Snow Leopard and Bluetooth problem

The problem of Bluetooth not being available was easily solved (just nuke/move away the com.apple.Bluetooth.plist file and it was recreated upon reboot, if I remember correctly). Or maybe that poweroff/unplug thing was nescessary ...

My problem is that this early Mac Mini generation has non-working Bluetooth built-in, so I need to use a USB bluetooth adapter (D-Link DBT-122) and that stopped working in 10.6.x / Snow Leopard. And it still does not work in OS X 10.6.2.

If I boot with this adapter inserted, it shows up with a "No Bluetooth Present" message (greyed out icon with a ~ or something across it). If I booth without the bluetooth adapter inserted, bluetooth is back. And when I insert the adapter, it's recognized as "Broadcom BCM2025" in System Preferences->Bluetooth. (That's the listed name instead of the default computer name.) But if I try to change anything, look for devices etc., nothing works/happens.

Any hints? Do I really need to revert to 10.5.x to get this working? Snow Leopard is so far the most disappointing "upgrade" ever in the history of OS X. I was really looking forward to an upgrade geared towards making things quicker and smoother. Instead Apple has managed to break was wasn't broken in so many ways. I wish the new cool details they included would outweigh the disadvantages, but as long as Apple does nothing to fix such serious issues (of which not being able to use the original Apple bluetooth keyboard is only one), I cannot recommend that anyone buy this upgrade ...

Do any of you have Parallels 4 or 5 installed? I'm suspecting Parallels of taking over the bluetooth functionality of my Mac... I will try to explain...

When in Parallels I go to the "Devices" menu and select "apple bluetooth usb host controller" and it activates bluetooth in windows and when I de-select the same device it turns ON bluetooth on my mac...

Really annoying!

Thanks...Worked for me too...Feeling relieved now.

I tried this (resetting my SMC) and it worked fine.
Thanks for the easy fix.
I just hope it works tomorrow after hibernating for the night.

All,

My magic mouse had stopped working after installing Windows through bootcamp. It wouldn't work on Windows or OSX. In OSX, I was losing all bluetooth altogether for some reason (the pref pane was disappearing). Tried resetting the PRAM, SMC, plist files, nothing worked. Even stopped by the Apple Store and they said the mouse was fine. I tried installing the wireless mouse update for Snow Leopard, didn't help. Till I found this post to make it work under Windows :

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2221427&tstart=0

Basically, I removed it from the BT devices in Windows, turned off my mouse, Added a new device, turned on my mouse, and bang it started working. The best part is after restarting in OSX...it now works on the mac side, too !! Just like before I installed Winblows =)

I hope it fixes some other people's issue as well. Good luck!

Marc.

Hi, can you send me that file please? I deleted it from my mac because i read somewhere that will fix my bluetooth problem.I want to try what you posted.Thank you.danyharabagiu@gmail.com

Message was edited by: danyharabagiu

I am relieved to know more people have this issue. I just got some BT headphones for Christmas and my MBP will not keep the pairing. If it does, there is no sound. I am trying some of the ideas mentioned in these posts, but I think its more waiting for Apple to improve BT.

Thank you very much, sdaudet.
Your solution worked for me too!!
My Bluetooth reappeared in System Preferences, now I can use my Magic Mouse and other Bluetooth applications.

Confirm this happens at random on a mb5,1 (late 2008/early 2009 mb 13" unibody) with Snow 10.6 through 10.6.2. Never experienced it on any version of Leo.

Trashing /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist and reboot doesn't help.

It can disappear on a resume from sleep or straight power on.

Doesn't matter if BT devices are on or off.

Have performed the BT Firmware update for Broadcom (which the mb5,1 has) and the EFI update and has happened three times since then.

Overall this is the tenth time in the last 3 months I've had to boot with reset pram to get it back.

signal64,

where did you find these updates?? Apple's software update??