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

I have exactly the same issue. I have a usb keyboard and a bluetooth mouse. The mouse is connected fine. The Wifi is solid. The UC connection is fine...until it isn't. Sometimes it comes back in a minute or so, but frequently it will not come back at all unless I reset.

This is a software issue. Apple, please fix this. This is a major annoyance.

I've had the exact same problem for almost a year (maybe a year). First on MacBook Pro 16" and MacBook Pro M1 and now on MacBook Pro M1 and MacBook Pro M3. I used to be able to disable/re-enable airdrop and it would start back immediately, but not anymore...

Two works days later, and I am disappointed to say this hasn't fixed it. It has helped – I'm probably 'only' getting about 10 disconnections a day now, but it's far from stable. I've started a log to try and spot any pattern to it, but I remain firmly in the "very frustrated" group.

I hope someone at the Apple bug team does web search for, “Universal Control Disconnecting”.

This has been an issue for many many years which the team who handles bugs has completely failed to resolve. They need to focus on a fix for the stability. I don’t think they read anything here to discover bugs based off how long this has been an issue.

Does anyone know where you can contact the team that handles bugs directly? I can try to see if I have some internal connections at Apple to highlight how many years this issue has gone unresolved and unaddressed by the bug team through some of my business world connections but I’d rather go the regular route first and give that some time before escalating this to a high level.

Update on this, I have been informed the engineering team has been made aware of the issue and is being made aware of how long this has been an issue for so many different people. Hopefully we’ll see a fix released soon to improve stability of Universal Control.

This is the first temporary fix that was worked for me besides restarting entirely, thanks! (edit: it stopped working again 3 minutes later haha)

Have to say, I'm very disappointed as an apple customer by how much of their efforts are soley focused on creating new sales, rather than making good on the sales they made. I feel like I'm doing their job both discovering and resolving their bugs for them.

I have two MacBook Pro 14s (M1 and M2) that I use with an external screen. Universal Control works smoothly as long as the MacBook screens are open. However, when I close the screens, the connection drops within a minute. If I open the screens again, the connection is restored. I've had this issue for a year, and despite keeping my OS updated, there has been no fix yet.

This solution does not work reliably for me. It does seem like the issue may in fact be Bluetooth-related, as after pairing my two computers, they seem to drop off the list of "My Devices" at the same time as Universal Control dies, but reseting the controller and pairing the devices doesn't seem to permanently fix anything.

Tom, thanks for sharing your experiences. I have an Apple M1 Max Mac Studio and a MacBook Pro M3 Max, and I have been suffering from persistent Universal disconnects. I tried your initial solution, and while it appeared to improve the situation, I still need to solve it. The problem varies so much throughout the day that it takes a statistical analysis to determine if there is an improvement.

Before I try the solution below, and if it does not work, then this one, I just wanted to check in to see if you have had any more considerations. Any feedback on the effectiveness, etc.?

Thanks for caring!

Tom, I forgot to mention. I have never had Bluetooth Sharing turned on, and Universal still performs as prescribed. Is it necessary for the solution to have it on and both computers connected to each other?

Thanks, Joel

I just tried the same "half" fix and got my MacBook Pros paired via bluetooth sharing. They disconnected and I lost control within a couple minutes. This is hyper annoying and needs to be fixed properly.

I'll try the full fix later and report back.

Now I can't seem to get them to reconnect via bluetooth share at all from either machine (M1 Pro 17 & 14 on Sonoma 14.5 and same wifi network) Good times!

Bigwalton, its correct, that the MBPs are not (always) connected via Bluetooth Sharing. In my case, I have BS even completely deactivated, cause i don`t need it for other reasons.

I think, you must not be afraid that you will wreck the solution after restart :-)). Here the solution has survived several restarts as well as the update to Sonoma 14.6. yesterday.

Tom

Since Apple is clearly so intent on stealing this functionality from Synergy app, they could at least make it as stable. It's ridiculous how many times it seems to just stop working for no reason whatsoever.