Universal Control frequently disconnects between M2 Mac Mini and M1 MacBook Pro

I'm glad that my workaround has helped at least some people here and many others!

In your case, however, I think you have a general bluetooth problem in Monterey, because your bluetooth connection to the speaker is also 'dying'!

Not directly related to this thread, but if you want to do something about it, follow these points on your (both) Macs:

1. remove your paired devices (all of them!) in the Bluetooth system settings (you will then have to use a wired USB keyboard and mouse).

2. turn off Handoff and Universal Control

3. then switch off Bluetooth completely in the system settings

4. delete the files

`com.apple.bluetooth.plist` in MacintoshHD/Library/Preferences

and

`com.apple.bluetoothuserd.plist` in youruser/library/Preferences.

5. switch off your Macs, wait a minute and switch them on again. Then pair the mouse and keyboard again first.

6. then follow my workaround again (without deleting the .plists again)

7. finally, pair the other Bluetooth devices again, including your speaker.

If none of this helps, consider installing the current Monterey over it or creating and using a different user.

Good luck

Tom

Not sure if this help. Had read it could be due to using a logitech mouse. Disconnected the mouse but still had the issue. Uninstalled Logitech+ on both Mac Mini and MacBook Pro. Reinstalled it only on the mini and seems the issues has been solved.

I know there was no mention of logitech mouse/keyboard but this might help if you have ever used a logitech mouse/keyboard and have logitech+ installed. Hope this helps anyone having the same issue.

I'm not sure if this is of any help to anyone, but I have experienced fairly regularly as well. Sometimes it would "kick out" but just clicking on the Display Settings menu on the menubar (dragged up from the Control Center menu) would be enough for the second device to be available to drag into again. Occasionally though, I failed to have it connect, even after restarting both devices or the dreaded login in and out of iCloud.

Today I did most of this, but noticed my Watch wasn't auto unlocking my iMac either, so I restarted my watch and iPhone and everything started to work again.

Update here: Last week, I followed half of Tom AdS's workaround. I didn't reset the Bluetooth controller, but I activated BT sharing and paired both Macs once. It's been working fine so far, with no disconnects.

@Tom AdS I've now gone since I posted without issue through restarts on both machines with **zero** disconnects. Multiple full workdays and I was on the machines for many hours over the weekend.

I don't like that it thrills me so much that it's simply working the way that it always should have worked, but that's where I am. 😎

Bluetooth pairing the machines once as Tom suggested and then turning off "push through" has fixed this for me with no additional steps. (Using Terminal scares the bejeezus out of me, I'm always worried a single typo is going to activate SkyNet.)

I have the same issue and it happens constantly. If I click on system settings then "Displays," the unconnected laptop has disappeared from the connected displays, but then it will reappear/reconnect automatically shortly after I had clicked "Displays" and then Universal Control will start working again, until it disconnects again sometimes minutes later, somtimes I'll get an hour or so before I have to repeat the process again.

This is with using Apple's Magic Mouse and Magic Keyboard.

I will say i.am.joel - switching to Synergy, I get zero disconnects. I *do* however get periodic choppiness (similar in intervals to the disconnects) and I'm having a hard time pinning the cause down. At one point I even thought it was related to how many wifi/bluetooth enabled devices I had in the room. Like I had my iPad next to my work setup and it just became instantly unusable.

But then I lowered my external display resolution today and it's now smoother than ever before.

So I just don't know. I hope a solution is forthcoming though, because Universal Control (in theory) is perfect. Like transferring files from machine to machine. With Synergy I can only copy/paste text into the clipboard and nothing else.

My MacBooks are literally right next to each other now though, so I know it's not a proximity issue.

Nice to know it's not just me! I have an M1 Max for 'dayjob' stuff, and an M3 Max as my music production machine. Very high number of disconnects per hour. Sometimes control will revert back to one machine and I just need to move the mouse across to another screen to continue. Sometimes it'll just disconnect entirely and I have no control over any machine for a few seconds. I've enabled Bluetooth Sharing on both machines and as in the 'solution' I will try resetting Bluetooth via the terminal when time allows. See if that fixes it.

I mentioned the awdl0 wireless interface in this post.

Unfortunately, none of these suggestions have improved the reliability of the Universal Control link between my two MacBooks either. So I continue to hope Apple is actively working on improving things for macOS Sequoia. (As I've mentioned, Universal Control worked great under Ventura, but it is extremely unreliable in Sonoma... see the log stream command in one of my earlier post for ways to watch this.)

One thing I've found that seems to help (but still not even close to 100%) is to just slightly open the MacBook I'm "remote controlling" so its screen is active. 🤷‍♂️ (I would prefer to keep it closed, since I have each of the MacBooks plugged in to their own display).

For the record, I don't have any non-Apple peripherals connected — just a Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad and a Magic Trackpad.

I turned it off for a couple of days and then turned it on and now it works

HI jmpage2, Just checking that you also tried turning off the "push through..." option in the advanced Displays settings?

Just wanted to chime in again and say that after Bluetooth pairing both MBPs, I haven’t had an issue. It’s been about two months.