Snow Leopard and Bluetooth problem

Which thread? Or what was the solution? (I tried all the Bluetooth sharing options)
And which problem? There is more than one problem covered in this thread. Some totally unrelated.

My problem is that my bluetooth dongle stopped working (and the built in bluetooth is totally b0rken in early Intel Mac Mini's).
I have removed all startup items and such, there is no custom SW installed, and the problem applies both to upgraded system and fresh install of 10.6.x, but not 10.5.8/10.5.x.
I have bluetooth, available (if I boot without the D-Link dongle inserted) and the dongle seems to be recognized when I insert it after the system is up, but whatever I do (search for devices or whatever) results in the spinnging wheel forever -- until I remove the dongle.

A fix would be most welcome, as the system is kinda useless without it's wireless keyboard.

--
flips

Flips01

You are right ... there is a multiple of problems in this thread. Sorry, I was referring to my specific problem which as it appears is simpler than all those reported in this thread and definitely NOT of the same nature as yours - maybe of the OP.

My SNow Leopard shows "connected" to my Nokia and SonyEricsson phones - but, the messages in these phones showed could not connect. All I needed to do was "enable Bluetooth sharing" in the System Preferences/Bluetooth and clicked "File Sharing Setup" and ticked "Bluetooth Sharing". I do not know remember having to do this with my Tiger and Leopard systems. Maybe I was mistaken,

I'm having the same issues discussed in this topic. I have a one year old unibody MBP 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. The Bluetooth worked perfectly before the upgrade to Snow Leopard, now I can't get it to pair to my Mighty Mouse, my Bluetooth keyboard (Apple, aluminum, brand new), or my Palm Pre via BT. I tried putting in their individual addresses in the BT pane, but that didn't work either. The perplexing thing is that my new iMac DOES connect via BT to the mighty mouse and the keyboard (I haven't tried the Palm Pre)... although the Mighty Mouse is crippled: only the left click and scroll ball work, the right click, side buttons, and pressing the scroll ball do not.

Apple, HELP? I am a proud supporter of your products and a long time user... this is making me disappointed.

Add me to the list of people with Bluetooth problems in Snow Leopard. Definitely a SL problem for me. Everything worked fine with Leopard but since the upgrade (running 10.6.1) BT doesn't work with my phones. Everything appears normal, but nothing will pair: not with my old phone (Sony Ericsson W300i, worked perfectly w/ Leopard) nor with my new phone (Nokia 7510). Tried both phones with my wife's MPB (still running Leopard, smart lady) and both phones were seen immediately. My Apple BT keyboard, on the other hand, works perfectly. Such a strange bug. Sure hope 10.6.2 fixes this.

I feel your pain, buddy. My bluetooth headset hasn't worked since I installed Snow Leopard. My keyboard and mouse still work though. So I'm not sure what the problem is, but I sure hope that 10.6.2 is gonna take take care of that issue, as well as losing my mike-in, the freezes that happen when my virus scans reach about 80 to 90 percent, the higher operating temperatures I'm experiencing and losing some or all of my email passwords from time to time. Anyway I'm glad I'm not depending on bluetooth for anything essential.

Guise:

For what it's worth, I partitioned my MacBook h/d and installed Leopard (which I'm working on now) on this partition whilst Snow Leopard dwells on the other partition. Still no Bluetooth showing.

System Profiler says "no info" (whilst Console shows that I do, indeed, have a Broadcom module installed). and -as with Snow Leopard- it's not showing up in System Prefs.

So I'm totally stumped. I'm also too out of it to hazard a guess as to why when it previously worked with Leopard. Off the top of my head, I'd say that the very presence of Snow Leopard on the rig is 'blocking' Bluetooth rather than the upgrade causing the problem. /me shrugs.

Like I said, I'm out of it so this is prolly nothing but -for what it's worth- I got this message in Console.

*10/28/09 1:43:14 PM kernel wl0: Broadcom BCM4328 802.11 Wireless Controller*

I finally just got my older white Apple bluetooth keyboard to pair with my new 15" MacBook Pro running 10.6.1. I don't know what if what I did is the answer for everybody, but here it is:

in Sharing Preferences I enabled Bluetooth Sharing. My settings are to require pairing with everything and to always ask before doing anything.

Then in Bluetooth Advanced preferences I checked 2 settings:
Allow BT devices to wake the computer
prompt for incoming audio requests

And I enabled a setting which may or may not be standard. It could be from when I tried to sync my old razr... in any case in the Serial ports box at the bottom of the advanced BT prefs, it lists "Bluetooth-PDA-Sync" with a type of "Modem" - I checked to the box to enable it.

When pairing the new device, the MBP located the keyboard as it has every other time, and I changed the passkey settings using a custom number, 1234.

When it finally connected to the keyboard, however, it didn't ask me to enter 1234. It had a series of two 4-digit numbers, as it had done every other time. When I entered those numbers, it suddenly worked.

Anyway I've been trying for days. Maybe after the 100th time it's programmed to give up and pair the thing... persistence paid off. If it quits on me I'll post again.

Good luck. It is very frustrating.

Bluetooth Update 1.0 for Windows
This update improves the performance of the Apple Bluetooth devices when running Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Vista on a Mac computer using Boot Camp.
October 28, 2009 - 6.27MB

http://support.apple.com/downloads/

Solution: Get the Apple software update for Wireless Mouse. This update must be done manually. Go to: http://support.apple.com/downloads, then look for the update for Snow Leopard: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL950

Hmm, after installing DL950 my 1st gen. MacBook seems to sleep normally again. On the first wakeup the bluetooth still showed the squiggly through the icon though, but on the next sleep bluetooth was re-enabled 🙂

Let's see if this continues.

same problem on my macbook pro 17 with sl after installing the magic mouse

I want to be clear in adding my voice to the litany of plaintiff and so sad cries for Bluetooth 'help.' After reading through about as many threads on the Bluetooth problems as I can take in one night, it seems clear that the problems bifurcate into 2 subgroups: one where the Bluetooth system preferences are present and available (icon in the Menu Bar, etc.) and people have suddenly had problems connecting devices & another group where there is no longer a Bluetooth system preference item, no icons, not even a Bluetooth sharing option appearing and system profiler doesn't see any Bluetooth hardware even being present! Unfortunately, my beautiful, 4-month old MacBook Pro 17" (early 2009) 2.93 GHz gave me the latter problem, after I installed SL & went to link a new magic mouse I just purchased new from Apple with the upgrade to SL... I have done most of the recommended things: resetting pram, smu reset, plist discarding, many restarts and so forth--all to no avail. I have a call in to Apple support, but I am not holding my breath for a quick fix from them, given what I have read about this tonight...

However, I will grovel a bit: can someone please, please help me with a quick Bluetooth fix?

The MacBook that was 'fixed' by the Magic Mouse update has already gone into a sleep-wakeup cycle again, so that doesn't really work.

No fix in the 10.6.2 'upgrade'. Thanks Apple.