iOS 12 and Instant Hotspot Not Working

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.

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.

I think we are talking about different things here.

The problem of this thread is:

Here as video:

IOS 12 - iPad Pro 9.7 - Personal Hotspot Timeout failure - YouTube

It could be a problem of the iPad Pro 9.7. In this thread all people which reported a device, had this iPad.

Do you have Wifi & Bluetooth enabled on all devices?

Instant Hotspot, not Personal Hotspot, is a Continuity feature reliant on Wifi & Bluetooth being on.

See >> Use Continuity to connect your Mac, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Apple Watch - Apple Support

 The following is worth trying and checking:

1. Open Settings -> Mobile Data -> Mobile Data Network
2. Check the APN/Username/Password settings under "Mobile Data" (most of the time username and password - if used - are identical, if not search APN settings on your provider's homepage)
3. Enter the same settings under "Personal Hotspot" further down on the same settings page
4. Return to Settings Menu
5. Switch Mobile Hotspot off and on
6. Connect to your Hotspot -> Internet on your computer should be working now

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.

Same here.

iPhone SE - IOS12

iPad Pro 9.5 - IOS12

iMac - High Sierra

for testing purposes additionally:

2nd iPhone SE - IOS12

iPad mini 2 Cellular - IOS12

iPad Air - IOS12

Handoff and Universal clipboard are working in every combination on every device. So the basic bluetooth/wifi/icloud magic works.

All devices except the iPad Pro 9.5 can activate the hotspots on the iphones and the ipad mini.

The iPad Pro 9.5 constantly says "Unable to start personal hotspot..."

If I activate the hotspot manually and disable bluetooth on the iPad, so that the hotspot is seen as wifi device it can connect (but thats not what we want....)

I tried the same as you, multiple times. icloud logoff/network reset/factory reset with and without backup. With iphone and ipad. No success.

Matt

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.

Exactly the same issue as mine.

I'm using iPhone 6 WiFi + Cellular and iPad Pro 9.7" WiFi only, both upgraded to iOS 12. This Instant hotspot was working fine until latest upgrades.

I've tried all the suggested solutions and it still doesn't work. At some point at least I was able to see my iPhone listed under "Choose a network", but it's gone from there as well.

Using Bluetooth connection, I am able to share iPhone's LTE connection with iPad, but it's too slow.

Hi all,

Like BrianInBS, I also tried to sort this issue out with a technician at Apple. What was done: Reset all settings, restore as new device on both the iPad and iPhone and it did not work either...

There is nothing more to do now but wait in the hope that Apple finds a solution to this annoying problem ...

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!

Not yet! I have to resume my conversation with him soon....

In the meantime, I think he wanted to check on his side if he would be able to find some information about this particular issue ...

Stay tuned!