topic Re: Can't connect Mac to iPhone hotspot unless I change Mac WiFi settings to IPv6 in Apple Devices

Can't connect Mac to iPhone hotspot unless I change Mac WiFi settings to IPv6

timpent01 — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 13:53:35 GMT

I can't remember when this was last working ok on IPv4, but I think the last time I connected to my hotspot was in Sept last year, but now with both iOS 17.2 (and now 17.3), and with my Mac on MacOS 14.2 (and as of today, 14.3), I have to change the WiFi details on my Mac to IPv6 in order to get it to connect properly to my hotspot.

Anyone else experiencing this, and any solutions? I gather that this might be an EE carrier settings issue?

Thanks, Tim

Re: Can't connect Mac to iPhone hotspot unless I change Mac WiFi settings to IPv6

Christopher_G — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 16:03:07 GMT

Hi @timpent01

Welcome to the community.

Have you tried resetting the network settings on your iPhone? Is it working OK on IPv6?

Chris

Re: Can't connect Mac to iPhone hotspot unless I change Mac WiFi settings to IPv6

timpent01 — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 18:54:48 GMT

Thanks for your reply Chris.

Re resetting Network Settings, no, I'm reluctant to do that because don't I lose all my WiFi passwords? (Or are all WiFi passwords shared between Mac and iPhone even if the Mac hasn't connected to a particular WiFi?)

And yes, it seems to work ok on IPv6.

Thanks, Tim

Re: Can't connect Mac to iPhone hotspot unless I change Mac WiFi settings to IPv6

ColinHarold — Sun, 28 Jan 2024 11:58:23 GMT

I'm having same problem with iPhone 14 .. I can't connect to my iPad . My phone isn't showing up either on iPad .

i can't even get hotspot no more either

iMessage also keeps turning off ..

Re: Can't connect Mac to iPhone hotspot unless I change Mac WiFi settings to IPv6

Leanne_T — Sun, 28 Jan 2024 13:35:54 GMT

Hi @ColinHarold

Thanks for coming here.

Does the iPhone hotspot connect to any other device?

Do you have the latest software on both devices?

Leanne.

Re: Can't connect Mac to iPhone hotspot unless I change Mac WiFi settings to IPv6

stephendale1234 — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 23:07:15 GMT

Same problem. Have EE restricted the hotspot to Ipv6 only?

Re: Can't connect Mac to iPhone hotspot unless I change Mac WiFi settings to IPv6

stephendale1234 — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 23:17:18 GMT

But now it seems that the hotspot only works on IPv6 and not IPv4, therefore you can't use the VPN. Maybe need to drop EE.

Re: Can't connect Mac to iPhone hotspot unless I change Mac WiFi settings to IPv6

Leanne_T — Thu, 01 Feb 2024 07:42:30 GMT

Hi @stephendale1234

Does your device have the latest software?

Can you hotspot to any other device?

Leanne.

Re: Can't connect Mac to iPhone hotspot unless I change Mac WiFi settings to IPv6

timpent01 — Thu, 01 Feb 2024 08:53:43 GMT

Weirdly it's just started working normally without having to switch my Mac to IPv6... 🤷‍♂️

Re: Can't connect Mac to iPhone hotspot unless I change Mac WiFi settings to IPv6

stephendale1234 — Thu, 01 Feb 2024 10:08:40 GMT

I have the latest sw on the iphone 14 and Macbook. The iphone 14 will not tether when using IPv4 - it connects, but no IP is offered by the iphone. DHCP server. I believe this is due to a recent carrier settings "upgrade" from EE.

Tethering / hotspot via IPv6 does work, but then OpenVPN on the Macbook doesn't work with IPv6. So I have no working solution.

Why would EE remove IPv4 hotspot connectivity?

Re: Can't connect Mac to iPhone hotspot unless I change Mac WiFi settings to IPv6

Leanne_T — Thu, 01 Feb 2024 10:22:18 GMT

Hi @stephendale1234

I'm not aware of any changes, to get this looked into please call us on 150 and our tech guides can run diagnostics to help you further.

Leanne.

Re: Can't connect Mac to iPhone hotspot unless I change Mac WiFi settings to IPv6

chrisharris — Fri, 23 Feb 2024 19:28:19 GMT

@stephendale1234 Are you still having this problem? I have exactly the same issue and spent two hours on the phone with EE and then Apple to try to resolve. I did a network setting reset and the an All Settings reset, it hasn't resolved the issue.

Re: Can't connect Mac to iPhone hotspot unless I change Mac WiFi settings to IPv6

stephendale1234 — Fri, 23 Feb 2024 19:39:16 GMT

@chrisharris Yep, still broken. I've had to use a different phone.

Old iOS versions work with new MacOS

New iOS works with old MacOS

New iOS/MacOS doesn't work with IPv4 on EE.

It seems a combination of Apple changes and EE IPv6 implementation results in no IPv4 Service for new iOS/MacOS combinations. For example, set MacOS to IPv4 only and the hotspot won't work at all. That's not right. There are several other threads on this. It would be nice if EE could work with Apple, see the issue themselves and sort this out rather than asking everyone to reset everything.

Re: Can't connect Mac to iPhone hotspot unless I change Mac WiFi settings to IPv6

djsd123 — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 14:02:14 GMT

Hi @Leanne_T ,

Are you able to provide any further assistance with this? This appears to be a wider issue and just advising to call 150 seems a bit trite. I've called EE and as expected, I had to reset everything to no avail. The first line support team aren't able to resolve this issue. They're not even able to comprehend it (no fault of their own with my sympathies).

Can you advise how a business customer like myself can escalate this issue. Please note this is specific to EE. I am able to tether from a phone with a Vodafone network.

Re: Can't connect Mac to iPhone hotspot unless I change Mac WiFi settings to IPv6

Katie_B — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 14:10:23 GMT

Hi @djsd123.

Welcome to the community.

We have no account access here on the EE Community.

If our technical care team are unable to resolve this, there will be the option to raise a ticket to our Level 2 team who can investigate this further.

Katie

Re: Can't connect Mac to iPhone hotspot unless I change Mac WiFi settings to IPv6

uvarvu — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 13:12:59 GMT

I don't understand why everyone is getting hung up over this. If your VPN doesn't work when your mac is set to use IPV6 then that sounds like a you problem and not an EE problem. Where are you trying to VPN to?

Re: Can't connect Mac to iPhone hotspot unless I change Mac WiFi settings to IPv6

ba296 — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 18:28:23 GMT

This might be too late for Tim, but I’ve finally solved this issue for wired tethering. That’s where you plug your EE iPhone into your Mac with a USB cable, and it gets assigned the network service “iPhone USB” (or “iPhone USB 2” - which you can safely delete.)

The underlying issue for both wireless and wired hotspots is that EE has started assigning IPv6 DNS servers via DHCP. Whilst this is perfectly acceptable, it breaks DNS resolution on all recent versions of MacOS. A classic symptom is that you can ping an IP address like 8.8.8.8, but it hangs when you ping www.google.co.uk.

When you’re using your phone as a wireless hotspot, MacOS allows you to fix this by tinkering with the IPv6 settings in System Settings > Network > Details… > TCP/IP (or by setting IPv4 DNS servers in > DNS). Not so when you’re tethered, however - Apple have inexplicably made the settings unavailable.

So, it’s to the Terminal we go, with the following command to explicitly set IPv4 nameservers:

networksetup -setdnsservers “iPhone USB” 9.9.9.9

- I like Quad9 but you can replace 9.9.9.9 with your preferred public DNS provider

- Replace “iPhone USB” with the name of your network service if different. You can list them all with the following command:

networksetup -listallnetworkservices