Bluetooth iphone 3gs and ios 5.0

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Level 1

4 points

Bluetooth iphone 3gs and ios 5.0

After upgrading to IOS 5.0 I am seeing some strange behaviour connecting to my bluetooth headset.

When the phone is turned on, the bluetooth icon is not visible in the upper right corner of the display, and when I go to settings - general - bluetooth the phone shows bluetooth on, but no bluetooth devices are listed and my headset will not connect. If I then turn bluetooth off and on again, the bluetooth icon appears, my car audio and bluetooth headset appear as bluetooth devices, and the headset will connect.

My workaround at this time is to turn bluetooth off and on each time the iphone is powered on. Once bluetooth is functoning, everything works until the phone is powered off.

Bluetooth worked as expected with IOS 4.x

iPhone 3GS, iOS 5, Bluetooth connection issues

Posted on Oct 14, 2011 6:15 PM

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Answer 1

knightstorm Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 15, 2011 3:37 PM in response to knightstorm

Phone just turned on - no bluetooth icon Bluetooth settings - bluetooth says it is on, but no devices

Bluetooth turned off and on again - Buetooth devices are now shown

Bluetooth icon is now visible and bhe bluetooth headset will connect. Bluetooth wll work until the phone is turned off. When it is turned on again, I need to turn bluetooth off and on again to get it to work.

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Answer 2

knightstorm Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 23, 2011 6:42 PM in response to knightstorm

I tried using Apple support and the Genius bar with no good results.

I believe I have found an IOS5 Bluetooth bug. I upgraded my wife's 3gs and am able to replicate this problem on her phone. After wasting time restoring my phone twice, I determined that Bluetooth works as I described if the passcode lock is on. On both phones, if the passcode lock is on, Bluetooth will not come up properly. If the passcode lock is turned off, everything works as expected. Now that I have been able to replicate this on two phones, updated using 2 different PC's, I am reasonably certain that I have discovered a bug, but have no way to report it.

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Answer 3

FFJIM

Level 1

0 points

Nov 23, 2011 12:01 AM in response to knightstorm

Hello- I too have this same problem. I have not been able to find a cure. I was hoping that the ios 5.1 undate would have fixed it, but it did not. Thanks for the tip about turning off the passcode. Not sure that I want to do that, but it is an option. I turned off the passcode and rebooted it. It did as you said it would. So that is 3 3GS phones on three different computers.

Help Apple! Please fix it.

Good luck and I hope we get another update.

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Answer 4

knightstorm Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 23, 2011 5:42 AM in response to FFJIM

Turning airplane mode on and off again also works. It turns Bluetooth (and all communications) off and on with fewer keystrokes.

I opened a support call with Apple that was forwarded to the developers. Their response was to have me reset the phone to the default settings (wiping out all data and settings) and re-test. The phone did work properly with the "default" settings, but the problem reappeared when I restore my data, apps, and original settings.

Apple said that this was a problem with my settings, but I replied that they were responsible for the core functions (Bluetooth, etc.) of the phone and since they maintained such a tight control over the available apps, they are responsible for any app or user setting that can cause something like Bluetooth to malfunction. As far as I know, the developers are still looking into (or ignoring) the problem.

Try calling Apple support yourself to see if we can get their attention.

In theory, someone at Apple has an application that logs lower-level activity during startup and might shed some light on this problem, but I am not an Apple developer, I know I could get closer to the problem if I were working with a Windows PC..

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Answer 5

dP2100

Level 1

4 points

Dec 28, 2011 5:09 AM in response to knightstorm

knightstorm, thanks for taking the time to troubleshoot this issue.

I have the *exact* same issue on my 3GS. Both 5.0 and 5.01 exhibit the problem.

When I was on OS 4, Bluetooth worked great.

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Answer 6

gazabb

Level 1

0 points

Jan 18, 2012 5:15 AM in response to knightstorm

knightstorm,

Likewise - thanks for taking the time to troubleshoot this issue.

I have the *exact* same issue on my 3GS. Both 5.0 and 5.01 exhibit the problem.

When I was on OS 4, Bluetooth worked great (thanks dP2100 as I just copied your post)

knighstorm - thanks also for the tip re airplane mode as I was going to settings and turning bluetooth off and on, your suggestion has much fewer keystrokes - thanks.

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Answer 7

Splend42

Level 1

0 points

Mar 9, 2012 2:47 AM in response to knightstorm

I'm getting exactly the same on my 3GS. While on iOS4 there wasn't a problem. Since 5.0 I have to turn my Bluetooth off and back on to make it work after turning the phone off.

Upgraded to 5.1 last night, hoping to have this finally fixed and it's STILL broken!!

Worked fine on iOS4...why not on 5?

??

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Answer 8

Mar 14, 2012 5:41 AM in response to knightstorm

I also have exactly the sam eproblem - very frustrating!!!

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Answer 9

JR-DK

Level 1

0 points

Mar 18, 2012 9:45 AM in response to knightstorm

I have hoped Apple got the connection Errors fixed in IOS 5.1, but no luck. After upgrading to IOS 5, I can no longer connect to my BMW iDrive (car is from 2004), so very clearly a backwards compatibility problem going from V4 to V5.

There are multiple treads on this matter.

WHEN WILL APPLE COME WITH A STATEMENT ON THIS ISSUE: WHEN WILL APPLE FIX THEIR IOS5 COMPATIBILITY ISSUE WITH BLUTOOTH ?

Not adressing this issue is totally arrogant. I am changing to an Android device (Sony Ericsson or Samsung) if this is not fixed in 1 month. Cannot live without BT connectivity in my car - and a bit expensive to change the car just for that. I have at least 5 co-workers with same problem - worked with IOS4 but not IOS5

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Answer 10

Mar 18, 2012 10:21 AM in response to JR-DK

The work around mentioned above works for me.

I tend to turn my iPhone off overnight when charging. When I first power it up, I go to settings, enable airplane mode, disable airplane mode. The bluetooth icon then appears on the iPhone. Having done this bluetooth works fine with my Mazda 6 on the drive to work and it is still working on the drive home. The phone only seems to get back in the broken state by powering the phone off.

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Answer 11

Apr 2, 2012 4:22 PM in response to knightstorm

BUMP

I'm having the same issue but airplane mode doesn't fix it for me.

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Answer 12

ClarkTX

Level 1

0 points

Jun 6, 2012 6:36 AM in response to knightstorm

Same problem here in 5.0.1. Has anyone seen this problem in 5.1.1?

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Answer 13

Jun 6, 2012 6:43 AM in response to ClarkTX

Yes, same problem and same workaround.

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Answer 14

knightstorm Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 22, 2012 6:59 PM in response to knightstorm

Update - IOS 6 still has the same issue. The solution I found was to upgrade to the iPhone 5.

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Answer 15

Sep 23, 2012 3:36 AM in response to knightstorm

Hardly a compelling reason to upgrade. I do find I am less impacted by the problem in IOS 6.0, the "Do Not Disturb" feture means that I now don't turn my phone off at night, so I don't suffer the problem any more. See http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/mobile-apps/how-to-use-ios-6s-do-not-disturb-feature-5 0008240/.

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