Fixing the iPhone Bluetooth Internet Tethering with OS X

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34 Responses

  1. Zyrtec27 says:

    Great piece of advice, thank you so much !

  2. Nelson says:

    Thanks so much for this. I toyed around with it on my own to see if it works. Turns out that I needed to delete and read the PAN. Much appreciated!

    – Nelson

  3. Nelson Shen says:

    Having problems tethering your iphone 4 via bluetooth? This fix worked for me. http://bit.ly/9Jn1rE #OSX #iphone4 #tether #troubleshooting

  4. Thank you very much, It’s worked.
    I tried to fix on my own, but it didn’t work.
    Much appreciated.

  5. Trenskow says:

    This was just what I needed. Thank you!

  6. Marco says:

    Awesome tip, saved me a bucket of time I thought it was going to be one of those “It only happens to me” experiences and have to toddle off to the genius bar.

  7. INDISTRESS says:

    THANK YOU SOOO MUCH!!! I WAS ABOUT TO THROW MY PHONE AND MACBOOK OUT THE WINDOW!!!!! AWESOME QUICK FIX!!!!

  8. Aaroncrunch says:

    Brilliant – was so frustrated knowing I had it paired before and then having it stop working! Thanks a lot for taking the time to write this out.

  9. Anonymous says:

    Glad to be of help 🙂

  10. Anonymous says:

    Oh my god you rock so hard. Thank you so, so, much!

    I had no idea I could remove the “Bluetooth PAN” network but following your very nicely explained instructions worked perfectly. Your rock.

    Thanks so much.

  11. Anonymous says:

    PS posted this via my shiny new Iphone PAN network.

  12. Bonb says:

    Thank you… thank you… thank you!

  13. Kembo says:

    Thanks a lot for this tutorial.
    I had faced the same issue after installing 8Gb Ram on my new Macbook Pro.

  14. Gerry Mclarnon says:

    Thanks, that was just what I needed after installing 8GB of memory, who would have thought….

  15. Bo Malmberg says:

    Great!  Have been looking for this fix for a long time!

  16. well says:

    Great !!!
    Worked perfect.
    I had this problem for a while Internet tethering (Personal Hotspot) works on USB but not on Bluetooth. And it took some search to get here. SO I added this phrase to my comments.

    You shud add some more keywords…others will find this faster..

  17. Ken Ng says:

    Thanks for the tip!

  18. Dan says:

    Any tips to tether for updated iOS 5.0.1 on my iPhone? I couldn’t find the “lease” renewal. I’m also using 10.7.2 on my MBP

  19. Ken Ng says:

    Did you use to be able to tether with your iPhone before the iOS 5 update? The iOS 5 update should not break that capability.

  20. Aleksander says:

    Hey. Sorry about my bad english. I’ve followed your instructions and it is still not working. It works fine by cabel, and the “tethering blue sign” comes up on the iphone. The bluetooth pan network is connected and is showing green, the router adresse, subnet and ip4 is found and everything seems to be right, but still I have no internet connection. I works fine on my wifes macbook. I’ve tried to reset the pram but thats no good. Any help?

  21. Lee says:

    Awesome… thank you so much!

  22. Dmitri says:

    I’m having the same problem. This fix isn’t doing it for me.

    I have a late 2008 aluminum MacBook with a completely fresh install of Lion 10.7.2. The 3GS is running latest iOS 5.0.1 (although it’s not clean, so this may be the issue… I’ve been upgrading it version by version since iOS 3).

    I’ve tried removing and re-adding the Bluetooth PAN, but no luck. The iPhone pairs, I see a blue bar saying “Personal Hotspot: 1 Connection” and I’ve done renew DHCP lease, it has an IP, but there is no connection on the MacBook.

    I’ve tried it with my dad’s newer iPhone 4S, and it works fine. So it’s just my old 3GS at fault here. I bet if I restore it to factory settings it will work fine, but I wish I didn’t have to do that…

    Strangely enough, my 3GS bluetooth tethering works fine on my Windows machines, but not my MacBook.

  23. Crispian says:

    Again this isn’t working with me. iPhone 4 running iOS5 and a MBP running 10.7.2.
    I have removed and re-paired and renewed license but still no joy.
    There is an IP address visible and the internet access is showing as ‘green’ in the network pane, but no data is flowing….?
    Is your fix above only if there is no IP being issued?

  24. herojig says:

    Hi I got to step 5 but the IP is not renewing and PAN is still red-balled in network settings. Can’t see a way to fix that! thx.

  25. Ken Ng says:

    That’s weird. Are you getting any errors? Did you delete the pairing from both the iPhone and Mac before re-pairing it?

  26. adroit says:

    guys- it works! for those with newer iOS beside (before doing them – but they may be not necessary at all!) above instructions:
    on iPhone go to ->settings ->general ->reset -> reset network settings.
    it must be something sitting there that we couldn’t see.
    my 3gs tethered fine with my iPad but not with macbook. after doing a reset it works!!

    try it.

  27. Jiansong says:

    This is exactly what I need, thanks ken.

  28. Julianday says:

    Ken you are a legend!
    4 months of frustration and fixed in 3 minutes!
    Thanks

  29. kfpc says:

    I got the same problem :(. Red-balled PAN and I don’t even see an IP anywhere.. But I think it’s because my problem is a little different. My iPhone and MBP are unable to connect. They do at first and then it stops..

  30. Doc says:

    Legend!!!!! Been trying to fix this for ages. Absolute champion! Cheers mate

  31. Niels Ingemann says:

    Thanks so much. This problem nearly killed me, and then I came here and solved it in 5 minutes.

  32. Ken Ng says:

    Totally understand how that feels like and it’s the main reason why I put up this blog. Sort of a personal repository for fixes I discovered and also to help others. So I’m very glad to be able to help. 🙂

  33. jesse says:

    I deleted my “bluetooth PAN” and now it only gives me the option of “bluetooth DUN”… how do I get bluetooth pan back?

  34. Hojjat says:

    Thanks! Worked like a charm!

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