bluetooth not working mac pro 10.8.5

johnieuk wrote:

Has anyone got 10.8.5 working on a Mac Pro with Bluetooth ?

Yes, Bluetooth working in 10.8.5 on Mac Pro 2009 model.

I upgrade last night, and mouse and keyboard never stopped working.

I will be watching it closely today and report back any wierdness if I encounter any.

I had the Airport card in my Mac Pro stop working. Unplugging it for 20 seconds and plugging it back in resets the SMC firmware and it started working again.

Bluetooth and Airport are on the same card. So I've seen something similar; unplugging it for a bit seems to do the trick.

I had the same problem on my early 2009 Mac Pro - the fix was a bit irritating, but relatively simple - I reinstalled a clean copy of 10.8.5 and all my problems with bluetooth vanished (I had to reinstall a couple 3rd party drivers, but everything else just worked).

I downloaded the full 10.8.5 installer via the Mac App Store, and used Disk Utility to restore the InstallESD.dmg file to a USB stick, then booted and installed from the USB stick. You might be able to achieve the same thing with an internet install via the recovery partition, but I decided to try the brute force approach 🙂

Good luck!

Bluetooth ok on v10.8.5 here. Might be a corrupted preference file.

Open the Finder. From the Finder menu bar click Go > Go to Folder

Type or copy paste the following:

/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist

Click Go then move the com.apple.Bluetooth.plist file to the Trash.

See if that makes a difference.

I had this problem after the update. I deleted the plist file as menationed by Carolyn, shut down, powered up and zapped pram once, and all fixed.

Here are the steps I used to solve it:

1. Trash the com.apple.bluetooth.plist at /Library/Preferences.

2. Delete the kext caches with this terminal command: sudo rm -R /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches

3. Shut down the laptop. Unplug all cables but power.

4. Reset the SMC by pressing Shift+ Control+ Option keys on the LEFT hand side of the keyboard, then pressing the power button at the same time and releasing of all of those keys together.

5. Power up the computer.

6. Zap the PRAM by holding down Cmd+Opt+P+R and wait for second chime

7. Start up in Safe Boot by holding Shift key until progress bar appears.

8. Upon logging in, open System Preferences. Note that the Bluetooth icon is again visible.

9. Reboot normally and log in.

10. Turn Bluetooth on and test by pairing with mouse. Verify functionality.

Thanks, Carolyn. It worked.

On a Late 2009 iMac, this problem cannot be solved. I have tried resetting SMC, zapping PRAM, deleting file(s). No fix, no built-in Bluetooth.

CORRECTION:

Much thanks to Rex Raymond.

This worked for me as well:

1. Trash the com.apple.bluetooth.plist at /Library/Preferences.

2. Delete the kext caches with this terminal command: sudo rm -R /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches

3. Shut down the laptop. Unplug all cables but power.

4. Reset the SMC by pressing Shift+ Control+ Option keys on the LEFT hand side of the keyboard, then pressing the power button at the same time and releasing of all of those keys together.

5. Power up the computer.

6. Zap the PRAM by holding down Cmd+Opt+P+R and wait for second chime

7. Start up in Safe Boot by holding Shift key until progress bar appears.

8. Upon logging in, open System Preferences. Note that the Bluetooth icon is again visible.

9. Reboot normally and log in.

10. Turn Bluetooth on and test by pairing with mouse. Verify functionality.

Message was edited by: Andy Milder

Just for postairity's sake, even though half of these comments have nothing to do with the macpro (even though that is what section it is posted in,) I had this problem on my macpro a while back after I did a few upgrades on it. I believe the bluetooth module got jarred somehow and the following is what worked to fix it...

Rex Raymond wrote:

...

3. Shut down the laptop. Unplug all cables but power.

4. Reset the SMC by pressing Shift+ Control+ Option keys on the LEFT hand side of the keyboard, then pressing the power button at the same time and releasing of all of those keys together.

...

I'm almost positive that this does not work for MacPro's because it does not have a power button on the keyboard. In order to reset SMC on the MacPro, you have to unplug everything (I mean everything, especially displays and the main power source). Hold down the power button, then release it. Plug everything back in. Now, hold down the power button til you hear a solid tone that is slightly lower than the startup "bong". This will complete any firmware updates you have done in the past. Lots of folks do not do this after firmware updates on the macpro for some reason.

Congrats, you have just reset your macpro's smc! Keep in mind however, due to the metallic case on the macpro, the bluetooth reception is not so hot. Make sure you sync whatever bluetooth device you are trying to sync right next to the tower.
You can also try clearing kextcaches and reseating your bluetooth module. Other things you can try is pulling your harddrives (except for your primary boot HDD) as well as reseating one or all of the ram in your system. All of this actions will cause the MacPro to do a more through hardware check which will hopefully allow it to find the bluetooth module.

Dear Carolyn,

I had the same problem after I Upgraded to OS Mavericks.
2 Days laterI had My Laptop Fan plugged in when suddenly I got a message out of nowhere:

USB device drawing too much power has been disabled.

This shut down my Bluetooth and my USB Ports.
Your reply help me get the bluetooth working, is there such command in the System/Library/Preferences

that can help reset my USB ports?

I tried the PRam and SMC reset, but neither helped. Any suggestions?
Thank you!

Julio C'zar

This solved my bluetoth problem also.

Thanks

Regarding Mountain Lion nothing works on my MacPro Nehalem Early 2009

Bluetooth is ok with Snow Leopard and Maveriks , so no "mac reset" necessary (either PRAM VRAM SMC...)