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Airdrop does not seem to work

I am having issues getting Airdrop to work. I have been unable to make this feature work at home, nor at work. The steps and symptoms are as follows:


1) On each machine, open a finder window, and select AirDrop. Two icons will appear in the window, representing the source and destination machine.

2) From my source machine, I drag a file (ANY file) to the destination machine. A dialog appears asking if I want to transfer the file.

3) Click yes to start transfer.

4) Immediately two dialogs appear on top of one another. The first indicates it is waiting for permission from the destination to receive the file. The second one that immediately pops up is a failure message.


Has anyone gotten this to work? I am running stock Apple Kit at home so far as network is concerned. We are talking Time Capsule, with nothing special done on the firewall.


The firewall shouldn't matter as Airdrop switches over to an adhoc networking mode point to point between machines when initiated.

Posted on Jul 20, 2011 11:22 AM

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95 replies

Jul 20, 2011 11:42 AM in response to SkipHaughay

What are your machine specifications ? Can you post them here ? (eg. Macbook Pro3,1 etc.)

Also if you look in System Profiler, you can find out what wireless driver you are using on both machine's. Post the driver versions for both machine's on here.

(System Profiler has all of the above information available ).


Turn off the firewall on both machine's and try. Are you running any other firewall software on your machine's ?

How big is the file you are trying to transfer ?

Jul 21, 2011 9:24 AM in response to Snoop Dogg

That is not true. I have a Lion server and a Lion client. On the server I turned the firewall on and then opened my AirDrop window. On my client I turned my firewall on, and again, opened my AirDrop window. I then transfered a couple of files from the server to the client and the client the to server. The only "issue" I could see was the client was a little latent in prompting to send or recieve a file. Other than that it worked great.


The server is the latest gen iMac and the client is a MacBookPro from 2010.

Jul 22, 2011 10:12 AM in response to SkipHaughay

I too had problems with AirDrop. Here is my story if it helps anyone:


1. Mid 2009 MBP and 27" i3 iMac (both on the approved AD list, both w/ Lion); the MBP is downstairs and iMac is in bonus room


2. Both show AD in left-hand Finder window under Favorites


3. When AD is selected/turned on, both show their own icons at the bottom of the AD window on right of Finder, but neither showed the other Mac


4. I called AppleCare and had both Macs on the same desk in the bonus room so I could see both screens at the same time. As I started to talk to the AppleCare guy, both Macs showed up on the other screen! I thought this must be the "car never acts up for the mechanic" thing. As I was explaining it to him, it starts working, so it dawned on me - what is the range of AD? I asked and he said about 15-20 feet. Next are things he told me--


5. If you can see AD in the Finder Favorite list, your Mac supports AD (meaning your airport card). If it doesn't even show up it doesn't support it hardware-wise, or is another problem.


6. AD doesn't work when my iMac is on Ethernet (my usual setup b/c the iMac is right beside the base station and Ethernet is faster), even though it shows up in the Finder, b/c AD isn't a network thing like Internet connections. IOW, it is only one Airport card talking to another Airport card. He said it is in the category of Bluetooth - - two devices connected wirelessly. Has nothing to do with Internet or wireless routers.


7. For it to work, both have Lion, both on approved hardware list, both have AD selected in Finder, and within approx 15 feet of each other (depending on the construction of your house). The Finder window says for "other computers nearby." The operative word is definitely "nearby."


8. Regular old File Sharing is still the best way for me to send a file to the iMac. My wife also has an MBP which will get LIon soon. Her recliner is beside mine so that will work, but the iMac in the bonus room is too far for either MBP.


Hope this helps.

Airdrop does not seem to work

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