The iPhone’s Personal Hotspot feature can indeed be incredibly useful. With some carriers becoming more lenient about tethered data, it serves as an excellent means to connect your laptop or tablet to the internet when a Wi-Fi router isn’t nearby. However, like any technology, it’s prone to technical issues. Here’s what you can do when Personal Hotspot appears to be malfunctioning.
1. Check that Personal Hotspot is actually enabled
Ensure that Personal Hotspot is activated, or can be activated, by navigating to Settings > Personal Hotspot. Once there, verify that “Allow Others to Join” is enabled after you’ve selected a password. If you cannot find the Personal Hotspot menu at all, it’s possible that your carrier does not support it, particularly on your specific data plan. In such cases, there may be no immediate solution other than checking for potential updates to iOS or carrier settings to address the issue.
2. Restart Your Device
When encountering issues with your iPhone hotspot, it’s often beneficial to resort to the tried-and-true method of restarting your device. Alternatively, for a swifter resolution, you can opt to activate Airplane Mode. Simply enable Airplane Mode, allow a 10-second interval, and then deactivate it. If disabling and enabling Airplane Mode doesn’t fix the issue, you should restart the iphone.
3. Restart Connected Devices
Try restarting the device you’re attempting to connect to your iPhone hotspot. Keep in mind that the problem might lie with the other device rather than your iPhone. This applies similarly to restarting a laptop or any other devices connected to the iPhone’s hotspot by the user.
4. Verify Both Cellular Data and Personal Hotspot Are Activated
For utilizing your iPhone as a hotspot, it’s imperative to have access to cellular internet connectivity and ensure that the Personal Hotspot feature is activated. If only cellular data is enabled, your iPhone hotspot will not be visible.
Navigate to Settings > Cellular Data, then toggle on Cellular Data. Subsequently, access Personal Hotspot, and toggle on the option labeled Allow Others to Join.
5. Doublecheck the Password
Doublecheck that you’re entering the right password. It’s easy to mistype a password on the device connecting to your hotspot, so try re-entering it unless you’re 100% sure you did it correctly. You can edit or verify your password by going to Settings > Personal Hotspot > Wi-Fi Password on your iPhone.
6. Ensure Your iPhone is Up-to-Date
Updating your iPhone to the latest iOS version can often resolve issues, including those related to a malfunctioning iPhone hotspot.
To update iOS, navigate to Settings > General > Software Update. If an update is accessible, you’ll receive prompts to download and install it.
7. Avoid Sleep Mode
Once you’ve activated your iPhone’s hotspot and ensured its visibility, refrain from immediately pressing the Side button to put your iPhone to sleep. Instead, keep the iPhone’s display active, proceed with connecting your other device to the hotspot, and then proceed to put your iPhone to sleep.
Putting your iPhone to sleep before establishing a connection may lead to the automatic deactivation of Personal Hotspot, even if it was recently enabled.
8. Reset Network Settings
iOS provides a convenient method to erase user data and restore settings to factory defaults. However, if you prefer a more targeted approach, you can opt to reset specific types of data.
When troubleshooting a non-functional iPhone hotspot, focus solely on resetting the network settings. To proceed, navigate to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Reset > Reset Network Settings. Before initiating the reset, you’ll be prompted to input your passcode.
The reset procedure will eliminate all Wi-Fi and carrier settings and passwords, as well as revert your iPhone’s custom name to default. This action ensures a clean slate, eliminating the possibility of any erroneous network settings causing the hotspot malfunction.
9. Restore iPhone Using DFU Mode
If you’ve exhausted other options without resolving a non-functional Personal Hotspot, it may be necessary to take more drastic measures, such as restoring your iPhone using DFU Mode (Recovery Mode). DFU, or Disk Firmware Update, Mode allows your iPhone to start up without booting up the iOS, enabling you to address iOS-related issues at a lower level. Begin by creating a backup of your iPhone to ensure no data loss. Then, proceed to restore your iPhone to DFU Mode to determine if a fresh start resolves the problem.
10. Review Your Mobile Data Plan
Even with Personal Hotspot enabled and confirmation from your carrier that tethering is permitted, your iPhone hotspot might not function due to limitations within your data plan.
Certain carriers may require subscription to supplementary internet plans to enable the usage of Personal Hotspot. However, if your existing plan includes internet data, ensure that you have remaining data allocation. Otherwise, your iPhone’s hotspot functionality will remain inactive until you recharge your phone or replenish your data allowance