Bluetooth audio in OSX Lion

Tried everything, still not working.

The headset is connected, but after I select "Use for audio" and my macbook starts playing audio, it shows the "A bluetooth audio error occurred" popup.

Jabra BT500

Has anyone tried changing the priority of the BluetoothAudioAgent and blued? I run into audio corruption issues when my MBP is under a load and fixing the priority seems to fix the issue. You need to use the Terminal to fix it and it is easier if you have the PID of both BluetoothAudioAgent and blued which you can find from the Activity Monitor (once you have the bluetooth audio connection established) then enter the following into Terminal..

sudo renice -20 -p PID of blued

sudo renice -20 -p PID of BluetoothAudioAgent

For the first line it will prompt you for the admin password but not for the second line. After the -p just enter the PID number with no quotes or anything just the number. -20 is the highest prioity level you can assign. If you want to experiment, the range is from -20 to +20 with +20 being the lowest priority.

Andrew

Rainbowmagic wrote:

Hi,

Sorry, I am totally new to the mac world although I am using iphones ever since the launched in 2007, but I just purchased my first mac last month an imac 27" i7. After reading the comments in this forum I was very much worried about the performace of bluetooth headsets with os lion. But ordered a Sony DR-BT 160AS bluethooth headset because I don't want to use a USB headset and want to keep everything wireless. I just received my headset today and paired it with my imac which is running OSX 10.7.0 aka Lion and to my surprise the headset works like charm. It took me three attempts to make them working but that was my fault as I was not sure about the process but now they are working fine. I am very happy with my purchase.

Thanks, H

Can you use Sony DR-BT 160AS with Skype?

I am curiosly reading the posts in this thread. There seem to be a lot of problems with Lion and Bluetooth. May be you guys are able to help me with my Jabra Clipper. I am trying to connect this BT headset but it totally fails! My MacBook Pro says while pairing that it looks for additional services but it hangs in this window and just keeps on endless searching. While it does that the bluetooth indicator in the upper bar indicates the the Jabra is paired. After a long time when I stop this search for additional services the pairing disconnects and I can't use the Jabra even though it's listed as paired an configured under bluetooth devices. A reconnection is not possible at all. I also deleted it from the device list a few times an "re-paired" it without success. Lion also doesn't ask for the pairing code which is very suspicious to me. Under Windows 7 and an old Dell with Win XP there is no problem to use the Jabra Clipper. Unfortunately there are no third party drivers available from Widcomm for OS x. I have a brand new MacBook Pro 13,3 inch with Lion and searched the Internet for a solution now for 3 days :-( without success. I am quite dissapointed to have bought a 1149 Euro Laptop with such a bad BT performance. Actually I recently switched from Windows to OS X but I never experienced that much bluetooth problems even on the cheapest netbooks. Apple has to improve the BT driver urgently!

I have found that leaving iTunes open all the time has cured all my bluetooth problems.

Previously, I would find my Creative D200 bluetooth speakers would frequently suffer from stuttering sound under Lion (fine under Snow Leopard). Every time I reconnected, iTunes would open automatically; on a whim I left it open, and noticed the problem no longer occurred. Note I use Spotify for playing music, and not iTunes.

I'd be interested to know if leaving iTunes open (but not playing) fixes the problem for others.

Oddly enough, that worked for me and my Moto S9 headphones... I'm finding once I start playing something in itunes, i can quit it and use other audio apps. I've tried selecting the headphones as the audio device a few times now and can't reproduce the Blueetooth audio error message.

Thanks for the tip Savs! Hopefully Apple will fix in 10.7.3

I have a brand new MacBook i7 with Lion OS. I have tried 2 Bluetooth headset with microphone so far and I still get the same "Bluetooth Audio Error" stupid message, although they work fine with my Nexus S phone and iPad 2 !!!!

the bluetooth headsets that I have used are:

1- Smart infocomm, sports, Model No. SB-07

2- AG-TEL

3- Jawbone

non worked!!!!???????

please tell me what to do.

Yahya

I am getting so **** sick of this bluetooth problem. As long as I don't use mail, all is fine. the second I check my email, I get the usual error message, as posted by so many -- except now it is even worse. Itunes quits completely, whether or not I'm using my headphones, and an online Christmas thing I download each year also quits.

I hate this. I am getting reallly really really tired of it.

Surely a dead Steve Jobs doesn't equal a moribund apple.

I bought a bluetooth mouse to use with lion. Returning it tomorrow because I have never used it, assuming that this bluetooth thing would be fixed.

not so much

M

I am also sick of that problem. I am sitting here in Kunduz/Afghanistan and bought my MacBookPro/Lion 2 weeks ago when I was on Leave at home in Germany. As I reported before my Mac didn't connect to my Jabra Clipper. It hangs on that point where it says "looking for additional services" and does also not ask for the pairing code.

I called my wife and she send me my Nokia BT 503 and my Sennheiser FL72. After a long time waiting I got the package today and what do I see on my Mac?! Both don't work. I am pi.. off. Anyway I am very confident that the problem is Lion, definitely not my BT Headsets! Three manufacturer and on all headsets the same false indication in Lion. Now I tried to pair the headsets on a test admin account with the same annoying results.By the way, it does not work in Windows 7 Bootcamp mode either! Hopefully it is not a defective BT module Apple built in the late 2011 MacBook Pro. It would take ages when I send my MacBook to Germany for service. I was very happy when I spent 1150Euro for this Laptop but now my joy is getting down totally! Hopefully Apple has open ears and they fix that bug. If would be at home now I would take the Macbook back to my dealer....no fun!

By the way, this is my BT device:

Apple Bluetooth-Softwareversion: 4.0.1f4

Hardware-Einstellungen:

Adresse: b8-8d-xx-xx-xx-xx

Hersteller: Broadcom

Name: MacBook Pro

Firmware-Version: v37 c739

Bluetooth-Signal: Ein

Sichtbar: Ja

Hersteller-ID: 0x5ac

Produkt-ID: 0x821a

HCI-Version: 4 (0x4)

HCI-Revision: 739 (0x2e3)

LMP-Version: 4 (0x4)

LMP-Unterversion: 16933 (0x4225)

Gerätetyp (Obergruppe): Computer

Gerätetyp (komplett): Mac Portable

Composite-Klasse des Geräts: 3801356 (0x3a010c)

Geräteklasse (Obergruppe): 1 (0x1)

Geräteklasse (Untergruppe): 3 (0x3)

Dienstklasse: 464 (0x1d0)

As you can see, the headset is listed but neither the MacBook initiates a connection nor the Nokia or Sennheiser is able to talk to the MacBook. It's like the MacBook pull up a wall as soon as divices try to connect to Lion even though they are considered they had been paired and configured once before.

I called Applecare about this yesterday, the agent said their support document about the issue said that Bluetooth will not work properly if wifi is enabled? I called shenaningans and disabled my wifi entirely and tried again to the same Bluetooth Audio Error effect. They do know about the issue though, so hopefully it'll get patched sometime soon

I have tried both a jabra BT530 and a plantronics Voyager 500 headse ($300+ headset)t. The jabra worked for a while. Sometimes turining bluetooth off and on would fix it. The plantronic dies as soon as it tries to recieve audio. Apple, is there an update comming soon?

I cannot explain what made the Plantronics Pro work now but I don't seem to have any issues with the headset any longer. I still crash BT every time I try to use the Jambox, but I have done multiple Skype calls with the headset and use it for audio stream in Safari as I type working fine. This has been fine the last 3-4 weeks.

On the lastest 10.7.2 and lastest EFI update and I did all the stuff mentioned here in this thread. I also used disk utility to check the HDD and the permissions and it did repair a ton of permissions. Not sure if this is related though.

I am astounded that this BT issue with earpieces/headsets has dragged on for over five months now.

From the looks of what Apple is having developers focus on for Beta 10.7.3, the BT functionality isn't even on the radar, mostly iOS & Cloud stuff.

I thought for sure this would be fixed before the end of the year but BT connectivity/functionality continues to plague us all.

😠

I too am dismayed that this issue has remained unaddressed for such a long period.

Here’s a small ray of hope, though: over on the Jawbone support forums, a representative of Jawbone (the makers of the Jambox bluetooth speaker and a number of bluetooth headsets) reported on 3 November 2011:

Hi Everyone,

I'm sorry to hear that you are having frustrations with pairing your JAMBOX. We are actively working with Apple to fix this.

JawboneJaimie

Fingers crossed their work bears fruit!

I was getting this problem also but I was able to tie it to my bootcamp with parallels and windows running in the background. I didnt realize my windows setup didnt have the bluetooth drivers correctly. I made the device exclusive to windows so I can update the drivers since it wont update or even load if no bluetooth device is installed. After that, I removed the exclusive to windows and so far my jambox no longer disconnects. So if youre running any vmware just make sure you have the right drivers for those as well. I used the drivers from the bootcamp setup assistant when it asked me to burn the disc after it downloaded the recent drivers. Hope it works for others.