Bluetooth stops intermittently on 2018 mac mini.

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Level 1

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Bluetooth stops intermittently on 2018 mac mini.

All bluetooth devices (mouse, keyboard, headset, etc.) paired to my mac mini lose connection intermittently for about a minute. It occurs randomly after several hours of use. The disconnection lasts from 10 seconds to about a minute. Then, the devices resume like nothing happened, except for the headset which disconnects and reconnects. There is no message about mouse or keyboard losing connection or re-connecting, the mouse stops movement and the keyboard won't type. The apple keyboard caps-lock key goes green and won't toggle. This has been happening since the mac mini was new June 2020. I current use a USB keyboard and it continues to type while the magic-mouse and BT devices are hung.

Mac mini (2018), 64GB RAM, 2TB SSD, 3.2 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7, macOS 11.2.1 Big Sur.

Posted on Mar 16, 2021 11:43 AM

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Answer 1

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den.thed

Level 9

78,556 points

Mar 16, 2021 11:57 AM in response to AlpineDennis

Poorly shielded USB-C and USB 3.0 cables and drives can cause intermittent wireless issues.

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

If your using a USB-C or USB 3.0 drive for Time Machine, then that might coincide with the brief hourly dropouts.

If that is the case, then try moving your high speed cables and drives away from your wireless devices.

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Answer 2

Mar 25, 2021 5:45 PM in response to den.thed

I have a 2020 27” iMac with the same issue. It seems to occur ONLY when either Safari or Chrome are running and almost always when one of them is the application currently in use. I’m running Big Sur 11.1 I use Lightroom extensively and I believe tonight was the first time I had this happen while using Lightroom, but Safari was also open. I *think* it may only happen after the computer has been asleep or the screensaver has been running because there are times it seems when working in Safari after starting the computer fresh for the day that I have no Bluetooth failures.

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Bluetooth stops intermittently on 2018 mac mini.

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