16-inch MacBook Pro Bluetooth issue

Just to follow up, NightHawk's fix worked for me.

I am in the UK, I used this BT 2.0 dongle: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0013BFQUE/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

£4 well spent - Apple owe me! :-D

I managed to make it work by making multiple attempts of connecting/disconnecting and rebooting with/without the dongle connected. You will know it's working because other devices can pick up your Mac.

Just want to add that since "fixing" it I still have some weird quirks from time to time. An example is volume level not being reflected accurately while using AirPods Pro and the only way to make it work is by opening Sound Settings.

Furthermore, the HCI Selector in Bluetooth Explorer.app still shows None in the dropdown so it is unable to enumerate the built-in module. I strongly believe something is physically damaged at this point and I expect Apple to address this somehow.

Oh how I wish I knew about this before I plugged in CSR 4.0 BT dongle couple days ago. I was going insane trying to figure out what the heck is going on with my 2019 MBP 16" since I couldn't get internal BT to work whatever methods I tried to reset. Then I came across HN news link and reddit article that mentioned this discussion thread.

This is absolutely ridiculous. The fact that you can just permanently disable the internal BT by plugging in a dongle is beyond me. Why isn't Apple fixing this?

I really appreciate the proposed solution here that involves BCM chipset BT 2.0 dongles, but it's pretty much impossible to get hold of them at this point unless you already had them from a decade ago. I ordered BT 4.0 with BCM chipset, hoping that it's the chipset (BCM vs CSR) that matters more than the BT version, but I have very low hopes given how much other stuff I tried to fix this issue. I assume it's a bug in T2 chip.

Apple, you need to fix this crap ASAP.

Hi

Yes, CSR8510 A10 does not help, but it will crash your internal BT for sure (if bluethoothHostControllerSwitchBehaviour=always - because if it is, the OS uses the dongle).

You need (for example) a Dongle with a Broadcom Chipset. E.g. BCM2045A or BCM2046B. They only support BT2.1 (no BLE).

You can see your chipset in 'About this Mac' -> System -> USB.

I can send you one to Turkey.

Email me at: info//at//zweimueller//ch

BR

Boris

Fixed with this dongle! https://www.ebay.com/itm/Wireless-Adapter-USB-2-0-1-0-For-Keyboard-Mouse-For-Bluetooth-V2-0-EDR-Receiver/143337681457?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649

The one I received is not the mushroom looking one shown in the picture. It says CSR 4.0 on it, but it's really BT 2.0 with a broadcom chipset (BCM2046B1). Worked first try, no problem.

For others in Germany, I just unbricked mine with this 2,50€ adapter from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B07F82HQFF - Xiton Tiny USB 2.0 Wireless Bluetooth Adapter Dongle

It took two weeks to arrive from China but worth the wait.

I got my computer back from Apple. They replaced the logic board. I don't know whether it is safe to plugin the bluetooth adapter, but I'm guessing that it would break my computer again. I wish I knew if the root cause of the problem was fixed.

Till Apple addresses the issues, I do not recommend using any external BT/WiFi/RF dongles.

has anyone tried Bootcamp? Maybe using Windows internal bluetooth works well. That way we could discard any hardware issue.

After a replacement of your logic board, have you tried to reproduce the problem by re-plugging a bluetooth USB dongle ?

I will try a last thing - which is booting natively a windows or a Linux. I have a remember in the past of a similar problem, and booting into windows and loading official drivers from vendor fixed the issue.

I think it's mostly an issue with international support.

I did bring my laptop into the store several weeks ago before things shutdown and they ran the first level of diagnostics and couldn't see anything. I couldn't let them send in my laptop at the moment because I had some a presentation at work I needed to do. The tech there said he put in notes so I could at any time request a box to send the laptop in for testing/repairs.

After a few weeks and getting a loaner laptop from my company, I called in to Apple and asked them to send me a box to mail the laptop back in. I sent it in, and it took 6 days for them to repair it (they noted there is a parts delay) and the laptop is now on its way back to me.

I think there might be supply issues on parts.

I recommend referencing this post to support as it's very accurate to what I had.

The same thing happened to me too. I have a brand new 16-inch MacBook Pro and, when I connected my CSR BLE Dongle through the CalDigit adapter, my internal Bluetooth module stopped working. I did everything that has been suggested in this thread but no luck so far. I was also using a Virtual Machine....

For more reference, I also found using Bluetooth Explorer that it's reporting an error:

Initializing Bluetooth...
Bluetooth Support Initialization complete.
updateChainPower error: -3903
2020-04-09 14:36:34 +0000 Apple80211Get(APPLE80211_IOC_BTCOEX_MODE) returned error -3903
updateChainPower error: -3903

And, using a free App named BlueSee, I can see my devices but with a terrible RSSI (both devices were on top of my keyboard during the test):

I can also confirm that this is the case.

I share a monitor with my stationary computer. I recently got my self a bluetooth dongle to use with my home computer, its plugged in to the dell monitor and after i connected my mac to it. I haven't been able to connect any bluetooth devices back onto the MacBook 2019 16" using the internal bluetooth.

Im not very tempted to deliver my computer in for repair in these corona times :P

Hope it's possible to patch this problem somehow. I cant understand how a dongle is suppose to destroy the internal bluetooth receiver/transmitter.

I've also tried to use the bluetooth explorer to debug the bluetooth device, this has gotten me this error:

"updateChainPower error: -3903

2020-04-10 13:11:13 +0000 Apple80211Get(APPLE80211_IOC_BTCOEX_MODE) returned error -3903"

Same here, just got my MBP back two days ago after 1 month at the Apple Services with the new logic board, and now I'm about to bring it back to Apple Services since I tried to plug USB dongle again (Filco Mj2 covertible keyboard). It's a mess.

hairdresser06 wrote:

There is unfortunately no way to reach out to real engineers. I've tried 3 different ways.

https://feedbackassistant.apple.com is best way to reach Apple Engineering, in my experience.