Bluetooth speakers won't pair with new MacBook Pro after connecting to previous MacBook

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Level 1

4 points

Bluetooth speakers won't pair with new MacBook Pro after connecting to previous MacBook

Hi everyone!

I'm at my wits end with my new Macbook Pro (M4) which won't let me connect my bluetooth speakers to it.

It was working fine with my previous Macbook (M1). Got the M4 and connected my earbuds, then tried my speakers which just didn't want to pair.

After that, the speakers wouldn't connect to my phone, as if the attempt of pairing to the M4 broke something in the speaker's bluetooth.

Then went with trying what most people recommend:

sudo pkill bluetoothd
sudo rm /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist
sudo rm ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.Bluetooth.*.plist (file not existing)
Since the previous one didn't exist, I did delete sudo rm ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.bluetoothuserd
Restart and hope

Still no pairing, and my earbuds still appears in the list which makes me doubt it did reset anything.

Ended up pulling out my M1 again, and to my surprise it connected to the speakers, which unlocked being able to pair my phone to it. So I was like "Yeah, maybe it was kinda stuck with looking for the M1, I win". Nope, M4 still won't pair.

So now I don't know. Maybe it's some kind of conflict with my M1 and M4, though it doesn't have the same device name.

I've tried to play with blueutil, nothing of real value except that it shows my M1 in my list of paired device, and I'm pretty sure I didn't paired my M1 and my M4 via bluetooth... Can't unpair it through blueutil, and don't see it elsewhere.

So everything combination works except M4 + speakers.

Next step would be reinstalling, which I'm not really a fan off now that my setup is complete and I'm using it for my job where I'm back up to speed.

Please help me enjoy my music again

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: Bluetooth device wont pair

MacBook Pro 16″

Posted on Aug 25, 2025 7:45 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Tesserax

Level 10

160,380 points

Aug 25, 2025 8:39 AM in response to QuentinBe

No doubt the odd part is that everything works fine with your M1 and your phone, so the speakers themselves aren’t actually “broken” — it’s the M4 that’s refusing the handshake. Since you’ve already reset the system Bluetooth prefs and used `pkill`, I think the issue may be less about stale plist entries and more about a lower-level corruption in your M4’s Bluetooth controller state.

Before considering reinstalling macOS, I suggest trying the following:

Open Terminal and paste these in one at a time:

sudo pkill bluetoothd
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth ControllerPowerState -int 0
sudo killall -HUP bluetoothd
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth ControllerPowerState -int 1
sudo killall -HUP bluetoothd

That sequence powers the Bluetooth controller off, flushes the daemon, then powers it back on. After running it, reboot the Mac to ensure the firmware reloads cleanly.

Once rebooted, put your speakers back into full pairing mode (usually holding the pairing button until it “forgets” all previous devices). Then try pairing again.

If it still refuses, run: system_profiler SPBluetoothDataType

Scroll to the “Devices (Paired, Configured, etc.)” section and see if your speakers (or any ghost devices like your old M1) are listed. If you see them, grab the MAC address and force-unpair with:

sudo blueutil --unpair <MAC address>

If after all that the M4 still won’t pair, the last troubleshooting step would be to test pairing in a brand new user account. That’ll tell us if it’s a user-level config corruption or a system-wide Bluetooth stack issue.

Finally, should that still doesn't resolve the issue, a reinstallation of macOS may be in order.

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Answer 2

Aug 25, 2025 11:49 AM in response to QuentinBe

Have you checked the speaker manufacturer's website to see if there is a way to reset the speakers? Some BT devices have limits on the number of connections they support.

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Answer 3

QuentinBe Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 25, 2025 1:35 PM in response to IdrisSeabright

It's a Logitech Z537. I've had it for a good couple of years now, and documentation around it is pretty sparse now. You usually get manuals from other models, but I couldn't really find anything official about it.

One lost reddit post talked about keeping the bluetooth button pressed for a long time on another model. Did it, blinked like pairing mode, then stayed solid for a second, then started blinking again.

Did some tries and it does seem to reset the speaker's bluetooth, as restarting it was automatically connecting it to my M1 before, but not after the reset.

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Answer 4

Tesserax

Level 10

160,380 points

Aug 25, 2025 11:55 AM in response to QuentinBe

QuentinBe wrote:

Would resetting the SMC has any chance of fixing things? My understanding is that it wouldn't clear everything

That is correct, and I don't think it will help in this situation, but it still may be worth a try. The following Apple Support article covers what a SMC reset does and how to go about doing one with a Silicon Mac.

Reset the SMC of your Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 5

QuentinBe Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 25, 2025 11:28 AM in response to Tesserax

Thanks for taking the time to reply here!

Tried it all, still no luck. I still see the M1 in the list of paired devices (only in terminal).

Calling unpair didn't do anything, it's still there.

Creating a new user didn't do much too. I was surprised seeing my earbuds in the list of paired devices on the new user. I would've thought that it would be an empty list.

Would resetting the SMC has any chance of fixing things? My understanding is that it wouldn't clear everything

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