Universal Control has been broken too long

Hi all!

I’ve spent the last month going back and forth with Apple and going through my logs and they’ve finally been able to isolate the issue and it’s now going into their queue to work on a bug fix.

hopefully we’ll see a fix in the next Sonoma update or maybe the one after.

Ahh yeah. I'm also on a Mac Studio (m2 tho), and can attest that the bluetooth/wireless reception is absolute trash. Similarly, my intel iMac worked 100% reliably for both universal control and my bluetooth headsets. I used to be able to be in my backyard with my Beats headset connected to my iMac on the complete other side of the house/lot and I'd never drop signal.

Now I can barely make it to the kitchen. I've tried everything to get that working properly too and no dice.

I agree it has gotten worse for me too. Your tip of having the displays tab open has saved my *** because it’s doing it every few minutes now.

I have already tried the iCloud reset and it did nothing. I even had my Mac Studio fully wiped so the Genius Bar could take a look at the Bluetooth headphones issue and that didn’t fix it either.

imoebis wrote:

There are endless threads here and on reddit about Universal Control just disconnecting randomly and none of the updates over the last 2 years has fixed it.

The common answer given when folks exhaust all of the troubleshooting guides is that it's bluetooth interference. Maybe so, but other KVM solutions I've used never had this issue moving between my Mac Studio and MacBook Pro (both Apple Silicon). If bluetooth did get spotty, Apple should build it robust enough to try to reconnect immediately and it does not. You know how I know? Try this next time your cursor disappears from the other machine. On the host, keep "System Settings" open and click on "Displays" ....it will instantly reconnect. You will only see one machine but as soon as you click the remote machine will reappear instantly. This is an issue on Apple's end, the simple fact that I can force it into a behavior where it instantly reconnects means Apple did not build this solution robust enough. I was even exploring running a cron job to kill UC everyone couple of minutes just to keep it refreshed. PLEASE FIX THIS APPLE!!!!

[Edited by Moderator]

You will have to submit your feedback direct to Apple

submit your Apple Feedback here: http://www.apple.com/feedback

How long do I have to be using it for it to break?

I only occasionally use it for short spans of time and it's always worked when I needed it.

Should the root cause be investigated and fixed? yes, please and thank you.

Hence the reason I asked. It will take lots of feedback to get them to even look at it. If I had a ballpark figure to have it running I might be able to reproduce. You mentioned Bluetooth congestion. I only have keyboard and trackpad, but could connect a speaker. Does it take more than that?

How has this been working for you the past 10 days?

My computers are already both on my 5ghz wifi network to try to eliminate the possibility of my (relatively crowded) 2.4ghz environment interfering and it's still very bad. I'd make them their own SSID if that does fix it.

It could be iCloud but to me it looks like wifi.

In my logs, surrounding a universalcontrol failure, the logs are also spitting out Bluetooth and wifi errors galore but the iCloud pairing processes seem to be working ok.

Which checks out because the Bluetooth/wifi performance on my machine is awful.

I just submitted feedback to Apple in the hope SOMETHING will be done to improve UC. I can extend the display reliably--the iPad is plugged into the MBP via USB and shows up reliably. Continuity sketch and markup work fine, but UC is hardly ever available. When I does--by seeingly total chance--show up and work, it only does for a while. Just about the time you think you've got it working reliably, it stops (yet) again.

This has been an irritation for YEARS now. On the iPad side, I've tried it with all of the following: iPad Pro 13" (1st generation), iPad Mini (5th generation), iPad Pro 13" M4 (latest). On the laptop side: MacBook Pro 13" and 15" (2016, Intel), MacBook Pro 2022 (M1 MAX, ), MacBook Pro 2023 (M3 MAX). I've tried all combinations and the issue persists--it always proves to be such a hassle I have to give up on it.

What is especially frustrating is during those short periods when it does work, it is a very big productivity boost.

Apple constantly says they are serious about business users, but my experience would challenge that claim. They spend lots of attention on apps and features which have little to do with productivity (many for the "kiddies") while allowing serious flaws like this to go unresolved for ages. Very frustrating.

Also: if universal control is never going to be reliable, then how about adding the ability to switch Apple BT keyboards between multiple devices? (Yes, I've resorted to Logitech since Apple won't make one.) Even if UC worked, we are still stuck without the ability to type directly on our phone (or use a pencil for that matter). Who on earth doesn't need to be able to type with a keyboard on their phone during the working day?

ACGarland wrote:

Who on earth doesn't need to be able to type with a keyboard on their phone during the working day?

Do you mean an external keyboard? Not only have I never used an external keyboard with a phone (iPhone, Android, or several others), but I can't imagine I would ever need to do so. So in answer to your question, "Me".