Bluetooth audio problems Catalina

MacBook Air (13" Early 2014)

MacOS Catalina Version 10.15.1 (19B88)

I'm experiencing the same issue.

Randomly, sound will transfer from bluetooth airpods (or any bluetooth headphones I have) to the internal speaker.

However, bluetooth menu still indicates that my bluetooth headset is still connected, but sound is coming from internal speaker not headphones.

I have to disconnect and reconnect, but again randomly it will disconnect.

I did try deleting the pst file, reboot, but made no difference at all.

Had this problem in the previous update too.

I have exactly the same thing on my MacBook Pro (13") and I've tried 3 different headsets including AirPods.

I thought it didn't happen to my KB or mouse, however I did notice today these disconnect occasionally as well but they will pretty quickly reconnect again. Audio doesn't reconnect. It shows as connected in the BT menu, but the speaker can't connect to it.

I have several pairs of bluetooth headphones & they all keep disconnecting once I upgraded to Catalina. Can anyone tell me if I can just backup my system settings on Catalina and downgrade to Mojave? Catalina has been a total mess including the removal of 32 bit support. Not a good OS . Jobs would be rolling in his grave.

I have a MacBook Air (Early 2013) and I have a Creative D80 that I always use when I'm home. Recently I upgraded to Catalina and now I'm have problems with it. The audio skips and drops out. I've rebooted the machine, I deleted com.apple.Bluetooth.plist and cleared the NVRam with option/command/p/r, I've re-added the Creative D80 and nothing helps. I really miss my D80 as it sounds much better than the built in speakers.

If someone has a solution or even a way to commit to further diagnosis I'd like to hear it

I have the same issue also.

Whatever BlueTooth headphones/earbuds/speaker that I have attached randomly drops to no output after 10-15 minutes of use. The bluetooth icon still shows the device as being connected, but there is no audio. I also cannot disconnect from the device from the bt menubar icon.

removing and reconnecting the device from bt systemn prefs seems to work - for another 10-15 minutes and then it happens all over again.

Same issue here. MBP 2017 using Sennheiser BT headphones. I contacted Apple support and they told me to go through all the usual troubleshooting BS (system health check, safe mode, create new user account) despite my pointing out that there are many many threads on their own forums raising this issue. Useless.

I faced a similar issue to this too, after upgrading to macOS Catalina. After switching on the Bose QC35 II, it will connect but the sound continued to go through the internal speakers. So, paying a visit to Preferences, it would hang after clicking into Sound. After a while the headset would disconnect and then Preferences would become responsive again.

Did the usual diagnostics:

1. Restart the laptop and switch off the headset and back on
2. Removed the device from the list of Bluetooth connections and pair it all over again
3. Make sure my phone was not connected to the headset
4. Found a firmware update for the headset

No joy

Just completed an update to macOS Catalina and it's now working. In which case, for my situation, it may come down to a combination of firmware update and macOS update to resolve it for the Bose headset.

I am also experiencing this issue. All Apple bluetooth devices are connecting just fine (magic mouse, trackpad) but other non Apple products are not:

• Jabra Move headphones
• JBL Charge 3 speaker

Before installing Catalina OS, bluetooth worked fine with any device.

I've deleted the bluetooth file from Library/Preferences, rebooted, shut down, toggled bluetooth on and off nothing works. Now is does not even connect to the devices mentioned above, only to the Apple ones. The message is "connection rejected"...

Any solutions to this?

I tried the NVRAM reset before I posted, no joy. I also found a bluetooth scanner and I can see that the bluetooth signal from my MacBook Air is about -64 which is very, very good, so it's not like my signal is weak.

Same problem here: 10.15.1, MBP 2017, new airpods, beatsx, bose soundlink 2, magic mouse.

Every 20-30 mins bluetooth audio devices get disconnected and once couple of days mouse too. On Mojave there were no problems.

That has been an issue for some time, notably with the keyboard or track pad disconnecting. There has been quite a discussion in the Mojave community. I still have the keyboard and track pad disconnecting though not as frequently as with Mojave.

"Hi!

Not sure if you already have solve it but, I had the same issue and just found out that the issue is a "corrupted" bluetooth device list.

I followed the steps on this post https://www.catalinaosx.com/bluetooth-not-working-catalina-os/ and it solved the issue.

Hope it helps!"

Nope, does NOT help. The link you mentioned even has numerous comments it doesn't work. You didn't read the thread b/c if you did you'd see people have already attempted this.

This is Apple dropping the ball and releasing software with major bugs. Apparently, this bluetooth issue has been around since the beta of MacOS Catalina.

As has been said numerous times on this thread - NVRAM reset + bluetooth pref delete + blutooth debug + disconnecting/unpairing & every other trick here does NOT work. I repeat this is a bug in MacOS Catalina. None of the solutions in this thread will work. You can only downgrade to Mojave, and/or contact Apple who will takes months to fix this.

Apple peaked under Jobs & has been downhill ever since during Cook & Ives era.

Hello, Sorry to hear that.

I actually did read the thread and tested the solution before posting and it worked for me, no issue since yesterday.... and no need to do the NVRAM reset.

Hope you find a solution.