Fixing “Incorrect password” problem when connecting to Wi-Fi on iOS devices

I noticed a few days ago, that my iPhone wouldn’t connect to my WiFi any more. It kept saying “incorrect password” even though the password hadn’t changed.

So I tried a few things:

• Forget Wi-Fi network and reconnect -> didn’t work
• Reset network settings -> Just lost all my Wi-Fi passwords, thank you!
• Reboot and power cycle iPhone -> didn’t work
• Force reboot iPhone -> didn’t work
• Power cycle router -> didn’t work

I was at a loss, searching the numerous result for this problem, that seems to appear quite a lot, brought no useable results. Basically just variations of the steps above, and countless admonitions that Wi-Fi passwords are case sensitive. Well, nothing new here.

Interesting were some users that reported solving the problem when shifting the Wi-Fi channel width from 20 MHz to 40 or 80 MHz.

My D-Link Covr P2500 doesn’t allow me to tweak these settings. It’s a mesh, multi-MIMO router with a powerline extension. Works wonders in our house, but also meant this wasn’t an option for me.

One intermediary step, that was successful, was changing the Wi-Fi password. The phone immediately connected. But this wasn’t an option. We have some IoT and lot’s of guests, so changing the password just so my iPhone could reconnect wasn’t adequate.

What did work is factory resetting the router. I downloaded all my settings. Factory reset the router, and then actually didn’t upload the settings again, since it’s really just the SSID and the password as well as the admin password. I hadn’t used any schedules or such.

After this, the iPhone connected again like a charm. Maybe some profile was left on the router. I still don’t really know.

So when you face that problem, and you have full access to your router. Try factory resetting this and see if it improves.