2017 MBP and iPhone SE can't discover each other in airdrop

Question

2017 MBP and iPhone SE can't discover each other in airdrop

I can no longer airdrop between my MBP (2017 13" touchbar, Catalina 10.15.2, all apps up to date) and iPhone SE. I can airdrop in either direction between another MBP (2017 15", still on 10.15.1) and the phone, so it seems like the issue is with the laptop.

Airdrop was working a couple of weeks ago, when the MBP was running Mojave.

"Can't airdrop" means when I try to share, the airdrop window does not show any destination devices.

I have tried with airdrop set to 'anyone' on both ends, and to 'contacts only'

I have the MBP firewall turned off in system prefs -> privacy -> firewall

I have restarted both devices, including booting the MBP in safe mode and then in normal mode.

I have turned bluetooth and wifi off on both devices, then back on.

What else can I do? Is there another permission setting needed in 10.15.2?

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.15

Posted on Dec 20, 2019 4:16 PM

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Answer 1

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leroydouglas

Community+ 2024

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188,382 points

Dec 20, 2019 5:42 PM in response to Bruce Fleischer

Bruce Fleischer wrote:

I can no longer airdrop between my MBP (2017 13" touchbar, Catalina 10.15.2, all apps up to date) and iPhone SE. I can airdrop in either direction between another MBP (2017 15", still on 10.15.1) and the phone, so it seems like the issue is with the laptop.

Use Continuity to connect your Mac, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch ...

Shut down & Reboot the macOS

To trouble shoot further you can:

Try a SafeBoot https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262

Takes noticeable longer to get to the login screen, does a 5-15 minute disk repair before it fully boots up, and certain system caches get cleared and rebuilt, including dynamic loader cache, etc. Login and test. Reboot and test will take a little longer as caches get rebuilt.

This test will tell you if third party interference; extensions etc are not loaded in safe boot mode.

Test issue in another user (or guest user) account https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204443

This will tell you if it a universal issue or isolated to your user/admin account.

and

restart, the iOS

User troubleshooting for you r iphone

Follow the 3R's- if a restart does not solve your problem proceed

1. restart, ie power off/on, https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201559

2. reset/ or a Force Restart,

https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/force-restart-iphone-iph8903c3ee6/ios

3. restore from backup, restore as new device. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201252

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Answer 2

Dec 20, 2019 7:37 PM in response to Bruce Fleischer

Bruce Fleischer wrote:

So do I just have to bump the regular account up to admin? We don't have any kids at home

or any need to really secure the computer, I just have it that way out of old habit to make myself

think twice before putting on my 'admin' hat.

I have never considered anything but my user as admin. No issues there security wise that I can tell.

I always considered Continuity to be hit or miss, but it seems to have leveled out over the last couple of macOS for me anyway—does you no good but antidotal.

Did you try i̶g̶n̶o̶r̶i̶n̶g̶ forgetting it on the other Mac, and see if it jump starts your user back into service, If that is possible(?) I would send Apple Feedback http://www.apple.com/feedback

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Answer 3

Dec 20, 2019 7:17 PM in response to leroydouglas

Apple phone support had me reset SMC and NVRAM, and then re-install Catalina.

When that was done I logged in to the admin account (kind of accidentally, because the login screen

didn't display the scroll arrow to get to the user account we usually use...) and Airdrop is working.

But... it doesn't work for the non-admin user. I've gone back and forth, turning airdrop to no-one

in the admin account - as expected, MBP not discoverable to phone, but phone discoverable to MBP -

and logging out of the admin account. So far, when loggen is as the non-admin user, even with airdrop

set to everyone, the MBP is invisible and can't see any other device.

So do I just have to bump the regular account up to admin? We don't have any kids at home

or any need to really secure the computer, I just have it that way out of old habit to make myself

think twice before putting on my 'admin' hat.

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Answer 4

Dec 20, 2019 7:33 PM in response to leroydouglas

I made the 'regular' user account an admin account and restarted. No change.

Airdrop only works for one account, even when there are two admin accounts.

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2017 MBP and iPhone SE can't discover each other in airdrop

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