Magic Mouse Loses Connection

I disagree Pancho. The only one of the items that I think is valid is #8 and it is claimed to "be uncommon". As far as I know it the ONLY problem and all the others are symptomatic of the battery length problem. I don't even remember what #4 is, but I'll bet if you think #4 fixed your situation it will raise its ugly head again until you find different batteries or add some contact length. Good luck.

CLEAN YOUR TERMINALS?

This is a general reply to all who, like me, have been having trouble with the Magic Mouse. Now I won't suggest this fix will help for everyone but it worked for me. My mouse kept dropping out and my blood pressure was rising steadily. I read the stuff here on batteries, then I check my contacts on the actual mouse. They were actually quite dirty; I work in a smarted-up garden shed, and I guess it's a little damp here (which undoubtedly will kill my hardware at some point, I know, but ...).

Anyway, I scraped off any visible gunk/rust/deposit with the tip of an exacto knife, then polished with a bit of cloth wrapped around a biro tip, and presto – the mouse has been working perfectly ever since.

I have no doubt there are other problems popping up with peoples' mice, but do try this fix if your terminals look anything but shiny-clean.

Cheers, Matt

Battery size is exactly the problem. Ever since switching brands of battery I started having problems with disconnects whenever the mouse was slightly banged on the wooden desk.

After suffering for a couple of months... I just now taped a piece of paper (card stock) to the inside of the battery cover, so that there's SLIGHTLY less space for the batteries to move.

Works fine now.

This helped me solve the problem! I was already thinking of buying a new magic mouse until I read this.

I replaced the old batteries with Eveready's and the problem started immediately (no offense to the company intended). I compared the battery length to the old one that I used and they are slightly shorter. Gone on ahead and replaced it with another brand and viola! the problem went away.

For other users having the same problem, before taking other measures, check your new battery length. Might save you a lot of time and stress.

Thanks apapworth77

Today I took my magic mouse 2012 to the Apple store because I kept losing connection also. The genius performed a dignostic on it and found that it didn't "perform well". So he replaced it. Consider this if you're having problems. He did confirm the battery length issue during conversation. Make sure you have your receipt or an emaill copy of it.

Good luck with that. It may or may not have solved your problem (you'll know eventually), but at the very least it added another "hit" to the battery length complaint in the customer service database (if there is a customer service database).

Folks, you all need to get past this "mouse losing connection due to batteries/terminal length" talk. That's not the problem at all. I too had connection and response issues when I first purchased my Magic Mouse for my Dual 2Ghz G5 tower. I went through the endless forums full of crazy opinions and solutions which in the end, never pan out or are inconsistant. So, I'm posting here today because I was able to find out why I was having the issues with my MM and not with my Aluminum Wireless Keyboard. The problem was/is that the Magic Mouse transmits a much weaker signal than the keyboard does, probably due to size, material or maybe even both. The second issue is that the CPU(the G5 Aluminum tower, in my case) has a weak built in antenna. The G5 has an internal Bluetooth card and a small removable antenna which mounts on the rear of the tower.

My solution was simply to purchase a 3Dbi Omni Directional antenna which connects to the G5's Bluetooth antenna port via the same style connector Apple's Bluetooth antenna has. The end results were night and day difference. It wasn't even just a small difference. My MM now responds like a "wired" mouse. No glitches, no disconnects, nothing but complete, reliable performance.

As for the battery/terminal issue everyone goes on and on about(save your aluminum foil, cardboard, toothpicks, etc...), I too checked this out early on in my quest for an answer/solution and this just is not the issue causing lost connections. I could play hacky sack with my Magic Mouse and feel assured that the mouse would perform without a hitch.

I also want to add that the Aluminum case(G5) might also have an impact on signal strength to some degree but the add on antenna totally took care of that. I realize current Mac Pro's don't have external BT antennas so there may not be a quick and easy fix for you(maybe a custom fix ala someone familiar with getting access to the BT internals). I assume if your a iMac user, your so close to the machine with your MM that signal strength wouldn't be an issue either. Just a guess.

That's it folks.

Maybe for you, but I think that for a lot of people in this thread (specifically, people who say that sharp IMPACT, like picking up their mouse and putting it down, make it temporarily loose connection), the issue is simply due to poor contact.

I didn't buy new batteries or buy anything special... and I do think a lot of people have gone through far more effort to fix the problem than they need.

All that I did was cut out a small piece of heavy stock paper (just use some junk you received in the mail that you don't want) so that it was the size of the back of the battery cover, and tape it there. THAT'S IT.

Now the batteries don't have that extra millimeter or two to fall down when there's an impact, because the paper's in the way.

Problem solved (for me).

This may have been your problem Armando, but it certainly wasn't our problem!

We have 5 iMacs all with MM. Everyone of them started to intermittently disconnect when the batteries were changed. As documented previously, after discovering the new batteries were shorter, we replaced them with loger batteries and the problem has not returned again on any of the MMs.

As a suggestion to those still having trouble finding the longer batteries: Purchase the apple rechargables.

You may want to reconsider how much you should get past the notion there's a singular problem with only your solution.

I've posted an update here in this thread some months ago - and I can add to it again now after however many months it's been: My solution was needing to add pressure on the batteries with a bit of cardboard wedged under the cover plate. It solved 100% of my connection-loss problems for months (I believe it may even be over a year now). 100% - no exceptions. Checking this thread can show my posting history with complete consistency.

Just before I posted this reply to you I tested it by removing that cardboard. Within seconds I lost my connection 3 times in under 60 seconds.

Replacing the cardboard *is* a solution for *some* people.

It's not exactly the hardest thing to conceive - that Apple may have multiple problems with multiple configurations which is displayed in exactly the variety of user's setups centered around either 1) Signal interference or 2) Physical connectivity.

Look back over the thread - these two situations are described consistently beyond most any others. The solutions center nicely around these two situations as well.

thanks buddy, cause my mouse is only 2 weeks old and my Macbook pro only 3 months old and it's driving me batty. And I dont want to regret moving to Mac...surely not.

Still, having to go back to Apple so soon is annoying.

My first Macbook Pro died in the first 24hrs and they replaced it - of course.

So it's been 3 months of things not working well and everything is brand new, bought from reputable Apple stores, and yet everything has been playing up already.

Dreadful waste of time going back and forth to Apple so early into owning it all.

Im hoping i get 2-3 years out of it but it's not looking good.

Apart from the mouse issue with your newly replaced MBP (MacBook Pro); are you having further problems? Coz you can also have the Genius team do an electronic diag on your MBP. Even after getting my MM (magic mouse) replaced it still loses connection but I think this maybe because Bluetooth is still not a reliable connection technology yet. I do have similar problems with ALL Bluetooth products regardless of what they're trying to connect to and from. I don't have any reason to believe its the Bluetooth module in my MBP. Recently I installed Sophos Anti Vitrus. Despite Sophos claiming it wouldn't slow my MBP; it actually did. After removing it performance during intensive Apps dramatically improved. I also found quitting other unnecessary Apps during high CPU use eliminated problems with Apps like iMovie and Garageband. I now have much more faith in OSX Mountain Lion and Apple architecture in relation to Malware. From a realistic standpoint I do conceded that maybe the MM and its employment of Bluetooth is 1yr ahead of its time and possibly rushed to market but for using Aperture 3 (iPhoto's big brother) it's a must.

I forgot to mention I also have 16mb memory in too so I'm peeved that i have to work at a bare minimum - I have only the essentials i need open - but it freezes every few minutes.

I spoke with the guys i bought it from today and they insisted i take it back to Apple for review which is annoying cause i'm time-poor, but so be it.

Perhaps magic is not so magic after all. 😟

Want to love my Mac but not there yet.

Dakota@DY wrote:

I forgot to mention I also have 16mb memory in too so I'm peeved that i have to work at a bare minimum - I have only the essentials i need open - but it freezes every few minutes.

I spoke with the guys i bought it from today and they insisted i take it back to Apple for review which is annoying cause i'm time-poor, but so be it.

Perhaps magic is not so magic after all. 😟

Want to love my Mac but not there yet.

Assuming you are talking about the Magic Mouse freezing, and you have stabilized the batteries using any one of the methods others have stated above, have you set it as a 'Favourite' in the Bluetooth Preferences panel?

To do this go to System Preferences, then Bluetooth.

If your Magic Mouse isn't shown, you will need to add it by using the + at the bottom left.

If it is, select it, then make sure the 'On' box at the top is on, and 'Discoverable' is selected too.

At the botton of the panel, near the + is a gear wheel icon. Click on this to open it then use 'Set as Favourite'.

If you get the 'Remove from Favourites' then the Mac has already done this for you. Possibly when the 'On' button was selected.

This is for Lion. I don't yet have access to a machine with Mountain Lion.

I use MAC OS 10.8.2 and I applied all the tips suggested here but nothing has worked so far. I think the best tip would be returning it back. I am unfortunatelly in Netherlands so Apple store will probably not accept it saying I have alreadt used it for couple of months. Apple should call all those shameful devices back!