I’ve been able to confirm the following conditions have to be met to replicate this issue (for me at least):
iPhone SE (only this model, 2nd generation.)
iOS 18.x
RouterOS (latest v7.x iteration)
I’ve personally encountered two iPhone SE 2nd generation phones, both on iOS 18.x, both cannot connect to MikroTik Wi-Fi.
Users in this thread claim it’s “fixed” in recent iOS 18.2.x betas but we’ll see when it goes final.
running at least 2 iPhoneSE (2gen) on IOS18 on my wifi network without issues …
ROS 7.17rc on HAP AX3.
all running fine
iOS 18.2 is officially released- anyone have a chance to test their broken Wi-Fi with it?
I don’t have the update offered yet. It’s very easy to test if you have a GoPro or Nikon camera though, I’ll be able to test in a couple of days.
On Mikrotik, just enable ccmp-256 and you should see the breakage.
Enabling/disabling ccmp-256 yields the same result in my testing- iPhone SE (not on 18.2 yet) can’t connect either way.
More precisely, for me Mikrotiks started working with iOS 18 after setting the encryption parameters to “ccmp,gcmp”. I don’t know if it’s ccmp-256 or gcmp-256 that causes the problem, or maybe even something else, but setting “ccmp,gcmp” makes it work.
For those still following this thread, I ran into the similar issue as you all, but my “fix” was much more involved. I was fine-tuning my wifi network settings, when suddenly I realized my iPhone, and only my iPhone, would not re-connect to my wifi network anymore. I can’t remember if I was adjusting steering options, or FT, but whatever I was touching had nothing to do with the wifi security settings for my network. I ran into this issue when first setting up my new hAP ax2’s using CAPsMAN running on a hEX refresh, and I figured it would figure itself out eventually again. I was wrong.
Everything aforementioned in this thread did not work. Every device would connect to my HAP ax2’s perfectly, but every time I would try to get my iPhone on iOS 18.1.1 (and also 18.2) to connect, my connection to my home network would just hang. And hang. And do nothing after that. No errors on my iPhone, not even a “could not connect to this network”. This was after multiple reboots, many times forgetting the network, and also many times resetting my iPhone’s network settings back to factory default. Still would not connect. Even if I used a wrong password, it would still hang and not error out and tell me the password was wrong. If I tried to manually connect to the network while also changing the security setting to something other than WPA2/WPA3 enterprise, I could get an error to present itself on my phone. If I disabled the security on my home network, it would connect fine. Around and around I went, resetting everything I could on my phone (and rebooting my hAP ax2’s and hEX refresh), and trying different setting after different setting in ROS trying to get my iPhone to connect. This went on for around 4 hours of trial and error. Note: as far as other devices go, I have an Apple TV on tvOS 18 and also a MacBook Air running MacOS 15; both worked completely fine during this issue.
For context, I was only using Winbox to make the config changes the entire time. I also did not take a look at the actual config to see if there was something that went wrong there while using Winbox. I wish I had really taken a look at the config before I fixed the issue. Regardless, my fix was to delete the wifi configs I had in CAPsMAN and set it all back up the exact same way it was when my iPhone was failing. Lo and behold, my phone connected to my home network instantly. With the same exact settings, at least according to Winbox.
With all of this said, I do not deny that there is a problem with iOS 18. However, I do find it strange that, at least as far as my phone should have been concerned, it had never seen my home network before. Even still, it would not connect. It wasn’t until I completely re-did my wifi config in CAPsMAN that my phone started connecting properly again.
encryption (list of ccmp, ccmp-256, gcmp, gcmp-256, tkip)
A list of ciphers to support for encrypting unicast traffic. Defaults to ccmp.
Playing with this and mixing security profiles after overwriting them on the physical interface tab is the root of your problems.
Every single iOS/ macOS device that was ever present in my network, never had a single problem. They’re roaming between bands/ connecting via WPA3 etc.
Wow, interesting. This fixed it for me as well. Set both 2.4 and 5 GHz networks to only use CCMP and GCMP, everything else unchecked. Thank you.
Glad to hear it helped! The previous post said “but ccmp is the default”, which I agree it is, but doesn’t make sense. If ccmp would really be the default, then one needn’t override it.
Well, anyway, I’ll test this weekend with 18.2.
Revisting this after 6 mths. Set encryption back to “encryption=ccmp,gcmp,ccmp-256,gcmp-256” = instant disconnect for my Mac mini M1.
Set it to back to “encryption=ccmp,gcmp” = OK
RB5009 managing ax2 & ax3. All on 7.18.
Mac mini M1 on macOS 15.3.1