Q: iOS9 Airdrop to Mac not working

OK, thanks - I found the Sharing Daemon at 'Macintosh HD/usr/libexec'. My version is 438.0.1. It was accessed today, but I don't know what that means. And, it is not on my Firewall Options list (I am running El Capitan 10.11), unless you mean  "File Sharing (AFP, SMB):    Allow all connections" which, as you can see, is enabled ...

Alas, alas, the saga continues, and it is maybe getting worse: I can't even Bluetooth-pair my iPhone (6+) & my MBP, while my iPhone happily & instantaneously pairs with the radio in my car ...

There is, indeed, something rotten in Apple-land!

If you turn the Firewall off, does that fix the issue?

No, unfortunately not ...  :-(

I had the same problem with MBP mid 2012 and iPhone 6 ios9, this is what I did:

1. Turn off Bluetooth on your Mac
2. Delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist
3. Turn Bluetooth back on

Thx - it doesn't work for me ... Brgds Ivan

Hi there

This has been my experience.

AirDrop works with Pages and Photo transfers from my MacBook Pro Retina (13 inch, OS 10.10.5 Yosemite) to my iPhone 6 S Plus (OS 9.1). After transfer, on the iPhone, Pages is an AirDrop menu item, manually selected. Photos are stored automatically. All good.

However, although an iTunes song transfer can be accepted on the iPhone, the AirDrop menu does not have iTunes listed for me to select. It only has Voice Memos, iMovie, and iTunes U. None intended for iTunes songs. It is possible, though, to store the iTunes song in iMovie>Audio. And thereafter listen.

I have followed Apple's HT203106 faithfully. I updated 10.10.5 to 10.11.1 El Capitan but this made no difference. One thing I am glad about is I can still use AirDrop from MacBook to MacBook. For those who cannot, forget AirDrop and use a Thunderbolt cable, or alternatively copy material to a USB stick, then copy its contents to the receiving Mac... Laborious!

I tried my iPhone 6 S Plus today. AirDrop is the only service improperly working. As far as using a Thunderbolt cable with it, I am unaware of a Thunderbolt to Lightning cable. AirDrop's failure to work properly between, say, a Mac and iOS devices is unacceptable, and not worthy of Apple. AirDrop is a basic and essential service clearly not tested thoroughly before the release of iOS 9.

Amen to your last paragraph! Does anyone believe we can start a 'sh*t-storm' on e.g. Facebook to catch Apple's attention &, hopefully, full dedication to sorting out this mess?

So here is my scenario:

MacBook Air with 10.11.1, iPhone 6s+ with 9.1.  iPhone sees Mac, but Mac does not see iPhone.  Bring in two other iPhones, iPhones see each other, Mac sees two iphones, but no iPhones see Mac.  Very odd.  AND, the name the Mac shows for one of the iPhones, we can't figure out where it's getting (not from iCloud, device name, or from contact).

For troubleshooting purposes, we log in as the guest user, and it all works as expected, so it's obviously related to the user's account.

Removed /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist, and reboot, no change

Removed the folder ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost and reboot, everything works as expected.

Good luck.

Tony

Tony -

Thank you for your input - but I don't even have a 'ByHost' folder in /Library/Preferences/ ...

Since I am not an Apple hotshot, I take the liberty of enclosing a few lines from my Sharing Daemon log file, which to my uninitiated eye suggests that 'something' is going on, amongst others a lot of discovering, disabling & shutting down. Can anyone help me decipher this, please?

...

2015-10-28 08:44:34.462 sharingd[5721:1470983] 08:44:34.462 : BTLE discovered device with hash <01ad22c0 0a1db300 0000>

2015-10-28 08:44:34.462 sharingd[5721:1470983] 08:44:34.462 : Hash <01ad22c0 0a1db300 0000> exists in contacts

2015-10-28 08:44:34.462 sharingd[5721:1470983] 08:44:34.462 : BTLE scanning stopped

2015-10-28 08:44:49.466 sharingd[5721:1470983] 08:44:49.466 : BTLE scanning started

2015-10-28 08:44:49.466 sharingd[5721:1470983] 08:44:49.466 : Scanning mode Contacts Only

2015-10-28 08:44:49.467 sharingd[5721:1470983] 08:44:49.467 : BTLE scanner Powered On

2015-10-28 08:45:04.464 sharingd[5721:1470983] 08:45:04.464 : AirDrop server idle timeout

2015-10-28 08:45:04.464 sharingd[5721:1470983] 08:45:04.464 : AirDrop server disabled

2015-10-28 08:45:04.464 sharingd[5721:1470983] 08:45:04.464 : BTLE scanning stopped

2015-10-28 08:45:04.465 sharingd[5721:1470983] 08:45:04.465 : BTLE scanning started

2015-10-28 08:45:04.465 sharingd[5721:1470983] 08:45:04.465 : Scanning mode Contacts Only

2015-10-28 08:45:04.465 sharingd[5721:1470983] 08:45:04.465 : AirDrop server terminated

2015-10-28 08:45:04.465 sharingd[5721:1470983] 08:45:04.465 : Bonjour advertise stopped

2015-10-28 08:45:04.466 sharingd[5721:1470983] 08:45:04.466 : BTLE scanner Powered On

2015-10-28 08:45:04.876 sharingd[5721:1470983] 08:45:04.875 : Terminate AirDrop P2P link

2015-10-28 15:26:42.930 sharingd[5721:1470983] 15:26:42.929 : Purged contact hashes

2015-10-28 15:26:42.936 sharingd[5721:1470983] 15:26:42.936 : Discoverable mode changed to Off

...

In desparation ------------------/Ivan

Hi Ivan, that means the Bluetooth part of AirDrop is working but the Wi-Fi part isn't.  Assuming you've already upgraded to El Capitan 10.11.1, can you hold down the option key on the keyboard and click on the Wi-Fi menu at the top of the screen in the menu bar.  What "Channel" number does it show?

Snoop Dog -

I really appreciate the patience of you guys with a newbee like me!

I have looked at my 2.4 GB (Channel 1) and 5 GB (Channel 40) connections - the settings of the router are 'auto' for both frequencies. For the sake of completeness I have tried all three permutations of WiFi frequencies , and it doesn't make any difference: when trying to pair the iPhone and the MBP, they connect momentarily after accepting the code, but then the connection is broken. No luck with AirDrop.

I have installed Parallels Desktop (11) - and wonder whether the Mac and Windows parts are competing for control of the Bluetooth?? I'll pursue this with the Parallels supporters - they are both competent & quick (Apple nudge, nudge ...).

I'll slog on ------------------/Ivan

It's not in /Library/Preferences, on mine it was in ~/Library/Preferences (which resolves to /Users/<your username>/Library/Preferences).

Tony

Tony -

Thx, you're right - it is indeed ~/Library/Preferences/ ... and didn't make any difference, alas, alas

Cheers -------------------/Ivan

If you log out and log in as a guest user does it work?