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Universal control not working iPadOS 16.4/ Ventura 13.3

Hello. After updating my Macbook pro (14, M1Pro) and my 2022 iPad Air 5, universal control stopped working. Nothing helps, I turned off and on handoff, wi-fi, bluetooth, restarted both devices several times.


On my Macs preferences (monitors), there is only an option (when I hit "+") to extend screen on iPad. No option for universal control.


Also I realised, that the sidecar option is only when my iPad is connected via USB to Mac. Wirelessly works nothing. Both devices are connected to same wi-fi.

iPad Air (5th generation)

Posted on Mar 28, 2023 1:28 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Apr 6, 2023 5:53 PM

I may or may not have found a workaround.


  1. Turn off hand-off for all affected devices.
  2. Restart all affected devices.
  3. Turn on hand-off again.


This may or may not work. Worked once for me, at least.


Also, I must stress that this is a potential workaround and not a solution. Restarting devices is a pain anyway.

42 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Apr 6, 2023 5:53 PM in response to platan

I may or may not have found a workaround.


  1. Turn off hand-off for all affected devices.
  2. Restart all affected devices.
  3. Turn on hand-off again.


This may or may not work. Worked once for me, at least.


Also, I must stress that this is a potential workaround and not a solution. Restarting devices is a pain anyway.

Apr 5, 2023 3:26 AM in response to platan

Universal Control is dead.


I have three Apple devices on my desk - a MacBook Pro, a MacBook Air, and an iPad. All have everything necessary turned on, same local network, strong WiFi connection, etc. In short, everything necessary to make Universal Control work is there. Has always been there for the whole duration of this year and worked every.single.day.

I was able to seamlessly send my cursor across all of them.


After the latest upgrade Ventura, I can not anymore.


Tried everything listed below - both individually and in combination.

  1. Logging off and on
  2. Logging out from the iCloud account and logging in
  3. restarting every device
  4. turning off hands-off and then on


I was able to make universal control appear exactly once across MacBook Pro and iPad, and exactly once across MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, but after sending the devices to sleep - it stopped and did not appear again.


I also checked the network settings. Remote desktop using vnc://local IP works so does display --> extend display/mirror display in other devices.


All of these means just one thing: Universal Control is buggy and dead. It is not an issue of the network, or connectivity, or Bluetooth.


Please fix.




Mar 29, 2023 7:45 AM in response to platan

Ok, I have just fixed it (at least for this moment). I had turned off handoff on all my devices (mac+ipad+iphone+AW), and I kept it off for a whole day (12 hours). After that, I did a force restart on all of them, and turned handoff on again.


After few minutes, It started to work again (copy/paste and universal control)...

Apr 19, 2023 1:44 AM in response to platan

So after trying everything (safe mode, removing bluetooth devices, rebooting a million times, etc). My keyboard and mouse on my Mac Studio still couldn't control the MacBook Pro right next to it. This had been working since Universal Control first rolled out in the public betas. Although I would have issues from time to time with laggy mouse or keys repeating, it never just died like it did this morning. Here is what I did:


  • Turned off handoff on iPhone, iPad and reset network setting in General Menu (rebooting)
  • Turned off handoff on Mac Studio and MacBook and shut down.
  • After iPhone and iPad came back online, turned both Macs back on
  • Turned on handoff on Mac Studio and MacBook (kept it off on iPhone/iPad as I never use it anyways)
  • After about 5 seconds Universal Control started working again.


Apple really needs to work on these weird bugs. For years the USB sleep function was broken on Macs causing external drives to be ejected improperly. They seemed to just recently fix that. So disappointed. A company I have relied on because "it just works" I'm finding more and more often I have to troubleshoot edge cases.

Apr 4, 2023 7:51 AM in response to platan

Same issue here, tried updating both to the latest OS version (Ventura 13.3 (22E252)), turning off/on bluetooth & wifi, rebooting, but nothing worked.

I have two macbooks and an iPhone, "copy(mac)/paste(iPhone)" wasn't working either.


Thanks to (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/13-3-continuity-totally-broken.2385350/) fixed doing the workaround signing-off/signing-in again on both macbooks.


Once I signed-off from the first macbook I tried "copy(mac)/paste(iPhone)" and viceversa, and worked, so I went to do the same in my second macbook.


It seems it began with an update, it going to be annoying if this workaround is required to do for next OS updates...


Apr 5, 2023 5:50 PM in response to platan

To me sometimes Handoff and Universal Control work well and sometimes it stops and even restarting both mac, iPhone and iPad doesn’t work. But sometimes just turning mac wi-fi off and on again it works. I’m not having the problem between iPhone and iPad just from them to Mac. Another problem that even Apple support couldn’t give me the answer (If is normal or a bug) is that when Universal Control is working and I set the iPad sounds to AirPlay in Mac the Universal Control stops immediately. I don’t know if it isn’t possible to use both Universal Control and AirPlay.

Universal control not working iPadOS 16.4/ Ventura 13.3

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