I feel ya. Sooo much frustration. When I opened my ubuntu based laptop first, then toggled iphone’s hotspot, then my laptop wont find it.

Turned off laptop’s wifi, then check the ios hotspot(it will auto turned off), then turn on wifi, then turn on hotspot, it will be discovered and auto connected.

Same behaviour when I want to connect my android phone to it.

It has been like this since iphone x launch OS i think.

Iphone 7 launch OS didnt have this issue before.

I said launch OS cuz I forgot what iOS version they came with.