Magic Mouse Loses Connection

Thanks very much Steve.

I went back to the demo Mac at the local Apps store, flipped open the mouse battery case - found no paper but it was with Apple Rechargeable batteries too.

I brought my mouse there too (with my EverReady AA batteries) and tested it with that Mac. Kept losing connection even with 87% indicated battery level. With the (20+% battery level) Rechargeable batteries, my MM never lost connection during the trial there, even though I did not set the MM as a favourite. And I could still achieve RSSI of -40 something dBm.

It looks like the bat level indicator may not be accurate for certain types of batteries. Also, I lined up the 2 types of batteries and found that the Apple Rechargeable batteries were slightly longer.

I want to thank all who've experimented and posted their findings and useful comments for us to shorten our learning curve as well as frustration.

Thanks,

Alan

I have an original quad core 2006 Mac Pro. I had been experiencing some problems with my magic mouse which had worked just fine for the previous year or so. I tried replacing the mouse. Then I tried making the mouse a favorite; none of which worked for me. Then I found some articles about a known problem with some improperly wired bluetooth cards in the original Mac Pro's.

Here is a link to the article which finally helped me fix my problem:

http://www.thelocale.org/files/howtos/mac-pro-bluetooth-howto.pdf

In my machine the wires were not labelled as reported elsewhere nor as in the helpful PDF link above. My machine had the wires labelled 1, 2, 3, and blank. I plugged wire number 1 into the bluetooth, and replaced plug number 2 with the blank wire. Everything just magically works again.

The weird thing for me is that I have had this machine for 5 years and never had a problem with bluetooth mice until now. I did notice that the range of the bluetooth was oddly short, but I attributed that to heavy plaster walls in our old building. Anyway, if you thought your computer was just fine all these years, it may not have been!

I have something really depressing to report. I posted earlier. After a painstaking elimination of software and the bluetooth mouse itself as a possible cause , and apple making me do a clean install two times to ensure that it was a genuine hardware issue. I had the bluetooth card and the processor of the machine replaced. this appeared to have fixed the issue. I have not had any reoccurrence of it for about 2 months. But now it has come back. Exactly as before. 😠

I have to admit that in 10 plus years of using mac this has been the worst issue I have ever had with any of my machines. It really has got me beat ,and makes the machine extremely frustrating to use.

sunfish59 wrote:

I have to admit that in 10 plus years of using mac this has been the worst issue I have ever had with any of my machines. It really has got me beat ,and makes the machine extremely frustrating to use.

With all my glitches and annoyances, I have come to the conclusion that my new iMac with its Lion is just not fit for purpose and is a disgrace. Apple should be ashamed. The only other product that I have ever bought that behaved this badly was the infamous Mini, bought in 1960 which was almost undrivable.

to be truthfull I experienced this issue with snow leopard.

I believe the issue that I am experiencing to be totally hardware related.

I also own a magic trackpad. When the issue occurs it also affects the trackpad.(it doesn't use bluetooth of course)

I do not experience total dropouts of bluetooth. I can still move the cursor but I can not move it with any kind of accuracy at all using either a magic mouse or magic trackpad. Yet when this occurs the trackpad built in to my macbook pro works perfectly.

I upgraded to lion in the hope that the upgrade would get rid of this gremlin. But it did not.

I have done a clean install of snow leopard without even any iLife applications , and no other non apple applications installed and still experienced the issue. This was with the hard drive zeroed prior to installation. I was made to do this by apple support before they replaced my processor.

Occasionally I can go several days (least as I experienced it before it's present reoccurrence) without experiencing the issue. However when I experience the issue toggling bluetooth on off fixes the issue temporarily. However it will reoccur within seconds or minutes.

The only thing that seems to fix it is turning the machine off and leaving it off overnight. It might work for a few hours without it then.

Of course this is especially annoying because I could just use a standard usb mouse or the trackpad and pretend the issue did not exist. However my layout does not suit to use the trackpad. And I like the extra functionality of the magic mouse and trackpad features swiping expansion etc. I do not see why they should not work properly and reliably as they are integral features of Lion and the hardware.

By the way this is a total apple setup right down to the batteries and charger.

I have to admit, this "Magic Mouse" is a piece of dung. Probably the worst Apple device I've ever owned. How can it 'lose' contact when it sits within 12 inches of the iMac?

Junk. If Apple keeps putting this effluence out the public will soon loose it's love affair with Apple.

Mark Underkofler wrote:

Junk. If Apple keeps putting this effluence out the public will soon loose it's love affair with Apple.

The 10 faults in my Lion (new iMac, no doubtful software or hardware) have killed my love affair with Apple, for good.

I was having similar problems this week when I have not had any issues with mouse connectivity in the past. It then occurred to me that I recently purchased a new car and now, for the first time, have a set of bluetooth keys in my pocket. When I put the keys in another room the connectivity issues with my mouse appear to have ceased.

I have used the same magic mouse that gives me issues with my macbook pro 2011 , with two other macs (am 2011 macbook air running lion and an 2008 imac running leopard) without any issues at all. The macbook air has run in exactly the same location with the same peripherals plugged into it. Further to this I have used another magic mouse and experienced the issue in an identical manner on the problem computer. In other words I have reproduced the fault on the computer that experiences the issues using another magic mouse. I believe in my case the issue is a computer hardware related issue or a hardware related software issue that only affects certain model of computers.

As i have posted earlier Apple after a long period and much effort while i isolated the issue to the computer and not any other externalities or corruptions, replaced the processor and the bluetooth card on my computer. This did appear to fix the problem but it has now reappeared. (6 weeks later). I am going to put my Apple warranty to the test as i will be requesting the either replace my computer or refund me the purchase cost. I simply need the computer that works with a magic mouse and or magic trackpad as they should.

By the way I'm also using apple batteries.

good luck to all with sorting this issue Which has plagued me intermittently since I bought the computer in February.

sunfish59 wrote:

I am going to put my Apple warranty to the test as i will be requesting the either replace my computer or refund me the purchase cost.

Please let us know if you manage to get a new machine under the warranty.

I have the equivalent of a double proof with my MM fault.

1. a 2nd magic mouse has reproduced the fault on the errant computer. That same 2nd MM works faultlessly elsewhere.

2. my MM works faultlessly on two other mac's in the same household. I have never experienced the issue with the other macs. both are located in the same room. With the errant computer (a quad core current macbook pro) which I use more or less like a desktop, with monitor and external drives etc hooked up to it, if I place my macbook air into the same location with the same peripherals hanging off it and use the MM I do not experience the issue. With this configuration the only difference is an external drive which i use firewire to access on the pro I use usb hub with the air.

I'm using apple batteries by the way.

the scenario you mention sounds plausable and seems good but in my case I don't think it applies. why wouldn't the fault occur with other comptuers if the issue is in the MM?

One other comment, I have noticed that the issue can sometimes be initiated for the first time i.e. initially triggered when the computer does some kind of a scan of the boot drive. For instance it often begins when timemachine begins and hourly backup or for an example while using the finder . or say like theother day I invoked the command shift apple keyboard command to bring up the application folder. This happened the other day called up the application folder to access a seldom used application, there was like a four second delay like the boot drive had been kind hibernating the application folder then opened but the fault been triggered at the same time.

What happens then is I can correct the fault by toggling BT on and off. the MM and Mtrackpad come good again but the fault will then occur over and over , and I am forced to either use the macbookpro 's trackpad or continually toggle bluetooth.

I have been experiencing this issue intermittently since I purchased the computer in February.

I actually suspect it is related to the quadcore processor. my other computers are not quadcores.

Yes I have checked the RSSI and it is all over the place. I'm going to post screen capture movies and screen grabs relating to this issue soon.

Hey, Barry,

Wow, has this worked! I've been losing connection every few seconds - enough to make me consider a new mouse. Since this magic fix, I haven't lost connection once. Thanks for your posting!

Cecilia

I have a similar problem of MM disconnecting on my 2011 version macbook pro 13 inch. I tried many ways, including:

- insert paper to secure the battery.

- delete blue tooth plist file

- make the mouse favorate bluetooth device

- using fully charged battery, and using Apple battery and charger.

I am pretty confident to say that NONE OF THESE WORKS. Don't waste time. A pretty obvious fact is that, my MM disconnects by itself without reason by just sitting there with fully charged apple batteries, thus it is clearly not an battery contact issue.

Also the symptom is very random, sometimes I get disconnection every 10 minutes, sometimes none in a day. But it DOES HAPPEN.

If you are experienting the similar issue and you have tried the previous fixes, please test extensively instead of rush in with joy and report that "it fixes" after a few minutes of test. It is not only misguilding, but also willl potentially give Apple excuses to address the real problem. Thanks!

@alienbat

We had a similar problem across our mac estate, however we tested and resolved the issue in all cases by sourcing batteries with a 'tall' terminal as previously described on this forum, this solution has been working for several months now across all our macs.

So before accusing everyone of not properly testing maybe you should consider there is more than one issue here and I suggest you start by doing a more thorough and wider test of your machine including reliability of bluetooth with other devices.

@alienbat

I understand frustration with Apple, believe me. My Macbook Pro has had more repair work done in three years than my 10 year old Dell - I sympathize with frustrations that go around and around.

However, a little civility toward people trying to help in this forum isn't asking too much. You can read the posts and potential followups and see for yourself if a solution has gone the distance. Nobody is tricking you or cheating any of us out of gaining Apple's attention.

For example, in my case I believe I very much can say it was a battery connection issue and I've posted exactly my results after months of zero problems. I never claim is was a catch-all solution but offered up what I experienced plus a followup that still holds true as of today.

Perhaps another frustrating element to this problem is Apple's typical lack of respose or acknowledgement. We're left guessing if all of us are experiencing the same issue or not. Yes, we're having disconnect problems with yet another one of Apple's questionable mouse-products. However, the variety of "solutions" people have confidently found suggests Apple has more than one technical problem. If Apple isn't taking it "seriously enough" as it were... it's Apple who should be held accountable. Not other users trying to pinch-hit for technical support.

Either way, again, I agree this must be one of the most frustrating things to deal with when we've paid premium price for products that have a brand love so strong. Sorry you haven't found relief - I hope your device gets a solution soon. Good luck.