Magic Mouse keeps losing connection

Quick update ... tin foil was good but eventually they'd shake loose again. Brought it back to the Apple Store and it was replaced, no questions asked. New mouse working perfectly with all brands of battery 🙂. Seemed like they were used to it. A mouse that doesn't accept Duracell batteries is way too proprietary for me.

I'm having this problem with my second MM (the first one failed after 2 years) on my MacBook Pro AND on the new Mac Mini in the house. It is definitely a loose battery problem not interference as some have identified.

Back in around 1975 I bought a Sinclair Scientific calculator. It was the first at a price a man-in-the-street could afford. Only trouble was the batteries needed a matchstick under the terminals to keep them working. Sinclair never made it to primetime because of the reliability issue and the Japanese wiped him out. Sad that 38 years later Apple haven't got it sorted.

I have this for one month and was working ok with my macbook air. Yesterday i boght a mac mini and wanted to use the magic mouse as a remote but it keeps losing connection and moves jerky. Tried the paper and the aluminium foil (i find this offensive for an expensive mouse) with no luck. I had another cheap wireless logitech mouse which works perfect. Why is this hapening with the magic mouse? I cannot use it the way it is now.

It should work at 2m from your mini. It has a quoted range of 33ft which is 10m which is the range for Bluetooth Class 2. I just tested mine with my Macbook Pro and it was still going strong when I lost visual contact out of the room at 6m. Another one was still working at a range of 9m on my mac mini.

I used folded aluminum foil under batteries for 18 months, with only occassional loss of signal.

Recently, my MM started losing signal constantly, so in addition to foil, I added a wad of folded paper inserted between the batteries and butterflying out on both sides to cover the backs. (description page 1 this discussion)

This new super-tight fit works perfectly - but next time I'm in town, I'll go buy Apple batteries.

Oh, and merry xmas.

I also stuffed aluminium foil and paper into this expensive and poor ergonomic mouse and no more disconnects but sometimes the pointer crawls and it is not very precise. I will try to reset SMC and PRAM on the mac mini. Tried a 3 times cheeper wireless logitech and it works well. Feeling cheated...

Merry x-mas! 🙂

I subscribed to this interminable thread because I had the same problem.

I SOLVED this problem by purchasing a set of Eneloop rechargeable batteries and using these in place of the IKEA cheapies I had been using. No recurrence of the problem over the last year, and I'm saving money on batteries to boot...

Tlough

Can't say that the Eneloop batteries have made any tangible difference for my MM. I have them as well as Bluetak underneath the batteries to stop them moving, but still I get disconnected at least once a day. I really wouldn't have thought it was beyond the wit of man for Apple to come up with a design that works with out packing, sticking, cleaning contact points or buying a charging plate to get the thing working correctly. Fortunately, I have belt and braces. I have both the Magic Track Pad and the MM alive all the while. That way, if MM dies, I can still operate the iMAC.

Cheers

altv

Guys,

you are posting and posting and posting (approx. 80 posts)… obviously nobody doesn't read the thread from its start.

We have nine (9) Magic Mice in use, all of them exclusively with Eneloops. Only two of these mice showed up with the problem described here. Just take a bit of alcohol from the pharmacy and clean the contacts in the mouse, as well as the contacts of the rechargeables.

Forget about all these papers, kartons, aluminium foils, and other (fairy) tales. And finally, forget about batteries being shorter or longer. The contacts in the mouse have a flexibility of approx. 3 mm. There are no AA batteries in the world with such differences.

Cheers,

Ralf

Sorry Ralf but the alu paper trick DOES work. Cleaning with alcohol whatever was of no use (including cleaning the battery ends), at least with the "older" types. As an electronic engineer I was also surprized. My old mouse died for other reasons (too tired I guess) and I bought a new one as I really got so used to it. Seems Apple has done something about it as for the moment it all works fine without any funny alu foil. But at any hint of problem, I will get back to the silly alu trick. No fairy tale, just a pragmatic solution that helped many of us.

IMHO, the bottom line is that there is some sort of connetivity issue. It effects some Magic Mice but not all of them. Perhaps there are some quality control variables in production, but the batteries don't fit perfectly in all of them. I know from the few MMs I own, 2 work well with the occasional disconnect and the other has had more issues. But after getting the rechargables from Apple, the problem all but disappeared. Are those rechargeable larger and fit more snugly? I can't say. But it seems to be the case if most of these fixes involve improving the connection or imobilizing the batteries in the compartment. I know that if I loose my connection it will come back, esp. if I tap the mouse lightly. That tells me it is a connection issue all the way.

seems like the paper trick worked for me as well. i'm sure there are a lot of design constraints to workaround here, but considering the cost of the system, it would be nice for apple to make the mouse more robust. better contact material, smaller compartment, some "rubber" material on the backside of the battery drawer, etc.

losing battery connection by simply "using" the mouse...pretty flaky IMHO.

Very amusing indeed that in an age of engineering and design marvels, cutting and folding strips of paper has fixed by mouse issue!!!

Whilst I am a Mac lover I have to admit that this is a pretty big flaw and Apple should really engineer their mice to fit all battery makes and not just their own rechargeables!

Still, I now have a mouse that works fine and does not constantly drop out of signal.

neojacker

You should be so lucky! I have had my MM changed by Apple some weeks ago and still the thing drops connection. Today, for instance, in the last half an hour, it has dropped out 4 times. It really is a rubbish piece of equipment and I am now seriously considering getting a Microsoft or Logitec Wireless mouse. From what I have seen, they, at least, stay connected.

The thing that worries me is the fact that there appear to be a lot of MM's that have been changed by Apple because of this failing, but nothing is ever done by them to correct the problem.

Cheers

altv

Well, we don't know if nothing is being done any more than we don't know if they just repackage the faulty ones and send them out again.

The point is, Apple are a big company bent on the profit motive. Faulty goods are bad news just as much as critical comments are. We only hear the bad examples here, nobody writes and says their mouse is brilliant.

So I will. I have an excellent mouse ... but sadly the charger could do with improvement. 😀