Sidecar: Unable to maintain connection via cable (wireless works though) & Slow wifi

Can you confirm what specification of cable you're connecting your iPad with?

For Sidecar to work over USB, the cable would need to be rated for USB 3.1 (5Gbps) speeds for it to stream video to the iPad. The charge cable that comes with your iPad and Mac are rated for USB 2.0 (upto 480Mbps) speeds.

You can confirm this by plugging your iPad into your Mac and going to the System Report page. Look for the iPad entry under one of the USB bus entries.

Notice the "Speed" property in the lower panel. This says 480Mb/s when plugged in with a USB 2.0 cable. If this was plugged in with a USB 3.1 cable this will say 5Gb/s.

As an update to my previous post where I was able to get Sidecar w/USB working by uninstalling ExpressVPN (I did not remove the 2 pilots files that's been mentioned), I went back to the folks at ExpressVPN to understand if they were actually aware of this issue and if there was a way of having their app installed AND being able to use Sidecar. They came back quite quickly with the following directions. Can confirm that it worked for me. Other ExpressVPN users might want to try:

1. Open the ExpressVPN app.

2. Click the menu icon (☰).

3. Click Preferences...

4. Click the General tab.

5. Under Network Lock, uncheck the box for "Stop all internet traffic if the VPN disconnects unexpectedly" 

TT.

First regarding VPN issue - I have and use ExpressVPN and StrongVPN both configured manually AND absolutely;y NO problem after clean install OS X (Catalina) and re-install of time capsule backup as well as IOS of iPad with re-install from time capsule.

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One thing Im discovered today though. When iPad is charging from low battery level sidecar would not work with cable, the same error as before. After disconnecting iPad and charge to 100%, sidecar works seamlessly.

As a test disconnected sidecar and let the iPad drain to about 50%, after connecting via USB sidecar connected but disconnected almost immediately with error code 32002. Again after charging to 100% independently and connecting via USB SideCar worked like a charm and has for the last 6 hours.

It appear as SideCar is effected and has an issue when using USB connection simultaneously with charging with MBP through same USB cable.

Anyone with similar experience.

I had the exact same problem and manage to solve and get Sidecar working both on Wifi and with cable by:

1. Mirroring the mac display onto the ipad
2. Switch to Separate display if wanted

After following those steps I never received the 32002 error message again.

I hope this also works for you.

Hello Chris

I had the exact same problem.

My solution had to do with the "Sharing" options. That is, I had the internet access shared by USB from my MacBook 2015 15".

I disabled every USB-related sharing option with my iPad and SideCar started working perfectly.

Best regards,

Francisco

I managed to get it working by turning any "iPad-USB" network connection configuration on the Mac from DCHP to "Off". Also, I've upgraded to 10.15.1, but before changing the settings, it did not work. Unfortunately I have not tried changing the settings before upgrading.

I'd read through every single reply in this thread, and tried everything — nothing worked — until I tried a combination of the Mirror Displays trick, and the USB Bridge networking trick (both discussed independently earlier in this thread).

Here's what worked for me, using the latest macOS and iPadOS releases on an Retina 5K 27" 2017 iMac and a 2nd-generation 12.9" iPad Pro, connected via an official Apple USB–A to Lightning cable:

1. Connect Sidecar from the Mac to the iPad wirelessly. The macOS desktop should appear extended on the iPad.
2. Choose Mirror Built-In Retina Display from the Sidecar menu bar icon. After a few moments, both screens should be mirroring each other.
3. Connect the iPad to the Mac via USB. After a few moments, iPad will say it's trying to connect via USB... then Sidecar will break, and the 32002 error box should appear.
4. Give up all hope, and seriously consider switching to Windows ;-)
5. Go to System Preferences, and click Network.
6. On the list of network sources down the left side of the window, click iPad USB. Make sure Disable unless needed is ticked.
7. Click the cog icon at the bottom of the network sources list, whilst iPad USB is selected, and choose Make Service Inactive.
8. For a belt-and-braces approach (maybe this was the secret?), make all other non-essential services inactive too. In my case, I also disabled iPhone USB and Thunderbolt Bridge. With Thunderbolt Bridge selected in the list, also set Configure IPv4 to Off.
9. Click Apply in the bottom-right of the Network preferences screen.
10. Close Network preferences, then re-open it. In my case, all that was left in the service list was Wi-Fi (connected), Bluetooth PAN (not connected), Ethernet (not connected), iPhone USB (inactive), and Thunderbolt Bridge (inactive). Mysteriously, the iPad USB service had disappeared from the list.
11. At this point, if you followed these steps exactly, your iPad should still be connected via USB, but not showing the Mac desktop.
12. Go to Sidecar on the Mac, and re-connect to the iPad via the preference pane.

At least in my case, this was what finally got things working consistently and reliably. I can now freely connect/disconnect/mirror/extend/etc. the iPad via the Sidecar preference pane or menu bar icon.

A weird quirk with this solution is that plugging the iPad in via USB, whilst already connected to Sidecar via WiFi, never triggers the "Switching to USB..." prompt on the iPad. Either it's doing it totally seamlessly, or it's still running via WiFi. This doesn't matter for my use case — I just needed a way to keep the iPad charged whilst running it as a second display. The iPad still shows as being connected via USB in Finder, and shows as charging properly, so there's obviously still a connection in there somewhere...

Good luck!

yyl0000 wrote:

/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration

preferences.plist contained a reference to "iPad USB" (even though I didn't see iPad USB in my "Network" settings).

NetworkInterfaces.plist contained multiple references to "iPad".

I made a backup of the two .plist files, deleted them from the SystemConfiguration folder, and rebooted. Voila! Now Sidecar works over USB.

Thank you thank you thank you! This has solved the issue for me. I did nothing besides removing both files (after backing them up) and Sidecar is now working for me via USB-C to Lightning cable. 😍

I use the same VPN on my iPad and MacBook Pro. Sidecar with:

No VPN on either -> success

VPN on iPad -> success

VPN on Mac -> failed (Unable to connect to iPad, the device timed out)

VPN on both (within the same subnet) -> failed (Unable to connect to iPad, the device timed out)

So FINALLY - problem seems to be solved.

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After a slew of updates from Apple that did not address the sidecar problem I decided to give a scientific try.

Erased and did a clean install on Catalina on one of my 15" MBP 2019's as well as one of my 12.9 iPP to iPad OS sidecar worked perfectly and notably faster with USB connection.

Now I replaced the MBP with an identical 15" MBP 2019 but from High Sierra upgraded OS X, connected to the fresh install IOS. DID NOT WORK or worked as before as well as sluggish.

Swapped so I used the fresh install MBP and connected to another identical iPP upgraded to iPad Own from IOS. DID NOT WORK or worked as before as well as sluggish.

NOW to the MAJOR mystery******

I restored from an Apple 3TB TimeCapsule 2018 a the FULL backup made proper to the clean install of Catalina on MPB #1above. Side note: Catalina and Time Machine is a disaster as 1TB takes almost 10 hours to restore, INSANE.

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When restored, I connected to old upgraded iPP 12.9 #2 - sidecar DID NOT WORK or worked as before >>BUT>> when connected to the clean install on iPP #1, worked perfectly.

I continued the test and restored a FULL backup of iPP #1. connected this iPP to the upgrade MBP #2, DID NOT WORK or worked as before. NOW >>> connected the CLEAN install Catalina MBP with a restored backup from TimeCapsule to clean install iPad OS iPP with restored backup AND IT WORKED PERFECTLY and has for the entire day....

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CONCLUSION (and apple tech support have not been able to explain this one BUT I WANTN TO KNOW).

If you backup your MBP and iPP then format and restore Catalina followed by a FULL restore through time machine SideCar works as intended.

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GO FIGURE!!!!!

Apple PLEASE explain this one with an in-depth description.

This was super easy, and worked! Thank you!

I tried pretty much all of the solutions offered on this thread with no success.

Following your instructions, I simply deleted these two files and restarted:

/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist

/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist

... now sideCar works with via USB with WiFi off.

tl;dr: VPN software is disabling IPv6 as a security measure, which is causing the USB connection to fail. You may find an option in your VPN client to disable this security feature, but, be aware that it may make your VPN connection less secure! See down below for the details and how to disable this security feature in Tunnelblick.

Full details:

According to Tunnelblick's documentation (tunnelblick is a VPN client), the VPN software explicitly disables IPv6 unless the VPN is specifically configured to handle IPv6 traffic. The reason for this is that a lot of VPN configurations are only configured to handle IPv4 traffic. Any IPv6 traffic will, therefore, bypass the VPN. So, if you're using a VPN to secure *all* of your internet traffic, this is a big issue!

However, if you're only using a VPN to access some remote network, say, to connect to your company's network so you can reach internal, private servers, that's not really an issue. In this case, the purpose of the VPN is to grant you access to that private network and *not* to route/secure *all* of your traffic. So, in this case, disabling IPv6 doesn't really matter since the majority of your internet traffic isn't going through the VPN anyway.

Disabling This Security Feature:

So, if you happen to be in that boat, or if you're sure you don't mind "leaking" your IPv6 traffic, you can disable this security feature. I can confirm that this solved my issues using my iPad as a sidecar, connected via USB, with VPN. Here's how you can disable the feature in Tunnelblick:

1. Click the Tunnelblick icon in the menu bar and select "VPN Details"
2. Select "Configurations" along the top of the window
3. Along the left side, select the VPN configuration you'd like to modify
4. Uncheck "Disable IPv6 unless the VPN server is accessed using IPv6"

You may need to disconnect and reconnect the VPN for the setting to apply.

Other VPN clients will probably have a similar option. Try searching through the settings or documentation.

THANK YOU!!! I have been dealing with this for months. Not only did changing my VPN client from TunnelBlick to Viscosity fix this issue but my internet connection while connected to the VPN on my MBP jumped from around 80-130mbs to 300+mbs.

I can confirm that:

Changing my VPN from Tunnelblick to Viscosity - Fixed all wired sidecar issues.

Had a weird thing happen today - I got that error on my MBP which has always worked (same thing as before, wireless was fine). Then I disabled my VPN which I don't usually use, and it started working again. Re-enabled VPN, iPad disconnected and couldn't reconnect. My iMac which does not work wired doesn't have a VPN installed, so there's clearly something else going on there, but it's A CLUE.

The VPN is not supposed to interfere with LAN traffic - and it clearly doesn't since WiFi still worked when the VPN on, just not wireless. So oddly enough it may be something related to network config.