# What makes an iPhone personal hotspot stop working? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 24, 2017, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-iphone-personal-hotspot-stop-working/794557 "2017-08-24T13:53:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2017, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-iphone-personal-hotspot-stop-working/794557/1 "2017-08-24T13:53:49Z")
Okay, I’ve had this iPhone since January, 2012, a Version 4, and I’ve been reliably able to use it as a Personal WiFi Hotspot until about a week ago. I live in South Korea and thought my data plan was exhausted, so I bought two gigs of data and… nothing. The troubleshooting function on my MacBook tells me to move the phone closer to it, but that’s not physically possible. What should I be looking for? ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2017, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-iphone-personal-hotspot-stop-working/794557/2 "2017-08-24T20:23:37Z")
It is possible that your carrier changed their rules and made it so that using your phone as a hotspot requires paying extra. I’d look into that possibility before exhausting too much effort troubleshooting. That said, I’m not an iPhone person, but when you say “and… nothing” it sure would help people help you if you could give a bit more detail. Is there any indication of a problem on the phone? On the device you’re using to try to connect to your phone’s hotspot, do you even see your phone as a wifi device available to connect to? ---
**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2017, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-iphone-personal-hotspot-stop-working/794557/3 "2017-08-24T20:54:39Z")
Do you get a connection to the hotspot (but no internet connectivity), or do you get no WLAN connection to the hotspot? One annoying misfeature when using my iPhone as a personal hotspot is that it broadcasts its SSID only for a short time (30 s?) after the hotspot being activated. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2017, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-iphone-personal-hotspot-stop-working/794557/4 "2017-08-24T21:45:32Z")
> [@Mops](#): > > Do you get a connection to the hotspot (but no internet connectivity), or do you get no WLAN connection to the hotspot? > > One annoying misfeature when using my iPhone as a personal hotspot is that it broadcasts its SSID only for a short time (30 s?) after the hotspot being activated. I’m not sure what you mean. Do you mean that you can only “see” your iPhone for 30 seconds after activating it? That doesn’t seem right. I haven’t used my iPhone hot spot in several days now, but all my wireless devices see it just fine. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-iphone-personal-hotspot-stop-working/794557/5 "2017-08-25T00:17:47Z")
> [@Mops](#): > > Do you get a connection to the hotspot (but no internet connectivity), or do you get no WLAN connection to the hotspot? The phone indicates a connection to the MacBook, but the MacBook does not currently list the iPhone as one of the wifi networks available. Up until a week ago, it did. I’ll drop by the phone service provider and ask, although there is a language problem. It’s certainly possible they changed their rules. It’s also possible that a five year old phone has something broken inside it. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-iphone-personal-hotspot-stop-working/794557/6 "2017-08-25T01:05:16Z")
Obvious question: have you tried resetting your iPhone? Press the home button and top button for several seconds until it reboots. That has solved connection wonkiness for me in the past. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-iphone-personal-hotspot-stop-working/794557/7 "2017-08-25T02:02:20Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Obvious question: have you tried resetting your iPhone? Press the home button and top button for several seconds until it reboots. That has solved connection wonkiness for me in the past. Just tried it, no change. Also, FWIW, I get the same results on my iPad, which leads me to believe the problem is with the phone, not the other devices. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-iphone-personal-hotspot-stop-working/794557/8 "2017-08-25T02:10:47Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > Just tried it, no change. Also, FWIW, I get the same results on my iPad, which leads me to believe the problem is with the phone, not the other devices. Hmmm… That’s too bad. I was really hoping it would be a simple fix like that. You can go through the troubleshooting steps [here](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203302) to see if anything else might work. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-iphone-personal-hotspot-stop-working/794557/9 "2017-08-25T03:25:55Z")
Got it! I forgot to reconfigure it from the computer end. Done!