airdrop not working between phone and computer

Hi all! so I have an issue with airdrop. I can send a photo just fine from my computer to my phone, but if i try to send a photo from my phone to my computer, it just gets stuck on ‘waiting’ and never does anything. I’ve always been able to have airdrop work both ways, but for some reason now it just doesn’t want to anymore.

I have tried setting it to allow to be discovered by contacts only AND everyone. I’m updated to the newest versions for both my iPhone and MacBook. I found one thing that said to try turning off and on the handoff feature on both phone and computer, though in fairness I wasn’t entirely expecting it to be that. I don’t have the computer’s firewall on. all the airdrop settings look normal and correct on both devices. i reset my router, unplugged both that and my modem, just as a ‘trying literally everything i can think of’ move. i’ve turned on and off the bluetooth and wifi of both devices. i don’t have hotspot on. i’ve logged out and back into my icloud. i’ve shut down both devices and turned them back on. nothing seems to work and i’m kind of at a loss for why this is happening.

is this maybe a hardware issue thing?? I'm guessing this must be, somehow, an issue on my macbook's end as it is older than just about any electronic device i have (late 2015 macbook pro, 13 inch), but why let me send from my macbook but not receive? or is there something else to try that i’m not thinking of? feels like i've done every troubleshooting thing i've found to no avail, so I appreciate and thank you for any and all help y'all can give me!