Magic Keyboard / Trackpad looses connection

Every 2-3 minutes either the keyboard or the trackpad looses bluetooth connection.

Are there workaorunds to fix this?

Mac Mini M1 16GB RAM

Mac mini, macOS 11.0

Posted on Nov 25, 2020 6:21 AM

Top-ranking reply

den.thed

Level 10

90,946 points

Posted on Nov 27, 2020 7:56 AM

There is not documented NVRAM reset for the M1 Mac's.

From what I'm gleaning on line, the M1 carries out a function similar to the SMC and NVRAM reset at startup.

Bluetooth and Wi-Fi issues can be related to high speed USB 3 and Thunderbolt 3 drives, device and cables.

see > https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201542

This is not a new issue with the 2020 M1 Mac Mini. The 2012, 2014, 2018 Mac Mini's all suffer from this problem when using USB 3.0 and higher speed drive and cable connections.

If you follow the excellent advise from dwb and the support article, you should easily be able to narrow down the device or cable causing the problem. Sometimes all it requires is a little rearranging of cables and devices to clear up the problem. Other times it requires replacing a cable with a better cable or device to clear up the problem.

@ hcitas some of us have more than 4 external devices and require the use of a hub. Plus anyone with more than 4 external devices, should actually use a hub instead of fumbling around the back of the Mac Mini plugging and unplugging devices.

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18 replies

kolwo Author

Level 1

10 points

Nov 27, 2020 10:25 AM in response to hcsitas

You need to remind that power users (like I would describe myself) are having an 2nd external display.

So there's only one USB-C left. So I easily get into trouble without any additional hub.

Furthermore I need a hub to read SD-Cards (what's just not possible without an external device/hub)

Beside that I have a Micro-USB for my camera (but you can also assume this as a "webcam-slot"), at least one Lightning-Cable to Charge the iPhone / AirPods / Trackpad / Keyboard, one USB-C to my iPad.

So I would need to change cable with a setup of Lightning (1), USB-C (2), Micro-USB (3), external Monitor (4 > no more slots), SD-Card-Reader (5 -> Need to have a Hub).

I definitely won't switch cables x times a day.

kolwo Author

Level 1

10 points

Nov 27, 2020 10:36 AM in response to den.thed

thanks for your kind words.

Really annoying what apple releases recently.

Beginning from the very buggy iOS 13 + iPhone 11, I had the MacBook Pro 16" 2019 Model where fans are starting to run like a jet just when you plug in 2 external 4k monitors, then the iPhone 12 again has lots of laggy behaviours in certain sceaniors, now the mini (okay maybe it's just only mine buggy one) first the time machine backup I installed was enormously buggy, then with a hdmi -> hdmi & usb-c -> hdmi after wakeup the second display wasn't accessible (the mouse didn't want to get out of one display) and in the end this bluetooth bug. Hope that the mini problems are all connected to the same hardware problem, but I am really sad with the last items I bought from apple ( and I had beside the 7s or so any iPhone since the 2g, and buy a new Macbook every 1-2 years and of course more or less any accessory they released :( ... )

hcsitas

Level 6

13,964 points

Nov 26, 2020 8:58 PM in response to bryonfromwoodstock

There are 4 USB ports, more than sufficient for the average Joe. For everything else, there’s WiFi. Updates won’t fix USB Hub interference, so chuck it and be happy!

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Magic Keyboard / Trackpad looses connection