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When using a mobile hotspot, we all want it to be stable and fast. Unfortunately, mobile hotspot isn’t always reliable and it might switch on and off. So, let’s talk about how you can fix it and what you can do to prevent it from happening.
Table of Contents
1. Check Your Data Consumption
Before we try to fix a mobile hotspot that keeps turning off, let’s start with something that many people forget. Your mobile hotspot is directly tied to your mobile data. It converts your cellular network into wireless signals that other devices can use to connect to the internet.
Your mobile data allocation may have a limit (also called a data cap), depending on your plan with your network carrier.
Although you can still turn your hotspot on even if you’ve already reached your data cap, your network will prevent you from connecting to the internet, and your hotspot will eventually turn off because there are no devices connected to it.
Aside from the data consumption limit from your network carrier, smartphones also have a feature that puts a cap on your monthly data consumption. This feature is supposed to prevent you from going over your monthly plan, but it can also cause your mobile hotspot to keep turning off.
How To Fix It
You may want to consider increasing your limit if you’ve been consuming your monthly allocations from your network carrier. Network carriers will allow you to temporarily increase your data allocation for the month or permanently upgrade your plan.
Doing this will give you more bandwidth for your smartphone and other devices trying to connect to your hotspot.
If you want to change or remove the Mobile Data Limit Setting on your smartphone, here’s what you need to do:
- Go to your phone’s Settings.
- Open the SIM Card and Mobile Data settings.
- Open the Data Usage setting.
- Open the Mobile Data Limit setting.
- Set a higher daily or monthly data limit. You can even remove the limit for untethered access to the internet.
Different phones will use different terms for these settings, which may be confusing. However, most phones will have this setting under your mobile network or data configuration page.
Increasing or removing the limit for your smartphone ensures that your mobile hotspot won’t turn off unless you’re not using it.
2. Restart Your Device
Restarting your phone is a simple fix for many issues. Your smartphone runs a complex operating system and manages various tasks simultaneously. Eventually, it will run into conflicts with its operation that may cause the mobile hotspot to turn off.
Restarting your smartphone allows the system to refresh properly, eliminating all possible conflicts or errors that prevent you from using your mobile hotspot. It’s not a guaranteed fix, but it’s easy, and you won’t have to change the settings of your smartphone, making it one of the first solutions you need to try.
3. Disable the WiFi and Enable Mobile Data Connection
One of the most common reasons a mobile hotspot keeps turning off is because WiFi and mobile data are both enabled. When you enable both of these features on your phone, the WiFi will always take over because it’s faster and more stable.
Unfortunately, smartphones can’t receive and send data signals on the same frequency band simultaneously. That’s why you can’t use your WiFi signals as a data source for your mobile hotspot.
In this case, you’ll need to disable WiFi and enable your mobile data connection to use your smartphone as an access point.
Remember, you can’t use your WiFi to give internet access to another device. It may sound simple enough, but it’s one of the most common causes of issues with mobile hotspots.
However, using WiFi Tethering, you can still use your smartphone to redirect WiFi signals to your desktop or laptop. This option will allow you to use Bluetooth or USB to pass the internet signals to your computer. It’s not as flexible as a mobile hotspot, but it will still help you establish a connection for a device that doesn’t have wireless communication features.
4. Disable Low Power or Power Saving Mode
Most smartphones will ask you to turn on power saving or low power mode when the battery reaches 20%. When this happens, the phone may give you limited access to wireless communication features, including Bluetooth, GPS, and mobile hotspot.
These battery-intensive features run in the background and can drain your battery quickly. A mobile hotspot is far more power-intensive than all of those wireless features because your smartphone needs to continuously send and receive data signals from your cellular network to your devices.
Power-saving or low-power mode is helpful if you want to preserve your battery life. However, it only gives you limited access to mobile hotspot sharing. The power-saving mode kicks in more frequently when you enable the mobile hotspot because of its high power consumption.
Some smartphones will ask for your permission to turn on power-saving mode. However, some will just switch it on automatically.
How To Fix It
To fix this, you’ll have to manually turn off the power-saving mode and re-enable the wireless connections needed to create a mobile hotspot.
Here’s how you can do it:
- Open the quick options menu or control center on your phone. You can do this by swiping down or up (depending on your smartphone’s settings) from the edge of the screen.
- Look for the Power Saving or Low Power mode. Tap the icon to disable it and wait for the wireless communication features to turn back on.
- Disable WiFi and Bluetooth. These features might prevent you from properly using the mobile hotspot feature on your phone. So be sure both are disabled before turning on the mobile data and hotspot.
- Turn on the mobile data and mobile hotspot. Assuming that you still have enough mobile data and there are no errors with your system, you should be able to connect a device to this network.
You can also check your phone’s battery settings to ensure that it will ask for your permission before turning the power-saving mode on. Some smartphones will even allow you to determine the percentage of the battery where you want the power-saving mode to kick in.
5. Configure Hotspot Timeout Settings
Mobile hotspot is a feature that requires a lot of resources. In fact, your phone’s temperature can quickly rise if you leave this feature enabled for a few hours. Since a person using a mobile hotspot won’t be paying attention to it, it’s not uncommon for users to leave it on, draining the battery even if it’s not in use.
Manufacturers designed the hotspot timeout feature to prevent this and preserve battery life. It continuously monitors your smartphone and automatically turns the mobile hotspot off when it’s not used for a predetermined amount of time.
The setting for this will vary, depending on your phone, but it will be between 5 minutes to an hour. If your hotspot timeout is set at 5 minutes, your mobile hotspot will automatically turn off if no other device has used it for the last 5 minutes.
In most smartphones, you’ll have the option to turn this feature off with a toggle button. However, we don’t recommend turning it off because it’s in place to help you preserve your battery life, especially if you frequently use your mobile hotspot.
Increasing the timeout from 5 minutes to 10 or 20 minutes is a better fix, and this should be long enough to allow you to temporarily share your data.
6. Reset Network Settings
Network Settings manages all the wireless communication settings for your smartphone. However, due to the complexity of these systems, your smartphone may encounter conflicts with various wireless connections. Sometimes, these conflicts may cause your mobile hotspot to keep turning off.
Unfortunately, when this happens, there won’t be any option available to smartphone users other than to reset the network settings back to default. You can do this for Android and iPhone, but the process for them may vary, depending on the operating system that you’re using.
You can read this article by AndroidPolice to find out how to reset the network settings for Android and iPhone. If you’re having issues with your mobile hotspot because of an error with your network settings, this should provide you with an easy fix.
7. Open Safe Mode To Check for Incompatible Apps
Third-party applications make our smartphones indispensable, but some of them can cause issues with your device, and it may even affect your mobile hotspot. Unfortunately, this fix will be a bit more complicated than the ones we’ve already shared because different phones will have different ways to turn the Safe Mode on.
Basically, Safe Mode allows you to start your smartphone with all the 3rd-party applications disabled. If you’re having issues with your mobile hotspot and suspect one of the apps you’ve recently installed is causing it, Safe Mode will help you confirm it.
How To Turn On Safe Mode on Android
There are different ways to turn on Safe Mode for Android phones because manufacturers have different ways of enabling it. However, this in-depth video tutorial from Tech With Brett covers the most common ways to enable Safe Mode for Android phones:
How To Turn On Safe Mode on iPhone
- Press the Power and Home buttons until you see the Apple logo. If you’re using an iPhone without a physical Home button, you can use AssistiveTouch as the Home button.
- When you see the Apple logo, let go of the Home and Power buttons.
- Press the Volume Up button immediately and hold it until your iPhone finishes the reboot process.
- You’ll know that you’re in Safe Mode if all the tweaks you made for your iPhone are back to default.
Once in Safe Mode, turn on your mobile data and hotspot to see if it fixes the issue. If your mobile hotspot doesn’t turn off in Safe Mode, then one of the apps you’ve recently installed on your phone is causing the problem.
Unfortunately, checking whether there’s an app incompatibility is as far Safe Mode can go in helping you fix the issue. You’d have to go through trial and error of uninstalling the apps on your phone, starting from the most recently installed to the oldest application, to find the one causing the issue.
This will take a lot of time because you’d have to test the mobile hotspot every time you uninstall an app to see if it solves the problem before you can uninstall another. However, this process will ensure that you can create a better and more stable mobile hotspot.
8. Update Your Operating System
Updating your phone’s operating system should always be on top of your list when it comes to keeping your phone at its peak performance. It also applies to any issue with your smartphone’s features, including the mobile hotspot.
Your smartphone’s manufacturer will release frequent updates to help keep your phone more secure and responsive. However, some of these updates may have bugs that can cause issues with your phone’s wireless connectivity. Fortunately, these bugs get fixed immediately with new updates that aim to fix those bugs and further optimize your phone.
If you want to keep your phone secure with all its features functioning properly, keeping your phone’s software updated is a must. So, always try to get the latest version for the operating system you’re using.
Conclusion
It can be frustrating when your mobile hotspot keeps turning off, and you have to stop what you’re doing to turn it back on. Luckily, there are several fixes for this issue, and you’ll be able to resolve the problem without any technical know-how.
One of the best preventative methods is always to ensure that your device has the latest software update. This provides security and peace of mind and will also ensure your device is working optimally.