How to Fix Personal Hotspot from iPhone Connected Through USB Not Functioning

I believe most of the iPhone users had experienced problem or issue in which personal hotspot connected through their computer’s USB port is not functioning. Personal hotspot through USB means you use your IPhone as the source of internet connection by connecting your iPhone to your computer using the lightning cable. Sometime, the personal hotspot from your iPhone does not function as you expected. However, please try the following ways to solve the problem.

Note:

The following ways or methods are based on the usage of keyboard to allow the screen readers users to follow easily. The following ways also given based on the windows 10 version 1703 and screen reader NVDA version 2017.3.

General Fixes:

Following are some of the typical causes of the problem and their fixes:

• Make sure the lightning cable is connected properly to the computer and the lightning cable is functioning.
• Restart your computer and iPhone and then connect them together again
• Make sure you are using the latest version of iTune

Installing Apple Mobile Device Ethernet Driver:

If all the methods or ways listed above are not working for you, may be the Apple Mobile Device Ethernet Driver is  not installed in your computer. Therefore, consider installing the Apple Mobile Device Ethernet Driver in your computer by following the steps stated below. Before you start the installation process of the Apple Mobile Device Ethernet Driver, make sure your iPhone is still connected to your computer.

1. Press Windows+r on the keyboard to open the “run dialog” and type devmgmt.msc in the edit box provided. Then press enter and the device manager will pop up.
2. Press tab once to go to the list of devices and use down arrow to find “Network Adapters” in the list. Then, press right arrow to expand the list of Network Adapters. Once the list is expanded, use down arrow to find the “Apple Mobile Device Ethernet” in the list. If you don’t find it, you have to install it in your computer.
3. Then, press left arrow to return to the “Network Adapters”. Then press down arrow to find “Other devices” in the list of devices. Next, press right arrow once and press down arrow to find “iPhone” in the list. Now, press application or right click to find “Update driver” and press enter. Then the “iPhone driver update dialog” will open.
4. Then, press tab to find “Browse my computer for driver software Locate and install driver software manually” and press enter. A small window will pop up, press tab to find “brows” button and press enter. After that, another window will pop up for us to brows or find the location of the driver in our computer storage. By default, the screen reader will focus on the “ok” button. Therefore, press shift+tab until you find “Select the folder tree view that contains drivers for your hardware, ”. We at the tree view, so press up, down, left, or right arrow to search the location of “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Apple\Mobile Device Support\NetDrivers”
5. Once you find the folder “NetDrivers”, the focus of screen reader will back to the first small window. Therefore, press tab to find “next” button and press enter once you find it. Then the installation process will start. Once it is done, the focus of screen reader will be in the same window and you will find “Close button, completes the wizard” in the window. Just press enter at the “Close” button and you will return to the Device Manager window.

Making sure the Successful Installation:

If you want to make sure whether the  Apple Mobile Device Ethernet Driver is already installed in your computer or not, you can press NVDA key/Jaws key + B to read the text in the window. You will hear the following “Windows has successfully updated your drivers. Windows has finished installing the drivers for this device: Apple Mobile Device Ethernet Close”. Just press enter at the “Close” button and you will return to the Device Manager window. Usually, the screen reader will focus at the Apple Mobile Device Ethernet Driver that you just install. The driver will function once you complete the installation process and you will be able to see the network status at the system tray and it will show the network through iPhone.

Final Advice:

Finally, it is advised to make sure the driver is enable. Back to the Device Manager, go to the Network Adapters Apple Mobile Device Ethernet and press application, press down arrow and make sure it show “Disable device”. This means that the driver is enable. If it show “Enable device”, press enter to enable it.

That’s all for now. Hope this article will be beneficial for you. Good luck!