4th Gen 2020 M1 Mac mini bluetooth issues with Magic Mouse2

I just called the Apple support regarding this issue, the usual procedure started, SMC reset, power off, unplug, etc..

Obviously during the call, my magic keyboard and mouse worked like a charm. However, the support agent indeed told me, that this seems to be a software issue which is internally known at Apple and they are currently investigating.

The support agent also told me to patently wait for the next MacOS update which will definitely fix (or at least improve) the situation. He couldn't tell me, when this update will arrive.

I installed an usb BT receiver in my M1 mac mini and have not had any issues for over 4 days. Not a single lost BT connection of any kind. This leads me to believe that the internal BT receiver is defective in design or the firmware is defective. Either way it requires Apple to either issue an update to fix or issue a recall. This is obviously something they do not want to do. It would tarnish their reputation and the myth of "it just works". While I love Apple products, they need to own this issue and do what it takes to make each and every customer happy.

sok777 wrote:

You are right.

I've asked my wife to message me when the phone was 30ft away. This wakes up the phone (due to notification).

The bluetooth, WiFi and handoff was turned off - and yet the mouse and keyboards started lagging for up to 10 seconds as soon as the notification was received!

It seems like perhaps the issue is linked to the iPhone, perhaps even the other issues are linked to it.

How is beyond me - if nothing is turned on to cause interference, and the phone is 30ft away, how can that be possible?!

So this is my own personal opinion based on what I have experienced, read and know from my work in the IT industry ....I don't think this is interference in the traditional sense (radio wave interference)... all of these devices are designed to communicate with each other to give them the Apple Ecosystem software integration which we usually enjoy.... handoff, AirPods auto switching etc. A lot of these things require communication over various protocols (WiFi, BlueTooth, U1)....

I can't speak for every single scenario here in this discussion where people have had BT related connectivity issues... but I feel there is definitely something on their software stack that is having problems with these comms that relate to the iPhone device. Not sure if its specific to M1or Big Sur or a combo of the two. Its clearly requires some sort of combination of factors because as of typing this, restarting my iPhone yesterday has so far been a band aid (only once today so far for me).... and I am confident it will return and me more significant. I have never experienced any of this on any other Mac's I own (2 intel Macs here in my home office).

When you say you turned off wifi, bluetooth and handoff.... do you mean you turned this off on the iPhone only? Whats interesting is that turning off wifi does not actually turn it off. If you look closely turning off WiFi on your iPhone only stops it connecting to known SSID's for a period of time... I believe that to 'turn it off' you need to enter aeroplane mode. Try that and repeat the test. Also ... as I said before, restarting the iPhone does do something for me.... but if there are other things you want to experiment with like capture logs, its good to do this before you restart the phone as it may resolve the issue temporarily and make it harder to replicate on demand like you can now.

I too was bogged down by these recurring issues. They are truly unacceptable. I did however receive a fix from Engineering and it works!

The temporary solution until the next update is to Turn Off Handoff on all your devices that are connected to your iCloud account.

On Mac, go to 🍎, System Preferences, uncheck the box at the bottom to Allow Handoff.

On iPhone, go to Settings, General, AirPlay & Handoff, toggle Handoff to the off position.

On Apple Watch, open the Watch app on your iPhone, General, toggle the Enable Handoff to the off position.

Restart all of your devices and you should be on your way to productivity! Hopefully, the new update will allow us to use Handoff once again.

Toggling the handoff didn't work for me. What has worked was turning off WiFi. Fortunately I have an Ethernet access to use in lieu of WiFi.

Now Magic Keyboard and Touchpad work, the USC-C connection to the LG 4K monitor works, etc.

The only thing that doesn't work is the Apple Watch handshaking for login and other system requests for password. I have an iMac with Catalina next to my macMini M1 and the Watch handshaking works fine.

I suspect the Watch needs both Bluetooth and WiFi to work correctly.

I did turn it off in network prefs and restart. It did improve things. My disconnects went to once a day instead of once an hour. Actually went 2 days after turning off WiFi before first disconnect of mouse.

for my flavor of this issue, only Magic Mouse 2 is impacted. I have tried 2 different t BT keyboards and a Magic Trackpad 2, and those devices stay connected when Magic Mouse 2 drops.

ive been holding off on testing 11.2 beta because apple care told me they could t troubleshoot with me while I was on beta os. May need to reconsider that now that they ghosted me.

I think/hope I may possibly have found a solution for this problem. Suspecting that the drop of Bluetooth connection may be linked to my Mac mini switching from 5Ghz to 2.4Ghz Wifi on our dual-band wifi, I turned off Wifi steering (for my Mac only) on my router settings forcing the Mac to remain on 5Ghz Wifi.

Since then, my Bluetooth connection has not dropped yet.

For those of you having this issue, perhaps you can try forcing your Mac to connect and stick to 5Ghz Wifi?

It is still odd that I have never had this issue with any other devices but this fix seems to be working so far...

My problem has been limited to my Magic Mouse 2. I proved that the issue is only with that mouse the the M1 mini by replicating the problem on two different M1 mini's, then going back to Intel MacBook Pro for two weeks with no issues. Anyway, AppleCare decided to send me a new mouse. I assumed this wouldn't fix anything (and I'm still not convinced), but I've been using the new Magic Mouse 2 for 4 days now and no disconnects. I am hoping that by writing this, I will jinx it and the issue will come back. I just don't believe it was the mouse.

msimpsonsoc-

I know it a long thread, but the bottom line is, there is no solution for this at this time. We are all anxiously awaiting a fix/response from Apple. (I think it says there are 790 users with the same question, and rising. Who knows how many lurkers are out there reading the thread that haven't weighed in).

Unfortunately, the drop you experience is a pretty typical experience, though it does vary.

There are a few workarounds you'll read in this thread, the most successful being an external bluetooth dongle (especially the Asus). There are other workarounds, but you'll have to slog through the thread. For a lot of us, none of those work.

Below are Apple’s release notes for macOS Big Sur 11.2: 

macOS Big Sur 11.2 improves Bluetooth reliability and fixes the following issues:

• External displays may show a black screen when connected to a Mac mini (M1, 2020) using an HDMI to DVI converter
• Edits to Apple ProRAW photos in the Photos app may not save
• iCloud Drive could turn off after disabling the iCloud Drive Desktop & Documents Folders option
• System Preferences may not unlock when entering your administrator password
• Globe key may not display the Emoji & Symbols pane when pressed

Yes, all I did was plug it in, and REBOOT. The Mac automatically turned off the internal bluetooth and used the Asus External Dongle. I'm using the 4.0 Asus dongle now (have a 5.0 one on order), and so far, 4 hours and no disconnects, lag, key bounce, or anything. AAAAAAAAAH, that is refreshing.

I did lose the ability to logon to the computer with my Apple Watch, but that was only working intermittently anyway, so no big loss.

I am using the Asus USB-BT400 on two of our Mac minis both with the Magic Mouse 2 and Magic Keyboards and they work without disconnects. There is occasional lag after waking up the computer and my Apple Watch will not unlock the computers but other than that appears to be a good temporary solution.

The fact that Apple has not published a fix for this problem yet despite this long thread, numerous CS calls and I spoke with my nephew that works for Apple to let him know about the issue (he was not free to discuss with me but could listen to what I told him and I pointed him to this thread, leads me to believe there is a hardware issue. Apple may be waiting until they have a hardware replacement they can offer to say anything or do anything unless a law suit and a lot of negative publicity forces their hand. Strictly my guess and opinion. However, I know from my many years managing software development that I would have made fixing this issue a priority and gotten a fix out to my customers ASAP with a point revision or patch and I suspect other development managers would do the same unless it is something they can't fix in software.

I initially had problems with my Magic Mouse 2 when I first had it in November. But since upgrading to 11.2 last week I have had NO connection problems at all. I notice that the Bluetooth version has changed to version V82 c17714 from V81 c17686. Interesting........

I have been running 11.2 for 2 1/2 days now and it is much improved. According to the logs, there have been 2 BT disconnects which did not occur in the drop-connect-drop-connect signature, but rather a single occurrence. Neither of these occurred while I was using the system and they both appear to have been the trackpad which I rarely use. I did have my iPhone in the vicinity of the mac mini at the time of these drops but cannot say for sure that is what caused it. Also I do not use the watch unlock feature so I am unable to comment on whether that works or not.

Overall I am pleased as now the system is completely usable for work. Sure there are some more bugs to fix, but after all this is first gen and I went into this knowing there might be some growing pains.