16-inch MacBook Pro Bluetooth issue

My 2019 iMac shows the same bluetooth module but I recommend you to not plug in the CSR dongle because in my case “Bluetooth collaboration” stopped working and now its impossible to have bluetooth and wifi active at the same time.

Hi,

I noticed right away when I took my new MacBook Pro out of the box as new that some older bluetooth devices (2 years older than my Mac) do not work perfectly with this machine. I have intermittent cutouts of bluetooth audio time to time and total failures of bluetooth link when switching between high quality audio on phone audio on the same device.

I generally think that everything that runs via bluetooth is kinda problematic and can't be trusted to work 100% of time.

Have you tried these:

• Turn your bluetooth devices completely off one at the time and check if one of them is causing inteference that stops other devices from working

• It's not bad idea to try turning off WLAN APs etc and try out if that fixes the problem

• Move to other area with the devices to rule out local inteference from other equipment

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In past I have solved various wireless transmission problems caused by:

• Microwave oven
• Air Conditioners
• TV
• Printers
• Wireless mouses
• "Tuned" WLAN APs
• Radio amateur equipment

They are not that uncommon that one might think.

I have also seen multiple cases where someone have built bluetooth jamming devices that are designed to make bluetooth unusable at given area and one of them who I have talked with told that they stumbled upon it by accident while fiddleing with device firmware.

--

Same issue as many on this thread. Accidentally attached a CSR 4.0 BT dongle.

Took me a while to realise that the reset needs an old BT 2.0 USB - so just ordered one.

Thanks to @AntiHawk.

Here's hoping it works for me too.

derick212, There has been some breakthroughs that have allowed us to be able to resurrect the Bluetooth. If you read all the posts. It involves using a Bluetooth 2.0 Adapter.

It worked for both my 16" and 13" MacBooks.

Its worth giving it a try!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00345SLGS/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Try this one, I got my Bluetooth back to normal using this one.

This isn't using a Broadcom chip, so I encountered some issue when trying to follow AntiHawk's workaround, the procedure he provided above won't work since you won't able to connect to anything with this 2.0 dongle, even if my Macbook does recognize it as a BT adapter.

But strangely, after resetting SMC and NVRAM, some plugging in and out of this dongle, my internal Bluetooth just came back following a restart.

It’s infuriating that Apple isn’t putting out a fix for this problem. I was in dialogue with multiple senior advisors for over a month who all recommend logic board replacement. I too was able to fix the issue with a BT 2.0 dongle and told the senior advisors what the fix is, they brushed it off. Why won’t they listen to their users in this issue? It would save them lots of money in replacement parts, countless hours of support time and prevent customer frustration.

Its quite a mess through apple service. Talked about this bluetooth problem with third-Apple service certified center : they choose to replace motherboard to be paid by Apple than push that solution to Apple Engineering support.

Maybe if someone call Apple service center in the USA, the problem will disappear with firmware update.

Thanks all for found this crazy solutions, yes it definitely works.

[Edited by Moderator]

Hi Poxin, I would suggest contacting Apple Support: find your local phone number here: https://getsupport.apple.com or you can use the chat there. I think it's just users helping each other on this forum so Apple probably isn't aware of the problem when we only talk about it here. Also I would suggest to explain clearly how the problem appeared after having the external bluetooth receiver attached. Some of the advisors I talked to didn't really understand that part at first and when they did I got the comment they haven't heard of this problem before.

So I think it would help if people affected by this problem communicate to Apple through the official support channels that you can find on the Apple support website.

Just to give an update, I managed to get my hands on a "Matrix Bluetooth USB mini (version 2.0, Class 2)" (it's one the ones that have the mushroom head) and following AntiHawk's procedure the fix worked.

I will try to break it again and retry my old BT adapter to reproduce the issue and see if I can capture any logs

I can also confirm the AntiHawk solution. For those looking for a compatible 2.1 Bluetooth Dongle for the fix, I can confirm that this one from Argos worked a treat, £10.....

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/8365448?clickSR=slp:term:micro%2010m%20usb%20bluetooth:10:20:2

Apple, how can you be allowing motherboard replacements for this? Whilst unorthodox, there is a solution. Why have you not provided a patch?

I also was caught out when accidentally connected a hub with bluetooth dongle already connected. Luckily, I was able to find this thread, otherwise, it would have been an expensive, seemingly pointless, and time consuming repair. It's not very environmentally responsible.

Loumiakas wrote:

Oh apologies, I did not notice those two extra pairs of 0s! It follows the same pattern as on my system.

I compared the your values to mine, they differ a little bit:

bluetoothActiveControllerInfo %96%00%ac%05%00%00%00%00%00%00%f8%ff%c2;%18%df

bluetoothInternalControllerInfo %96%00%ac%05%00%00%00%00%f8%ff%c2;%18%df

If you feel particularly adventurous, you could try mine. But be warned, I have no idea what these values mean, so do it at your own risk!

Actually, being a curious person I have managed to break the inbuilt module again. Last post will not do anything so don't bother... Also, values tend to stay the same, when you break your module, so it is not applicable.

Now, I noticed that performing is apparently not enough:

sudo nvram -c 

Try the following:

Step #1:

sudo nvram boot-args="-p -r" (this will issue an error, so I don't know if it does anything)
sudo nvram -c
sudo reboot

Step #2:

After this, your module might or might not start up. Open terminal again and issue this command and perform a scan through bluetooth settings window:

bluetoothd 

Step #3:

If that does not work, try plugging any BT2.0 dongle. It does not have to be Broadcom (mine is Cambridge Silicon Radio). Perform a scan, then unplug it and see if your bluetooth starts up.

If not, stop bluetoothd and close bluetooth settings window and keep performing these steps #2 and #3 again. It should eventually start working.

This does not work every time, but eventually it should start working! (did this 4 times now, within 15 minute timeframe). I will try to refine it down and let you know how it goes...

I have the same problem as everyone else. The adapter that bricked my internal bluetooth is Hideez that uses CSR 4.0

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0792NSF7M/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I'd rather fix this myself rather than backup, get a new logic board, restore. I too would like referral to a 2.0 adapter that fixes this problem reliably and can be purchased in the USA. Thanks.

I have sometimes been able to fix similar problems with SMC and/or NVRAM/PRAM reset.

Once my MacBook Pro visited official Apple repair shop due premature battery failure covered by warranty and they forgot/incorrectly connected WLAN/Bluetooth antenna when they put it back together and WLAN did not work properly.

Those connectors are extremely small and it is easy to connect them partially or damage the connector thus causing poor connectivity.

Had to visit the shop again and they were apologizing for the inconvenience which was all fine by me as those things happen time to time.

I would check if the RSSI value with connected device is good enough (hold down option-key when clicking bluetooth icon).

Best RSSI value would be 0 dBm and worst -100 dBm (not sure what is the high limit and 0 is impossible to reach in real world). My headphones are usually in -13 to - 40 dBm range when I am in close to moderate proximity to my Mac.

Also try other devices if possible to make sure.

I had to disable 2.4 Ghz WLAN from my WLAN station as MacBook Pro 16" did not work reliably with it. This also impacted bluetooth connection quality positively.

Ok, thanks for sharing. Just for reference, I have the Hideez Bluetooth Dongle. My MBP's logic board has died twice with this (see previous posts).

https://hideez.com/products/hideez-dongle

If your machine is one week old return it as soon as possible, money back, as you are in the 2 weeks. Dont even argue. Buy something else.