Folks,
This morning I couldn't get my Apple wireless keyboard to connect to my MacBook Pro. I tried again and again to make contact but the keyboard wasn't found. Then my brain finally clicked into "thinking" mode and I remembered the same situation having arisen some months ago. I went to investigate!
I went downstairs to fetch my iPad which was on but sleeping and brought it upstairs and turned it off. Then I tried getting my keyboard in touch with my MacBook again and, as Bubbles of The Trailer Park Boys would say, "bingo!" It worked!
Explanation? The keyboard (and I believe all Bluetooth devices) can only be in touch with one machine at a time. I have the keyboard paired with both my MacBook and my iPad (which I only use with the keyboard when I'm travelling). Earlier in the day, the keyboard was connected to the MacBook and working fine, but the MacBook was getting a bit slow, so I decided to shut it down and start it up again. When I did so, I didn't turn the keyboard off, and of course, it lost its connection to the MacBook.
Meanwhile, however, sitting downstairs was the sleeping iPad, and even though it was quite a distance away, it must have picked up the Bluetooth signal from the keyboard and made a connection with it the moment I turned off the MacBook. Then when I turned the MacBook back on, it wasn't possible to make a connection with the keyboard because the keyboard's signal was now being used by the sleeping iPad. Because (as far as I know) a Bluetooth device can only be connected with one machine at a time, the MacBook simply couldn't connect with the keyboard as long as the keyboard was connected to the iPad.
I assume that other folks have figured this out, and maybe there is at least one discussion on the forum about it, but unfortunately I don't have the time to look for it. Anyway, even if this is not the solution to your problem, fir3murd3r3, I hope this might help someone somewhere with solving this embarrassing but very frustrating problem that I have found myself in a couple of times. I just hope I remember all this the next time I get myself into the same situation! 🙂
Good luck!
Chris