A friend of mine first noticed a problem in which iOS devices stop suggesting random Autofill passwords after being upgraded to iOS 12. He spent a week trying to figure out what was going on.

Password Autofill: The problem

Usually when setting up a new password for some form of online service (a website, for example) using iOS your iPhone or iPad will suggest a unique password you can use.

The thing is, in some cases after upgrading to iOS 12 some users saw this feature disappear – they needed to create and enter their own password manually.

How to make Password Autofill work again

This is what worked for my friend. It also worked for me on one of my devices, and it is (inevitably) yet another version of the standard engineering maxim, “Turn it off and on again”, albeit a little more complex.

• Open Settings>Passwords & Accounts>Autofill.
• Toggle Autofill to off.
• Return to Settings>Passwords & Accounts and select iCloud in accounts
• Scroll down to Keychain>iCloud Keychain and switch it off if it is on.
• Shut your device down, then restart it.

• Open Settings>Passwords & Accounts>Autofill
• Toggle Autofill to on (green)
• Then, in Keychain>iCloud Keychain toggle iCloud Keychain back to On (green).

In future your iPhone or iPad should get right back to automatically creating passwords for you. Hope this helps. Many thanks to Oliverio.

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