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Forum Discussion
iOS 14 Private Network Address makes my iPad loose connectivity..
I recently upgraded to iOS 14 & I'm noticing that the Orbi is not playing nice with the Private Internet Address feature. I keep loosing connectivity even though it shows that the wifi is connected. ...
While I understand that. The Orbi firmware needs to be addressed with an update to fix this incompatibility.
IOS 14 introduced a feature which "randomizes" the WiFi MAC address as a security feature. This is not unique to Apple. Other operating systems have a similar feature. This feature can be turned off. This would most likely "solve the problem."
My (limited) understanding is that the randomized MAC feature is supposed to create a new MAC address for each WiFi system that the IOS device connects to. Once it creates a MAC for an Orbi WiFi system, that MAC should remain the same. (Can someone comment if this is indeed what is supposed to happen?)
So, (1) disabling this feature would solve the problem, and (2) it would be interesting to understand exactly "what is going on" with respect to this specific iPhone and Orbi system. Does it have a consistent MAC address? What is happening when it "roams"? Is "Access Control" enabled on the Orbi?
To further expose my ignorance.....
If rather than creating a new MAC address for each WiFi SSID, the new IOS 14 feature creates a new MAC address for each access point MAC address that the iPhone encounters, this will create havok for every mesh system that exists. What the heck is a WiFi system supposed to do?
Wow, here is a device with MAC address xxx that knows my SSID/password and wants to connect. Great. I'll give it an IP address.
Oh, goodness. Here is another device with a different MAC address that knows my SSID/password and wants to connect. Cool.
Oh my. Here is yet another device with a different MAC address that knows my SSID/password and wants to connect. Fine dea.
Oh, now it MY responsibility to know that those three different devices were actually the same device that was creating new identities every time it wanted to connect?
Holy Crap. No wonder the message boards are full of posts about IOS 14.
CrimpOn wrote:Once it creates a MAC for an Orbi WiFi system, that MAC should remain the same.
Correction: Once it creates a MAC for a network, that MAC should remain the same.
CrimpOn wrote:Once it creates a MAC for an Orbi WiFi system, that MAC should remain the same.
Can someone comment if this is indeed what is supposed to happen?
It's supposed to happen that the device does use the same randomized MAC when connecting to the very same network. However, the iOS 14 implementation s***s. It appears that iOS 14 does create random MAC for the same network under various conditions.
That's of course not what the tin hats want - large scale WiFi networks which can be located at many places can represent the same network.
By the way: Every decent OS is already identifying the (wireless) network, based on SSID, default gateway MAC, and more - for the "connect to this network" automatically.
So that is not what is happening lol.. I have about 5 different iPads all the same device with different mac addresses.
