How to regain the Instant Hotspot feature in Yosemite after noticeable errors

continuitytethering

While normal hotspot interaction functions perfectly between an iPhone 6 (iOS 8.4) and my MBPr '14 with Yosemite 10.10.4, the Instant Hotspot feature does not. This feature used to work, but after some time this feature stopped working.
I found the source of the issue, but can't determine how to resolve it.

My Yosemite logs reveal some errors.

com.apple.preferences.icloud.remoteservice[749]: [-[CastlePlugin appleIDNeedsFixing]]
accountsd[270]: Deleting com.apple.gs.appleid.auth service token
AppleIDAuthAgent[286] SERVER AppleIDAuth: Forgetting account "<my-apple-id>@?????.???"

SDHotspotBrowser::appendHashToData:withType: No apple ID hash
SDHotspotBrowser::restartAdvertisingTetheringRequest Did not start advertising request

Steps I've tried that have not worked:

  • Signing out and back in to AppleID on both devices
  • Clean restore of iOS to iPhone
  • Ensuring wifi and bluetooth enabled on both devices, neither with an active wifi connection
  • All the above steps with full LTE coverage and 12 inch proximity between devices

Best Answer

While other answers here may help troubleshooting other causes of instant hotpsot failure, mine was caused by having two iCloud accounts used for keeping some syncing features separate.

Steps I took to get it working:

  • Turn on bluetooth and wifi on both devices
  • Connect both devices to same home wifi connection
  • Sign out of all icloud accounts on both devices
  • Restart both devices
  • Sign into both icloud accounts on iphone
  • Sign into both icloud accounts on OS X
  • Restart both devices
  • Sign out of main icloud account on mac
  • Restart mac
  • Sign into main icloud account on mac
  • Restart mac
  • Sign out of main icloud account on iphone
  • Restart iphone
  • Sign into main icloud account on iphone
  • Restart iphone
  • Check wifi on mac, profit

In my OS X console, See confirmation of Handoff:

AppleIDAuthAgent[285]: SERVER AppleIDAuth: Adding certificate for "<my-apple-id>@?????.???", "<certificate number>" to keychain, serial#="<iOS device serial number>" (updateAccountWithCertificateResult()/AppleIDAuthenticationImpl.cpp #225) accountCheckDispatch

Note that correct Instant Hotspot functionality is as follows

  • Instant hotspot should show up even if "Personal Hotspot" is turned off on the iPhone
  • Instant hotspot should show up even if Mac and iPhone are connected to other Wifi networks
  • Instant hotspot should show up even if phone is locked and in your pocket
  • Instant hotspot should show up even if iPhone has never been paired to the mac before
  • Instant hotspot will not show up if bluetooth is turned off on either device

Your device should appear here

Related Question