS 12 I hope to give you also some insights:

In all my successful scenarios I have to switch personal hotspot ON in settings. In IOS 10 and 11 it worked also with OFF when I tried to connect with IPad to Iphone on same Apple ID.

Successful connection with WiFi:

Personal Hotspot ON, Bluetooth OFF on both devices (can be turned on after connection established), Enter Password once on IPad. Works like with every (even non-Apple) WiFi Device.

If I turn on Bluetooth on IPad and Iphone and try to select my Iphone SE in Settings->WiFi on IPad - it is NOT working (unable to start personal hotspot....). It makes no difference if Iphone and IPad is paired or not with Bluetooth.

Successfull connection with Bluetooth:

Pair Iphone and IPad: Turn Personal Hotspot ON on Iphone. If Personal Hotspot is set to OFF I am not able to see the Iphone in Bluetooth device list!

On IPad go to Settings->Bluetooth and select Iphone from “other devices” list. Confirm Pair Dialog on both devices. Then in my case there is always an immediate personal hotspot connection shown on Iphone (the blue bar top of iphone screen), even when IPad is still connected to another WiFi network.

To end this Personal Hotspot connection disable Personal Hotspot on Iphone or go to Settings ->Bluetooth -> Iphone (your iphone name) press (i) -> Disconnect

Now here comes the trick which I just found out by accident: If I want to connect via Bluetooth successfully again I CANNOT select the Iphone in Settings -> WiFi (unable to start personal hotspot....). Instead I have to go to Settings -> Bluetooth -> select Iphone from device list to connect - and the personal hotspot is working! (Personal Hotspot has to be turned ON in Settings to be able to do this)

In this case WiFi on IPad and on Iphone can even switched to OFF! So only Cellular Network and Bluetooth, no WiFi at all. Maybe even less battery drain with Personal Hotspot - but I have to check this out.

If the connection is lost go again to Bluetooth Settings and connect to Iphone.

So in short summary (In my case with Iphone SE and IPad Pro 9,7 and iOS 12.1.2):

• Personal Hotspot has to be turned always ON to make it work.
• For Personal Hotspot with WiFi: Bluetooth has to be turned OFF
• For Personal Hotspot with Bluetooth: I have to pair the devices once and connect to Iphone in Bluetooth Settings and NOT in WiFi Settings! WiFi can even turned off on both devices.

Still a little complicated and cumbersome, but predictable.

I hope this is fixed somehow soon. Any difference in 12.1.3 ?

Also it would be nice to establish a Personal Hotspot connection in Control Center and not in Settings.

Just in case someone has the same problem.

I had the same problem but I didn't want to close the iCloud account on my iPhone because it means rescanning all the photos again. In order to force the iPhone to relogin in iCloud without signing out, I changed the iCloud password using a browser. When I entered the new password on the phone, Instant Hotspot was working again :)

BR

Aitor

What did the trick for me was:

- disable personal hotspot on iPhone

- sign out from iCloud on iPhone

- restart iPhone

- sign in to iCloud

- enable personal hotspot

Signing in/out of iCloud is a bit of a pain.

I'm really, really getting tired of having to sort stuff out on my Apple devices. The reason I chose Apple was to have uncluttered stuff that just works, it has not been the case for years.

Be sure to check Handoff is enabled on all of your Apple devices. Best way to know if Handoff is working properly is open Notes (for example) and see if it pops up in the dock or app switcher. I found it useful using a MacBook Pro, iPhone, and iPad - open in one device and check if it shows on the other. More than likely, one of these devices will not show its Notes app on the other - that’s the device that needs to log out of iCloud. Good luck, all!

Hi

I had same type of problem also and this is the only thing that helped for me:

I have to go on my phone (iPhone 6 - iOS 12) under Settings/personal hotspot/ I have to select wi-fi password as if I wanted to change it and stay on this screen the connect my IPad and it will connect. After that I just have to leave (cancel) on the iPhone the password screen. Sometimes I have to do it twice

I had iOS 10 on my iPhone and had to do this every time with an old iPad.

Then with a new iPad (2018 - iOS 11) the problem disappeared

then I updated both to iOS 12 and problem was back.

Hope this wilol help some of you.

My fix was easy,

1- disable Bluetooth, wifi, personal hotspot and cellular Data

2- enable cellular Data then enable personal hotspot, when it asks to enable wifi and Bluetooth or USB choose wifi and Bluetooth

3- connect to the wifi network from the other devices, not to the instant hotspot

thanks

Deleting old keychain entries did the trick for me (on one phone, a reboot was needed, another device started working immediately).

Same problem. I removed any iPhone wireless name under network settings and i was able to connect.

I am having the same problem with my iPad but I have a pc not a Mac so I cannot troubleshoot with another device. What I have found is that you can connect to the phone via Bluetooth and that will let you tether to you’re hotspot the same way. It’s a bit annoying but a decent workaround nonetheless. Hope this helps until the issue is resolved.

I have an:

iPhone 6s Wi-Fi/Cellular

iPad Pro 9.7 Wi-Fi

I am attempting to use the iPhone as the Hotspot. I cannot get the Instant Hotspot to connect from the iPad with iOS 12.1.4. This was working very will with iOS 10 between these two devices. The iPhone does list in the 'Personal Hotspots' area of the Wi-Fi settings. If I turn the Hotspot on on the iPhone manually then attempt to connect to it from the iPad, I will still get the "Unable to start personal hotspot" failure message. Once I tap the 'Ok' button, the iPad the connects fine.

In checking, handoff is working between the two without the Wi-Fi connection established.

Very frustrating.

Signing out from iCloud and in again in my iPhone (the hotspot) fixed it for me. No reboot needed (but I tried to reboot it later for other issues).

Please be aware it hasn't been a painless process. I had to sign back in iTunes/App Store manually and it has got somehow stuck (this is why I rebooted. The Instant Hotspot was already showing, though), the wallet disabled the credit cards and re-enabling them lost their history.

But at least that seems to have fixed the "share wifi password" as well.

• Activate the hotspot on the phone manually.
• Disable bluetooth on the ipad.

Then the hotspot is visible as network and not instant hotspot.

And for the statistic: 1 count more for ipad pro 9.7

This worked for me too.

What did the trick for me was:

- disable personal hotspot on iPad

- sign out from iCloud on iPad

- restart iPad

- sign in to iCloud

- enable personal hotspot

Using cellular iPad to get data onto the iPhone when abroad.