Bluetooth died with update to MacOS Ventura and Bluetooth Controller will not power back on

I had this exact issue today on my 2019 Ventura Mac Pro - as a matter of fact I found this thread by searching on the output of system_profiler SPBluetoothDataType from the terminal:

 Bluetooth Controller:

 Address: NULL

 State: Off

 Chipset: BCM_4350C2

 Discoverable: Off

 Firmware Version: v0 c0

 Product ID: 0x0001

 Supported services: 0x382039 < HFP AVRCP A2DP HID Braille AACP GATT Serial >

 Transport: UART

 Vendor ID: 0x004C (Apple)


I would try to turn on bluetooth from the top right menu bar - hit the oval switch and it would look like it was turned on (blue) but when looking at the Bluetooth settings the icon would just spin and there where no devices present. Of note when I used opt shift and then clicked on Bluetooth settings it would indicate that the bluetooth service was not discoverable which would make sense, since the service was not stated. I also tried sudo pkill bluetoothd from the terminal with a restart and sudo pkill bluetooth from the terminal with a restart. The only thing either of these achieved was setting the bluetooth switch back to off when the machine came back up. Also of note this whole time the bluetooth icon in the top right menu had a left to right, top to bottom \ slash through the bluetooth icon in the bar indicating it was (I believe since I could not find any info on it) that the service was not functional.


Nothing suggested online made any difference for correcting this situation. Bluetooth simply was not functional and could not be turned on, even though you could turn on the switch and it would highlight as if turned on in settings. I even went as far as unplugging all (and I have many - above 20 - as this machine is part of a music studio) USB devices (which is complete garbage in my opinion but I tried it along with multiple reboots because is was another of one of those online "this might help" suggestions that are wrong about 99.9 percent of the time).


Here is what I had to do for the fix. Reboot the Mac Pro Ventura into recovery mode with cmd r held down during reboot. Then chose the reinstallOS into the original target disk. This is very poorly explained online - it's called a step by step guide -> use it Apple, it is too easy to completely hork your system by making the wrong choice during the process. But doing this reinstalled Ventura into the target disk without changing any settings or uninstalling/overwriting any applications and all the machine settings/logins and configurations were intact. It took about an hour give or take.


Another important point when doing this procedure you need to have a keyboard and mouse that is directly connected to the machine. When the Ventura OS reinstall was complete the bluetooth service fired right up and it could discover my Airpod Pros as well as my smart/magic keyboard and tracker. This is now the current output of system_profiler SPBluetoothDataType from the terminal:


    Bluetooth Controller:

     Address: F8:FF:C2:0C:48:45

     State: On

     Chipset: BCM_4364B3

     Discoverable: On

     Firmware Version: v91 c4210

     Supported services: 0x382039 < HFP AVRCP A2DP HID Braille AACP GATT SerialPort >

     Transport: UART

     Vendor ID: 0x004C (Apple)

   Not Connected:

     EXPC02G41Q3MD6V:

       Address: 88:66:5A:52:3C:AD

     Michael’s AirPods Pro:

       Address: A0:A3:09:23:DD:98

       Vendor ID: 0x004C

       Product ID: 0x200E

       Case Version: 1.4.0

       Firmware Version: 6A321

       Minor Type: Headphones

       Serial Number: GX**059

       Serial Number (Left): GX**C6K

       Serial Number (Right): GX**C6J


This was the only way I could find to restore the Bluetooth service without a complete rebuild (this was close enough) but thankfully I didn't have to reinstall 156 apps and reconfigure the machine post a completely fresh install. the machine was exactly the same as before the situation, configured for three huge screens with differing resolutions, and all logins and settings intact.


As a suggestion and a caveat, I would cross reference this outlined process with other references online for OS recovery, this is an Intel Mac Pro and the process can vary slightly by model and chipset. Also it is tricky and nerve wracking and requires patience! I have done mac pro rebuilds many, many times so I am familiar with the process. Start with an older cheese grater mac pro if you have to to get a feel for it. I would not recommend this for a first timer unless you are willing to completely reinstall your OS from scratch and reinstall all your apps if you make a mistake. But I will tell you that it worked and restored the Bluetooth service to functionality (running) when nothing else would work.


[Edited by Moderator]

Mac mini

Posted on Apr 25, 2024 5:47 PM

Reply
8 replies

May 7, 2024 12:24 PM in response to neonetflyer

I still have no way to start the bluetooth service on a 2019 mac pro on Ventura 13.6.6. I am not able to update the OS as I have legacy studio hardware this computer is supporting. So bluetooth simply does not work and the service will not start. I have seen rumors of this being fixed with an OS update. But as pointed out this is not an option. Why is this seeming more and more like planned obsolescence?

May 7, 2024 2:02 PM in response to den.thed

I tried all three of these basic steps as part of the initial troubleshooting of the Bluetooth service outage issue. Non made any difference and the service did not restart. I just tried these again since I had done the OS reinstall. Again no difference in the behavior, the bluetooth service simply does not start when clicking the icon in the menu in the upper right top menu bluetooth switch to on (blue). The only thin that has made any difference was the initial Ventura OS reinstall and then after the second shutdown post OS rebuild again the bluetooth service does not start again, and remains broken.

May 13, 2024 8:24 PM in response to neonetflyer

The last update for Ventura to 13.6.7 has fixed this bluetooth issue. After the OS update today 05/13/2024, which I just completed, and does take a while, about an hour with many reboots, I was able to turn on the bluetooth service with the switch under the bluetooth icon in the upper left hand menu top bar. The service immeadiately became live and recognized my air pod pros. I am happy that Apple took this issue seriously and has addresed it. Thank you.

May 14, 2024 6:51 AM in response to neonetflyer

Unfortunately - With the latest Venture OS update after the bluetooth service had come up and was working and regcognizing devices the same disfucntional bluethooth behavior happened again on shutdown and restartup. The bluetooth service is again DOA with all the same behavior as above. The latest Ventura OS update did not resolve the bluetooth service issue. The behavior was exactly the same as the previous OS reinstall, bluetooth works one time post OS reinstall or update. Then dies and will not start after shutdown and a clean power up. How completely disappointing. So much for Apple QA.

Apr 25, 2024 9:38 PM in response to neonetflyer

This worked initially and was running bluetooth fine, I did an OS reinstall through Os recovery - see above. Then after thinking I had fixed the issue I shut down the machine for a few hours and upon start the issue has returned bluetooth service dead with no way to restart - cmon apple get your act together, this is a ten thousand dollar machine and bluetooth just breaks with no way of fixing or starting it back up it. This is beyond lame.

Bluetooth died with update to MacOS Ventura and Bluetooth Controller will not power back on

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