Pairing with keyboard lost when iMac wakes

Question

Pairing with keyboard lost when iMac wakes

Four days ago I received my new iMac 20" 2.66GHz with an aluminum wireless keyboard and mighty mouse.
I've disabled the feature "Allow bluetooth devices to wake this computer". Everytime I wake my iMac with the power button, it reports that the communication with the keyboard is lost, then I'm able to use the keyboard about about 10 sec.

However, tonight I had a worse problem. I woke my iMac and as usual got the login window asking for the password to unlock the screen saver. But this time, the iMac lost completely the pairing with my keyboard. I've tried powering off/on the keyboard, replacing the batteries with new one (although the old are only 4 days old), but no luck. I was still unable to use the keyboard to type the password.
Luck me, I had another account without password, hence, since my mouse was still working, I've switched the user to this account which didn't need a password.
Then I opened the mouse/keyboard preferences and saw that the iMac effectively lost the pairing with my keyboard.
I tried using the bluetooth assistant but the pairing failed a number of time. Sometimes it discovered the keyboard but reported a communication failure before providing me with the passkey, and sometimes it failed after I entered the passkey.
Even after a force reboot (pressing the power button 5 seconds), I had the same issue.
And suddenly the pairing succeeded.

I've looked at the logs and found the following:

05.07.08 20:05:27 Bluetooth Setup Assistant[334] 1:Pairing failed with 'Nicolas' Keyboard': error 0x4
05.07.08 20:06:27 Bluetooth Setup Assistant[334] 1:Pairing failed with 'Nicolas' Keyboard': error 0x10
05.07.08 20:07:14 Bluetooth Setup Assistant[334] 1:Pairing failed with 'Nicolas' Keyboard': error 0x10
05.07.08 20:08:58 Bluetooth Setup Assistant[334] 1:Pairing failed with 'Nicolas' Keyboard': error 0x8

The keyboard is running the latest f/w.

I've seen other posts with similar issues, but without a solution (apart from enabling "Allow bluetooth devices to wake this computer"). Is there another solution ?

Does anyone have a description of the above hexadecimal codes 0x4, 0x8 and 0x10 ?

Thanks

iMac 20" 2.66GHz, Mac OS X (10.5.4)

Posted on Jul 5, 2008 1:03 PM

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Answer 1

Jul 6, 2008 9:59 PM in response to Community User

Hello nwi:

Since everything is brand new, I would call Applecare rather than spend your own time troubleshooting the issue. The problem could stem from a number of things and Apple has excellent troubleshooting processes.

Barry

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Answer 2

Jul 7, 2008 12:51 AM in response to Barry Hemphill

Hi Barry,

I've contacted Applecare and indicated the problem. I've mentioned the fact that I also tested the same wireless keyboard with a MacBook I've got and I had similar symptom while attempting to pair both.
Suddenly the pairing worked, hence I'm suspecting a H/W issue with my keyboard, they agreed and initiated a procedure to get this keyboard replaced.

Beside that, they confirmed that disabling the "Allow bluetooth devices to wake this computer" feature may lead to unexpected behavior, hence their recommendation was to keep it enabled.

I'll also take a spare wired keyboard from my office, in case this problem happens again. With a wired keyboard I would have been able to plug it and enter my password to unlock the screen saver, instead of rebooting the iMac.

Thanks for your assistance.
nwi

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