Bluetooth keeps disconnecting after update to Mac OS Catalina

So i did a little chatting with apple people and discovered the issue, hope this helps others too.

It was an issue with one of my software. This issue only came after installing Catalina on my MacBook Air '15.

What I did was created a test user https://support.apple.com/de-de/guide/mac-help/mtusr001/mac on my mac (which is like a separate and new account with no user installed apps/software), then listened to some youtube music for 30min - 1 hour (I played FiFA '20 during the wait thanks to Corona). The audio device never tripped. So the apple advisor said if that happens, it because of a trippy app/software in your main user that's causing this. So you can either uninstall apps/softw that use your audio devices like WhatsApp web, Zoom, Adobe cloud apps, spotify, vlc etc, restart your pc and see if the problem is still there. Then reinstall the apps one by one and see which app is causing the trip.

Another issue could be a pending update for one of the apps that use your audio device that needs updating. In my case, I only uninstalled Spotify, WhatsApp, Premiere Pro, After Effects & Audition. I reinstalled them all and all has been good.

Hope this helps ya'll cuz this gave me the craziest headache.

Same issue here with my 2nd gen airpods and Bose QC 35 II. No issue with magic mouse 2 and magic keyboard 2.

I've tried resetting the bluetooth module, resetting SMC and PRAM, deleting the bluetooth preferences plist, nothing seems to work.

Looks like an issue with A2DP, the persistent error message in console is

Failed to find created audiodevice ID

Same issue here. Tried all the steps also. 2018 MBP 13".

It's becoming a rather urgent issue now as it happens during online meetings leaving you unable to hear or reply to the other person(s) for a good 10-20 seconds until the gen2 AirPods reconnect.

It also affects my Sony WH-1000X M3's and Logitech wireless speakers. It also drops out my Logitech MX Master 2S mouse.

I've seen the reply mentioning A2DP, I've installed Bluetooth Explorer and hit 'Force aptX' I will report back if this helps at all.

I did try but didn't work, I even checked the Activity Monitor, the process never got started, and my terminal also shows a slight tick or cross whenever a command runs properly. My machine doesn't have bluetoothaudiod.

Thanks god i'm not the only one who has this problem on mac! after updating to Catalina, I've tried everything that could fix the problem as they are all mentioned in this question and non of them worked!

Sounds like apple should fix this bug in the next update soon...

I have MacBook Air 2014.

same with me. only, along with all my bluetooth devices that disconnects, the mouse pad on the actual laptop stops working as well. Mouse, keyboard, headsets for music, I use them all at the same time, everything disconnects and after what sometimes is 6-10-15-25 seconds, it all connects back up. My laptop is only 2 months old, 2019 model.

I'm also noticing that with my bluetooth speakers, the connectivity is not well either there is tremendous lag. Again, all that was not happening before.

Help please! Hope Apple is reading these?!

Disconnects continue with Apple Mouse and another brand of mouse disconnects as well. I've most of the apple and user suggestions..... nothing corrects the problem. As a test, I went to the middle of the woods away from everything. . Nearest electronic device is 2 miles away, not even a power line within 2 miles. Disconnects from the mouse continue. Come on Apple, you are passing the buck and making excuses .... blaming other devices, other software, other external interferences, etc etc. You will never fix this problems if you will not admit that this is YOUR PROBLEM TO FIX, NOT THE CONSUMERS.

Hi,

It happens to me 100% of the time if I try to engage the microphone with any Bluetooth headset with any application. The fastest way to test it is to connect your bluetooth headset, and then go the Sound settings, and then Input. If Bluetooth headset is selected, it will disconnect and reconnect.

It looks like macOS is telling the headset to switch between an actual phone call and just simply being a digital input device. It gets confused and then disconnects.

I have a MBP 2015 13"

Ben

I had no issues when I was using my Bose QC35 II on Mojave being connected to multiple devices. I have now found that if I switch off the bluetooth on my phone (iPhone 11 Pro) that my headphones stay connected.

I too have Bose QC 35 and had the same problem when I upgraded to Catalina 10.15.2. Bluetooth was dropping in Netflix and official Zoom account too. After suffering for a while I read somewhere that they released a fix for this in 10.15.3. Upgrading to Catalina 10.15.3 solved this for me.

I was able to fix this issue by restarting the coreaudio, bluetooth, and bluetoothaudio daemons. Open a terminal and run the following commands in order:

sudo killall coreaudiod
sudo killall bluetoothd
sudo killall bluetoothaudiod
sudo launchctl start com.apple.audio.coreaudiod
sudo launchctl start com.apple.audio.bluetoothd
sudo launchctl start com.apple.audio.bluetoothaudiod

Thanks alot for this suggestion. I tried it on my MacBook Air 11, and found that a restart was also necessary to get a benefit. I also did all the debug resets via clicking the bluetooth icon in upper bar (while pressing opt-shift) and reconnected. At first, it seemed to worked well. Closed the lid to go to sleep, and reopened this morning, and continued on and all seemed well for about 45 mins or so, and then the dropouts started happening again. I guess a restart might be a solution, but this is seriously getting annoying.

As you are fresh to the thread it is difficult to suggest a fix when you have tried everything.

Assuming you have reset NVRAM, SMC and booted into Safe Boot at least once then before you either reinstall clean or revert to Mojave you could install Etrecheck, give it full disk access then attach the report here.

Same here too. AirPods and QC35 both disconnect within a few seconds of pairing. Trackpad and Keyboard are both OK. Nothing worked to fix it so I reinstalled MacOS from scratch over Christmas and obviously... that resolved it, however it's just started again. I thought I'd turned off updates but clearly not.

What chonoramo said is correct. My bluetooth almost never drops when im using audio on Netflix, Youtube, or Prime Video for hours. However, whenever i use Zoom, within 15 mins the audio drops. I am not sure if i call this a Mac or issue or a Zoom issue ( i have updated zoom as well), but this continues to be a huge problem for me because all my meetings happen on zoom. With the Corona deal i believe this will be a much bigger problem as more and more people work remotely so I hope Apple takes notice.

I cannot say what other products interfere with audio connectivity as I don't use anything else, but the problem 100% happens with Zoom.