UNIVERSAL CONTROL NOT WORKING

After a week of working with it, I found the following. For a short while it was more stable after a reboot of my systems, but then it became more unreliable again. I am using a M1 Mac mini and a M1-Ultra Mac Studio, both on Ventura. It seems to work about 50% of the time and randomly disconnects. Very unreliable, and definitely *not* one of those "it just works" things. I am really hoping that Apple fixes this in the next release of Ventura, as it is a useful feature (when it works). Currently it is so unreliable that it is next to useless.

I have this same issue. Nothing I have tried has worked. WiFi, Bluetooth and Handoff are turned on, both my Macbook Pro M1 Pro and Macbook Air M2 are connected to the same WiFi network, and logged into the same iCloud account. I've rebooted both, turned on and off Handoff on both and still am unable to use Universal Control. I've also tried manually connecting via the Display panel.

I have the same issues with Universal Control randomly working. Often it works only for a few seconds and then fails again. I did read quite a few posts and tried all the suggested settings. I'm trying to make it work between 2 Mac on the same desk (a Mac M1-Mini and a Mac Studio). Both are running the latest version of Ventura. The feature is awesome, but seems to be very buggy. I tried the suggestion mentioned in this thread, and toggling on/off the "Allow Handoff between this Mac and your iCloud devices" does work to kick on the feature again, but a couple of mins later, it stops again. Maybe some service is crashing in the background. Anyway, to echo what others are saying, this feature is not quite baked yet.

I successfully linked my Macs and an iPad Pro. I just had to turn off the whole devices at once, then start all of them and "voila" the connection is successful.

The universal control is smooth and fast, not so much "bugs" for a "beta" version.

I found:

1. very annoying to have to. maintain a keyboard on the controlled Mac mini just for wake it up when it's in sleep mode. ( toggle the space bar on the controlled Mac keyboard, it wakes up, you can then use your main keyboard to type your code...)
2. My Magic Mouse don't work with ALL functionnality on my controlled Mac ( I can't use the scroll left-right on Calendar, which is very annoying for me )
3. I got some mild disconnection ... about one time in ad ay hour woking session... but it's tolerable if you take count of the productivity gain of this system.

Could be better if:

• I could take some windows from one Mac to the other.... seamlessly. I use a lot of google docs and sheets with safari... I could benefit of throwing one window to the other Mac..
• I share the disks so one is easily accessible form the other... I dream of having a window "back colour" set by the devices the disk is linked too....

Hi HeetNeygandhi,

We understand that you are unable to access the Universal Control feature. Are you signed in with the same Apple ID on both devices? Are both devices up to date with the latest software? On both devices do you have Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Handoff turned on?

Keep us updated.

On the Mac, in System Preferences - Displays use the Display Settings ... button to see the settings for your iPad. Make sure that you have this selected in order to use Universal Control:

Use as: Linked keyboard and mouse

If, instead you have:

Use as: Extended or mirrored display

... then you will only be able to use your iPad as a Sidecar.

You can only select one of those. If you choose to use Universal Control, you won't be able to use Sidecars (and vice versa).

I got the same problem the option "linked keyboard and mouse" do not appear on any of my devices ( MacBook air M1, Mac mini M1 and iPad Pro 12,9 )

Therefore I can share the screen like "sidecar" has done before

I will try to turn off handoff everywhere and restart all machines at once

just turning handoff off and back on on my Mac worked, without restarting it at the time - I had however, restarted it recently after trying some other troubleshooting steps, which did not work. The final thing that worked was to turn handoff off and back on on the Mac, and just before that, I had turned it off and back on on the iPad, but that hadn't fixed it yet.

I have a 2019 MBPro 13 and iPad Pro M1 12.9. Universal Control is hit and miss, mostly miss, since upgrading to Ventura. The only way to keep it working consistently is to leave the MBPro lid open. Close the lid, then it will stop working after a few minutes. Side Car works lid open or closed. Has to be a bug. This didn't happen in Monterey.

I also am having this issue on a 2020 macbook pro and 12.9 inch 4th gen iPad Pro. None of the troubleshooting tips have helped.