Magic Mouse Loses Connection

Reading somewhere else today, I forget where, it's been suggested that it's a hardware problem caused by a wonky battery connection in the mouse. The fixes have been suggested as a) fold a bit of paper up and stick it in the battery compartment to keep it all in place, or b) try different batteries as some are smaller than other (Everready seem to be the most common ones to cause fail).

I've swapped my batteries for a set of Duracell, which were slightly fatter, and the mouse is now working fine :-)

I finally purchased a Mac to replace my PC. I soon purchased the magic mouse (about 5 weeks ago). I have unpredictable problems with the mouse and often loose connectivity. I have implimented the suggestions and still have the problems. I will continue to watch this posting to see if someone finds a concrete solution.

I found that if you log out of your user account, then put the computer to sleep (using the power button), the mouse can return. This is without fiddling with batteries etc.

Very, VERY annoying and seemingly random. However for me I have noticed it seems to happen once per computer restart, then won't happen again until the next computer restart.

I have some additional insight into the ubiquitous bluetooth mighty mouse problem.

First, I tried most of the suggestions offered in this blog; none have worked reliably for me.

In my case, there appeared to be a correlation between losing mouse connection and rapid, long-distance mouse moves (I have a 2011 27" iMac running Snow Leopard and a 23" second display; it is nearly 4 feet from far right to far left). Thus the suggestions about a second screen and loose batteries both rang true. However, my mouse is brand new and the batteries are new and tight. There is, however, another special circumstances that may affect my setup but perhaps not others:

- I have a wood-grained desktop that I was using as the mouse surface; historically, this has caused problems with optical mice, notably with the previous generation wireless mouse (aka "mighty mouse") and I long ago switched to a uniformly black teflon "pie plate" insert (paper-thickness) to run the mighty mouse on. My faux "mousepad" is a bit of a nuisance, and I abandoned it when the new mouse came (with the new iMac) as it didn't seem necessary, at least at first.

As part of the troubleshooting effort, I've begun using the teflon surface again with the magic mouse; this seems to have fixed the lost connection problem for me. It certainly seems reasonable that high-speed mouse movements across a textured surface (like wood grain) provides a pretty severe environment for the mouse tracking and bluetooth software; there could even be some harmonic-generation issues caused by ripples in the signal as the mouse-fixed laser moves across a textured surface. I dunno.

Also, I noticed that when I reseated the batteries (took them out, put them back, rotated them in their cradles to help improve the contact), that the battery strength jumped from 75% to 83%; that suggests to me that cleaning the battery and battery socket terminals with alcohol (as suggested earlier in this thread) cannot hurt and will probably help, especially on a brand new or older machine where some oil or fabrication lacquer build-up might exist on the contacts.

Finally, after fussing around with the bluetooth mouse settings (track speed, etc.), I noticed an item in the Bluetooth Preferences pane that had escaped me previously: The little gear icon at the bottom of the devices panel on the left side of the preferences window has an "Update Device Services" item. I selected that and *something* happened: The responsiveness of the mouse increased perceptibly and the action was recorded in the "More Info" pane. And, I recall during my setup of the new machine that there was a bluetooth software update amongst all the other updates AND that update occurred *after* the "Last Services Update" quoted in the "Show More Info" pane before I "Updated Device Services".

So, my personal "must-try" list for eliminating the problem:

1. If you're using a textured reflective surface for the mouse laser, get a texturally uniform surface (mouse pad or whatever).

2. Be sure you have the latest Bluetooth software update from Apple and update your "Device Services" in the Bluetooth Prefs.

3. Clean the contacts (battery and mouse) with q-tip and alcohol.

4. If your batteries seem loose, as many have noted, fix that as best you can.

ok I took my laptop in to authorised apple tech. Was told that I had not applied a bluetooth update to the snow leopard install which the machine came with. since I had later installed Lion on the machine the update was showing as not needing to be applied!

I am quite scrupulous with updates (even to the point of annoyance as apple has let some buggy updates through over the years first users can get caught out) but of course can't prove that I did apply the update.

The tech took the hard drive out, put a clean one in, installed Snow leopard using the installation Discs supplied with the machine, applied the Bluetooth update reinstalled my hard drive with Lion on it , and returned the machine for me.

Since I was negligent not to apply the update I was charged for this.

The problem is the issue was not fixed. It is still occurring exactly as before.

I have to take the machine in again. I strongly suspect that there is a Blue tooth hardware problem with my machine. there is simply nothing else that could be causing this issue.

I am certainly hoping for a refund of my bill if that proves the case.

I will just add my situation to this thread... just for the history later on 🙂

I have a Magic Mouse and a Trackpad, but it's only the Magic Mouse that losses connection.!?

It's not losing the connection for a specific amount of time, but usually it's between 2-20 seconds.

I have now updated the Services in the Bluetooth menu and put all my devices as favorites.

... Just lost the connection again 😟

Yep, lots of good help here. I checked and found that the rechargeable batteries I had "charged" up and installed in my Magic Mouse were actually NOT recharged (by clicking on the bluetooth icon in the menu bar to check) so as soon as I put back in the regular AA non-rechargeable batteries that I keep around just in case - Magic Mouse works great again. Now I have to see why my little drugstore battery charger didn't charge up my batteries, but so far, doesn't seem to be anything wrong with my mouse.

Bottom line, learned again it's good to start with the most basic solutions (eg., is the confounded thing plugged in?) and work my way up. Saved a trip to the Genius bar. Might have to get a better battery charger.

I've replaced the batteries and so far haven't had any connectivity issues. Sometimes the batteries that come factory-installed may be quite old, so change them first, and see if you still have issues.

I have a Apple Wireless K'board and Magic Mouse.

No problems with the K'board but I lose connectivity to the Magic Mouse if I lift it up and put it down or if it goes off the mouse matt... i.e. it gets a little bump. I found that putting a bit of paper between the batteries helped for a while but it has started happening more and more often now. I am sick to death of the stupid thing and looking on the forums for help has led me to believe that Apple doesn't give a sh*t.

spent 30 mins on call... I must say the support guy was helpful... though unfortunatley couldn't work out what was wrong and finally admitted it was a possible h/w issue - which I knew all along.

I now have to go find the receipt for the Magic mouse as they could not find the serial number on their D/b. If it is under warranty they may possibly replace it or give me a discount towards a new one....

So as it stands I have a completely useless mouse and no feckin receipt to prove it is still under warranty cos I can't find the feckin receipt!

One simple solution. The positive terminal on a magic mouse is recessed in the case, some batteries have a longer terminal than others. e.g. Duracell batteries the terminal is too short to make a good connection and so causes intermittent connection issues.

A temp solution so as not to waste the battery (Though comes with no waranttee and I take no responsibility if you choose to do this) is to pad out the recess with a small folded bit of tin foil.

Long term make sure you buy batteries with long positive terminals.

I experieced the same problem also but now it's resolved. In my case, my Magic Mouse was working flawlessly until the battery that came with the mouse ran out, and replaced them with Energizer batteries. After reading some of the comments here, I figured I try replacing the batteries for the **** of it, and installed Duracell batteries instead. Now I haven't had any connection loss in a few weeks. (I use my mouse every day for over 7 hours.)

I don't think the issue is the voltage or alkaline-vs-rechargable. I have a feeling that it has to do with the subtle difference in the design of the casing of the batteries.

Perhaps those who are having problems could report here what brand of batteries they are using.

Just recently, after three years or so of using the wireless mouse with my iMac from new without any sign of a problem, I started having this diconnection problem. Very aggravating. Seemed connected to bumps or jolts to the mouse. After reading the comments in this thread I reviewed recent history and also applied what appears to be a fix.

I had been using Duracell and Varta AA batteries (no rechargeables, ever). I recently bought a "value" pack of cheap Energiser cells from the local supermarket. I haven't used that brand before, preferring to go for long life or high power AA cells. The problem started immediately I changed the brand of battery I was fitting, although I didn't immediately wake up to that. I suspect that the Energiser cells are made in a different factory and that there are microscopic variances in measurements which, whilst still within tolerance, are not the best fit for the mouse and maybe these Energiser cells are fractionally smaller. They did seem a little "easy" in their fit, and as I said the problem seemed to be related to any bumps the mouse was subjected to.

I cleaned the terminals in the mouse body with surgical spirit and also the top and bottom of the battery cells. I noticed the bottoms had printing on them which the alcohol removed - that wouldn't have helped the connectivity!

Then I applied two strips of tape to the inside of the door, where the centreline of each battery cell would make contact. It's just a simple bit of Dymo tape. So far so good. Everything is working a treat!

My Magic Mouse loses connection from time to time, and I'm using Apple-brand rechargable batteries. Mouse is added to Bluetooth favorites, etc. No rhyme or reason; will drop even when moving the mouse gently.

By contrast, my Magic Trackpad never loses connection, also using the same betteries.

Well, if it is true that a subtle difference in the design of battery casing is causing this problem, I doubt that Apple is aware of it. In that sense, using Apple's batteries would not be a guarantee. Another person said switching to Duracell fixed this problem. Anyone experiencing the problem even with Duracells?