After updating to Catalina 10.15.1, bluetooth is not available on my Mac Mini (2018). This prevents me from using a wireless keyboard or my AirPods with the Mac. The icon says "Bluetooth: Not available". I've done an SMC reset, deleted /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist and reset NVRAM/PRAM. Is anyone else having this problem? Any solutions?
Mac mini 2018 or later
Solved in 5 minutes with Apple Support over the phone. I have a Macbook Pro, Retina Mid 2012 on MacOS Catalina which did an automatic update to 10.15.2. After I was unable to connect a bluetooth headset, I noticed the bluetooth icon had a line through it and said Bluetooth: Not Available. I tried all of the delete this and reboot that with no success. I read the forums and some people mentioned taking it to the Apple store. I knew the issue was patch related and not hardware. So, I called Apple Support. Apple had me do the following.
This worked for me. I hope this helps someone.
Solved in 5 minutes with Apple Support over the phone. I have a Macbook Pro, Retina Mid 2012 on MacOS Catalina which did an automatic update to 10.15.2. After I was unable to connect a bluetooth headset, I noticed the bluetooth icon had a line through it and said Bluetooth: Not Available. I tried all of the delete this and reboot that with no success. I read the forums and some people mentioned taking it to the Apple store. I knew the issue was patch related and not hardware. So, I called Apple Support. Apple had me do the following.
This worked for me. I hope this helps someone.
Update: I spoke to Apple support this morning who indicated that engineering recommends bringing the Mac in for service. It seems as though the update has damaged the bluetooth module and even after multiple O/S re-installs, it still doesn't work.
So there are two issues being discussed in this thread. It seems like you’re running into the serious issue some others have been seeing and this the genesis of this discussion. Unfortunately, there’s not a good solution for that issue that anyone’s found, and Apple needs to get on the ball.
One issue being discussed here is general Bluetooth issues, I.e keyboards not working intermittently or dropouts / disconnects. That is not what this thread is about.
This thread is concerning a specific issue where the Bluetooth hardware disappears completely, and is shown as “not available” to OS X. No restores, software tricks, or diagnostics seem to help. In fact, running diagnostics shows Bluetooth not present.
This is not a software issue, and it’s a recent issue mostly associated with Catalina. It seems to affect the 2018 Mac Mini more than others.
I had this problem, and did extensive diagnostics myself and at the Genus Bar. Nothing could recover it.
The closest thing I can surmise, after 25 years working with both PC and Mac hardware, is that a firmware update to the Bluetooth portion of the combined Wireless chip fails during the Catalina upgrade and bricks that portion of the chip. If you look carefully at all OS X Updates, they contain one or more firmware updates - (DFUs, or Device Firmware Updates in Mac parlance) - which get applied at upgrade time.
Looking at the PCI ID after these upgrades on a failed machine, it appears something fails mid-upgrade in the firmware upload, and leaves the chip in an inoperable state.
Apple has released firmware patch utilities for these types of issues in the past, but as is per typical recent Apple, if it’s under a certain occurrence threshold they ignore it and deal with it case-by-case.
Luckily my 2018 Mac Mini was still within AppleCare, and the solution was to replace the logic board. Overkill, but seems to be Apple’s go-to fix at the GB these days.
If you’re having a true non-recoverable failure - indicated by “Bluetooth Not Available”, no Bluetooth device shown in system configuration or diagnostics, and no recovery even with a SMC reset or OS restore, this is likely your problem - I’d contact Apple support ASAP.
If you’re having generic Bluetooth issues like disconnects or dropouts, that’s really not the severe issue that’s being discussed in this thread - that can usually be solved by deleting Bluetooth prefs and .plists, and appears to be a software issue.
I keep mentioning this, but people apparently aren't paying attention, and keep hijacking this thread with generic "My mouse doesn't work but my headphones do" Bluetooth problems that are fixed by a SMC reset.
Again, there are TWO problems being discussed in this thread.
One is generic bluetooth issues that are resolved by removing .plists and resetting the SMC as Apple suggests, and is not the "serious problem" first identified in this thread.
The second one is a VERY SERIOUS issue where the Catalina update essentially *wipes out the device firmware on the chip due to a corrupt or interrupted DFU update*. THIS is how the update is causing a hardware problem. This is what happened to my Mac Mini, and the only resolution was to change out the logic board.
The symptom of this is a "Bluetooth Unavailable" no matter what you do - whether you roll back to another version, and NO bluetooth devices work. This IS a hardware problem CAUSED by the Catalina update that IS CURRENTLY NOT USER FIXABLE. Apple has released firmware patches in the past, but they have not acknowledged this issue. I have now seen it on three people's devices.
I wish people would stop mucking up this thread with "one device works but the other doesn't" general Bluetooth compatibility stuff.. That is NOT the issue that provoked this thread, you guys are having typical bluetooth problems.
If you are stuck with the consistent "Bluetooth Not Available" and the device is NOT Present in System Information, your bluetooth chip firmware may literally be gone, and right now the only resolution is a hardware repair. That's what I had to do, and the "Genius Bar" verified this was the issue.
For me the issue is resolved, it seem to be an outdated version of SentinelOne that caused the issue (it was not working correctly as well, and while I was updating it my Bluetooth suddenly returned).
So my problem was solved, but I don’t have great news.
If you recall from my post above, I dropped my Mac mini off before the thanksgiving holiday. The Apple store was going to do a “deep dive” on the Bluetooth issue.
Well, they did, and they couldn’t figure it out. They ended up replacing the entire logic board under AppleCare.
I find that a little odd, but Apples repair approach of shotgun vs scalpel has always been suspicious to me.
I truly think that this was caused by one of two scenarios, both related to the Bluetooth chip requiring a DFU update.
either:
1) this was the first such update to the Bluetooth firmware since late 2018, and a batch of chips had bad flash memory for the Bluetooth ROM, or
2) A select or even random set of users received a corrupt DFU flash file with the 10.15.1 update.
I don’t have any evidence that leans one way or the other, but there’s clearly a pattern here and yet again, Apple is following their own all too common pattern of not recognizing / denying the problem (I cant tell which.)
My Mac mini was one week out of the standard warranty; without AppleCare the repair would have cost me $452 according to the invoice.
I truly hope Apple does the right thing in both acknowledging this problem and repairing the machines that are just now coming out of warranty coverage.
Unfortunately it seems it’s following the standard Apple pattern of pretend the problem doesn’t exist until people get upset.. So I highly suggest bringing your machines in.
The other curiosity is that Apple HAS released end-user DFU device patches before; this leads me to believe the problem is still firmware related but slightly bigger. They tried to restore BridgeOS on my Mac mini in the store and it failed repeatedly.
Also curious, even with the new logic board, I’m still seeing all the old classic 2018 Mac Mini problems of monitors not waking up and WiFi mysteriously failing randomly.
SOLVED: Turn on the MBP, and immediately hold Shift, Control, Option. I let go after 10-15 seconds. This was probably the 6th method I tried. The Mac booted up, I signed in, and BlueTooth was there! According to the link below, this resets the SMC, "System Management Controller." Hope this helps someone.
Note, the blog said to hold all 3 buttons and turn on the MBP at the same time, but it wouldn't turn on for me while I had those 3 buttons held in. Instead, I pushed the power button and then immediately after held those 3 buttons down.
Again, there are two issues being discussed in this thread. One is a major one where the Bluetooth chip stops working entirely after the Catalina update. Another is with people having compatibility issues with specific devices, but the Bluetooth device itself on the Mac still exists and works.
The first issue isn’t major and is not fixable by the user. The second issue is more minor and is workable through things like device updates.
I’m not trying to be a jerk, but I wish people would stop conflating the second issue with the first major issue.
The issue that I had and the OP of the thread is that the Bluetooth chip on the Mac failed completely. After getting my logic board replaced the conclusion was that the firmware update -for the Bluetooth chip on the main logic board itself- failed during the Catalina upgrade, therefore bricking the chip on the motherboard.
This is not the same as “my headphones don’t work but my keyboard does.”
Apple needs to acknowledge the first issue, and if it keeps getting conflated with updates for 3rd party devices, they never will.
Just dropped mine off at the Apple store. Tech tried everything - including a DFU iBridge restore (which failed twice).
Other forums have mentioned that this is a corrupt firmware issue. Apple tech could not find any hardware issues, but Bluetooth didn’t even show up on the hardware test.
They now say they’re doing a “deep dive” which will take 3-5 days. Concerning.
I have a Macbook Pro Mid 2012 experiencing the same issues. The mouse/keyboard disconnects from bluetooth then reconnects after 10-15 secs. Then is does it all over again. Eventually, Bluetooth turns off and I can't turn it on. I can reboot then the cycle begins again.
Very frustrating. I've contacted Apple support and gone through the known fixes all to no avail. In fact, I've had to retype this a couple of time because I lost the keyboard. I've sent Apple logs but they haven't gotten back to me.
This is definitely an OS issue.
I also need to echo the same concerns.
I have a 2018 Mac mini as well. After the 10.15.1 update, I get "Bluetooth: Not Available" and no hardware shows in System Report.
I have tried:
My inclination is that a firmware update in 10.15.1 has bricked the Bluetooth controller, and perhaps even those who have had their logic board replaced have the same result occurring when Catalina boots back up. Power supply problems? Highly, highly improbable.
This really does seem like a recent update that could possibly be bricking perhaps a certain batch hardware. Not good.
For those with similar problems, I got my Mac mini in December of last year. It's the 3.2 GHz 6-Core i7 with a 1TB SSD. I have upgraded the RAM after the fact.
All that's left to try for me is roll back to an older backup... This seems like a nasty problem if it is what it sounds like.
One would hope they'd jump on this quick and perhaps fix it with a subsequent update, but this feels to me like the kind of thing Apple gets dodgy about and denies until there's some uproar. I would suggest everyone with the problem contact Apple ASAP.
Has anyone else in this thread with this problem found resolution yet?
I had this issue on my iMac with Mojave, and now I still have the issue with Catalina. It's been doing this for a few months now. It works most of the time, and then it stops and I have to plug in a wired mouse and connect my Magic keyboard via Lightening and then try various things to get it working again. I need to write down all the things I try, but I've researched this and have tried pretty much everything people here are saying.
Today to get it working, I did an SMC reset and when it came back up Bluetooth was "available" and I just had to click the Bluetooth icon to turn it on again after reboot. The magic Mouse connected on its own and started working then, but not the Magic keyboard. I had to plug the keyboard in and then I was able to make the "Connect" option for it in the Bluetooth pulldown work. It would not connect without being plugged in first.
I'll start keeping a detailed log about what I do to make it work (temporarily at least), and if I learn anything I'll post it here.
I am having this same issue. I called Apple Support this morning after doing an SMC Reset and even a full clean reinstall and still have the same issue. I am having to take the mac mini in to the Apple Store for repair. They state it could be a hardware issue but seems odd it would be a hardware issue after a software update. Will update...
I have the similar issue where the Bluetooth does not now work with my wireless headphones but the magic keyboard and mouse still operate.
I contacted my headphones manufacturer for a warranty claim and they and many other Bluetooth manufacturers now have a big issue with Bluetooth connectivity with their devices. Apple seems to have changed something with the Bluetooth functionality and also removed the functionality of apxT low latency support which is the issue worldwide with Catalina. I contacted Apple and they say the manufacturers have to update their firmware for all their devices. My question is why did Apple do this as it’s a major issue. Some guys are taking their devices for repair as they think it’s hardware. Personally I think it’s just faulty software and Catalina programming is the issue. Many are paying to get their iMac etc fixed for no reason. Apple should come clean as to what’s happened.
Bluetooth was crashing with increasing regularity and would no longer connect to devices, so I decided to upgrade to Catalina before I found this thread (hindsight: whoops). Bluetooth flatlined post upgrade from 10.14 Mojave to 10.15.4 Catalina. Upgraded to 10.15.5 hoping to resolve, but no dice. Tried a handful of other things over the past few days until I discovered this thread:
Poking around a bit more, it looks like as I had a system admin user set up for me on a work provided machine, I have two ~/Library directories - one at a global system level, and one under ~/{User}/Library. I had been deleting the plist files at the global level assuming they would be system wide, but I had to navigate to both Library/Preferences folders and remove the bluetooth plist files - and the User/Library/Preferences/ByHost plist file. No change.
Running etrecheck - it looks like on upgrading to macOS Catalina 10.15.4 two things were installed:
XProtectPlistConfigData (2121) & Voice Update - Nora (1.3.13), but neither looks related, especially since their release dates don't seem to coincide with the reporting here.
While bluetooth can be power toggled (manually via terminal), it continues to crash system preferences and will not allow any devices to be connected. Booting in Safe seems to fix that, but still doesn't address the actual bluetooth issue. No error pops up in about system, etrecheck, or cleanmymac. Still can’t seem to toggle bluetooth IO via console bar - only manually via terminal with blueutil -p 0/1 or sudo launchctl stop/start com.apple.bluetoothhd.
Guessing this must be the described hardware issue. Looks like this could be the battery on the logic board, but if Apple Care is saying it might be something else and requires machine replacement.. who knows. ****, this is my work computer, and I was hoping to avoid IT/sending it in. Looks like I've hopped in the boat with the rest of you.
Worth noting, and I recommend anyone in the future who posts to this (or folks who captured it at the time of their log):
Some references:
10.15.1 Update - Bluetooth not available
