iPhone not connecting to WIFI - solution

[timf-sim]

Hi there,

Thought this might be helpful for anyone else having this problem. Since IOS 14, there is a new wifi setting for iphone called 'Private address', which is enabled by default. This is a good security feature, but it does cause a problem if you use MAC filtering for your wifi connection. This is because your phone will mask it's MAC address, and the router will be unable to authenticate it. You'll get an error message like 'unable to join network'.

If this happens, you will need to go into your router's settings and disable mac filtering. Your phone should then connect to your wifi network as normal. If you want to turn mac filtering back on, you'll need to disable 'Private address' in your iphone's wifi settings. To do this, click on the wifi network name while you're connected, and make sure 'Private address' is turned off.

Hope this helps some people who are having similar problems.

[Anonymous]

Not having the THG3000 router I can't actually see how MAC filtering has been implemented, but usually, in addition to being off, you have the ability to accept or reject.

Off:  Any device connecting to the SSID and using the correct password should be able to connect (usually default)

Reject: The user can enter MAC addresses that the router will not allow to connect

Accept: Unless the device MAC address is on the list you ain't coming it!

FYI the "private" address feature in iOS actually works by generating random MAC addresses rather than hiding the MAC address - without a MAC address network protocols mostly fall over.  As for whether it's a positive step, the "private address" feature improperly used can actually reduce security (it makes only accepting known MAC addresses impossible).

[timf-sim]

Thanks - yes you're right, it's actually more like a 'dynamic mac address' - the net result is the same though - if you have MAC filtering switched on, you can't connect. I don't know whether they gave any thought to this when implementing this feature. MAC filtering is usually switched off by default, but a lot of people like to use it as an additional security feature.

[Cynric]

In comparison, on my Android (version 11) device the WiFi settings for static or random MAC address are on a per-connection basis so I can set static for home and random for coffee shops etc. I have no iPhone experience but I wonder if a similar setup is possible.

[timf-sim]

That would be great, but I can't see that this is currently possible with IOS - another example of Android doing things better. The randomised MAC makes much more sense for public wifi networks.

[timf-sim]

Actually a correction to the above - the private MAC address is set on a per-connection basis with IOS as well. As such I will disable it for my home network but keep it enabled on others.