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Apple devices forgetting wifi details

Hi folks


I have a weird problem that seems to have appeared over the past weeks/months. All my Apple devices (iPad, iPhone 13, MacBook Pro) have started to randomly forget wifi networks without being asked. They don’t auto connect, and often ask for the wifi password again. On the MacBook, you can actually see the wifi network in the list….then a random period later - hour, day, or even week - it has mysteriously disappeared from the list.


I can’t pinpoint when this started either. The only thing that has changed recently was to upgrade my Devolo mains networking with the latest hardware, and set up a wifi mesh. Worked fine at first.


I have tried everything obvious - power cycled everything, reset network settings, forget & reconnect network, make sure everything is running current versions of firmware. Still shows the same problem. Can’t even narrow it down to which mesh node is being used-it seems totally random.


Despite being somewhat techie I am now out of ideas and officially flummoxed. Help!

iPad Pro, iPadOS 15

Posted on Mar 21, 2022 2:17 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Apr 5, 2022 10:23 AM

Solved! And it was right in front of me.


The Devolos had IEEE802.11r enabled, and I had turned on WPA3 networking because the iOS devices were reporting an unsecured network. This is explicitly warned about in the config (see pic). Turned it off, and things seem to have stabilised.


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4 replies

Mar 22, 2022 12:51 PM in response to thirstybear

Thanks for posting in the Apple Support Communities thirstybear,


When signed in with your iCloud account, each of your devices may share preferred networks, and networks you've connected to previously.


On your Mac, review your preferred networks, remove any unneeded networks, then drag the remaining networks to order them by priority, relative to how often you use them. For example, you may want your home network at the top of the list.


  1. On your Mac, choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, then click Network.Open Network preferences for me
  2. Click Wi-Fi in the list at the left, then click Advanced. You can remove stored networks be clicking the Remove button ( - ) at the bottom of the list.
  3. Drag the network you want to give highest priority to the top of the preferred networks list. Your computer will try to join this network first.


Choose preferred Wi-Fi networks on Mac


It's also a good idea to have a unique network name for your home network, to avoid conflicts with other routers that use a default network name or SSID.


Recommended settings for Wi-Fi routers and access points


We hope this helps!

Apple devices forgetting wifi details

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