Ikester
Level 1 (10 points)

Q: Bluetooth interferes with WiFi in Yosemite 10.10 (reproducible)

There is a long (40 pages so far) thread about WiFi issues with Yosemite. However, I believe it has become a catchall thread for all kinds of connectivity problems and a growing number of "solutions" address only a few of them.

 

So I wanted to start a separate thread about a very specific issue I found to be easily reproducible: turning on Bluetooth in Yosemite 10.10 interferes with WiFi, lowering the bandwidth in a measurable way. I have tested this on two different MacBook Pro Retina (mid-2011 and late-2013) and an Apple Airport router.

 

To test is yourself do the following:

  1. Move away from the WiFi access point so the signal is not at full strength
  2. Turn Bluetooth Off
  3. Visit speedtest.net and run a speed test a handful of times (average the results discarding the outliers, i.e. the fastest and the slowest)
  4. Turn Bluetooth On
  5. Repeat Step 2 and compare results

 

In my case I see a 30% drop in download speed and about a 50% drop in upload speed. I'm not a hardware/radio engineer but I think it's pretty clear that the WiFi and Bluetooth drivers for the initial release version of Yosemite are causing some kind of interference. This is obviously wrong. Unless there is a programmable parameter that can be tweaked for these drivers, I doubt there is anything we can do about it until Apple releases an update with 10.10.1.

 

Turning off Bluetooth is an obvious fix for the WiFi issues but it is clearly not useful if you depend on Bluetooth accessories and defeats the purpose of may cool Yosemite features like Handoff.

 

Is anybody else seeing this in their environment?

Posted on Oct 28, 2014 3:44 PM

Close
Ikester

Q: Bluetooth interferes with WiFi in Yosemite 10.10 (reproducible)

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

Page 1 Next

  • by vijayragavn,

    vijayragavn vijayragavn Oct 28, 2014 4:44 PM in response to Ikester
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 28, 2014 4:44 PM in response to Ikester

    Yes,It would be good if Apple at least acknowledges this issue and provide us with a timeframe for the fix.

     

    I have sent a feedback as well as got online with the support guys to no avail.

     

    This is quite frustrating how Apple remains silent on these issues.

     

    13" Mac Pro with Retina (BT + WIFI) is no go for me.

  • by Geffreybos,

    Geffreybos Geffreybos Oct 29, 2014 11:17 AM in response to Ikester
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 29, 2014 11:17 AM in response to Ikester

    I am having the exact same problem. Although I am a really thorough problem solver I could not seem to fix this one either. I have tried resetting the router, the modem,  a "Kext Fix", changing the Service & Preference Order, Resetting SMC and PRAM, I have reinstalled the Wi-Fi Interface and deleted system configurations.

     

    Nothing worked. It really is too bad. Hoping for a quick fix.

  • by canecaster,

    canecaster canecaster Oct 29, 2014 4:30 PM in response to Ikester
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 29, 2014 4:30 PM in response to Ikester

    I've been following the longer thread as well, but my WiFi issue seems to essentially be a Bluetooth issue.  At work I connect my MBP to my Verizon Mifi LTE hotspot, and upon upgrade to Yosemite noticed very slow wireless speeds.  Turning off Bluetooth instantly gets me back to normal speeds.  Interestingly, though, turning Bluetooth back on doesn't slow my speed down in a predictable way - sometimes the slowdown occurs right away, other times it may take minutes or even a few hours to slow down (I've noticed days where I'm good in the morning but in the afternoon my speeds slow).  Regardless of how long it takes the problem to manifest, I get instant relief by turning off Bluetooth.

     

    Lately I've taken to replacing my trackpad with a wired mouse, just so I could keep Bluetooth off.  Not ideal, obviously.  I've also tried setting the MiFi to use different channels (with no particular benefit noted).  Today, just for the heck of it, I decided to leave my laptop open (I usually close the lid because I'm connected to a Thunderbolt display), and observed good speeds for several hours even with Bluetooth on.  I tried closing the lid for a while and within 15 minutes I was slow again.  I turned Bluetooth off, opened the lid, got my speed back up and turned Bluetooth back on - and my speed stayed up the remainder of the day.

     

    A limited data sample, to be sure, so I'm not sure whether the lid position has anything to how the Bluetooth and WiFi signals are interfering.  But I'll try tomorrow again and keep the lid up and see how it goes.

     

    One other observation.  At home I have no trouble maintaining good speeds connecting to my Airport Time Capsule.  Bluetooth is on, of course, but I'm not actively using any Bluetooth devices when I'm on wireless at home.

  • by mountaineer12,

    mountaineer12 mountaineer12 Oct 31, 2014 5:05 AM in response to Ikester
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 31, 2014 5:05 AM in response to Ikester

    I have experienced the exact same result on my MacBook Air. Start downloading a large file, and turn Bluetooth on and off and you'll see the download speeds jump dramatically.

     

    While its great I'm able to use my mac again, its bad i can't use my 40 dollar magic mouse. This has to be fixed.

  • by rbdaspbr,

    rbdaspbr rbdaspbr Dec 15, 2014 9:00 AM in response to Ikester
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 15, 2014 9:00 AM in response to Ikester

    You're totally right. I have a late 2014 retina macbook pro (bought a few weeks ago) and I can't use both the magic mouse and my harman kardan bluetooth headphones without losing significantly broadband speed. Turning off bluetooth fixes the problem instantly...

     

    this has to be fixed [2]

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root Dec 15, 2014 12:30 PM in response to Ikester
    Level 9 (74,268 points)
    iTunes
    Dec 15, 2014 12:30 PM in response to Ikester

    Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem solved sooner.

     

    Feedback

     

     

     

    Or you can use your Apple ID to register with this site and go the Apple BugReporter. Supposedly you will get an answer if you submit feedback.

     

    Feedback via Apple Developer

  • by rbdaspbr,

    rbdaspbr rbdaspbr Dec 15, 2014 1:16 PM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 15, 2014 1:16 PM in response to Eric Root

    done. Thanks Eric!

  • by Ikester,

    Ikester Ikester Dec 15, 2014 1:33 PM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Dec 15, 2014 1:33 PM in response to Eric Root

    I absolutely did. I was contacted by Apple and talked to two different tiers of support several times. I sent them a data capture, etc.

     

    This was all before 10.10.1.

  • by azdawg99,

    azdawg99 azdawg99 Jan 12, 2015 11:05 AM in response to Ikester
    Level 2 (320 points)
    Jan 12, 2015 11:05 AM in response to Ikester

    Same. All is well until I turn on WiFi and then my bluetooth mouse is completely unusable. WiFi and Bluetooth not playing well at all. I see threads on here as far back as 2009 with this issue, so don't get your hopes up for a fix.

  • by mountaineer12,

    mountaineer12 mountaineer12 Jan 27, 2015 5:41 PM in response to azdawg99
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 27, 2015 5:41 PM in response to azdawg99

    Good News! I updated to 10.10.2 today and so far so good. I even reverted some of the "fixes" i had tried and my Wifi is working well. I even noticed my bluetooth mouse was "sluggish", and that seems to be resolved as well.

     

    Try updating to 10.10.2.

  • by azdawg99,

    azdawg99 azdawg99 Jan 27, 2015 6:01 PM in response to mountaineer12
    Level 2 (320 points)
    Jan 27, 2015 6:01 PM in response to mountaineer12

    Good to hear you're back in working order and thanks for the update. I wiped my drive and went back to Mavericks and have been problem free since.

  • by darrenhill,

    darrenhill darrenhill Jan 30, 2015 4:50 AM in response to mountaineer12
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 30, 2015 4:50 AM in response to mountaineer12

    Despite updating to 10.10.2 I still have the same problem.

    Every so often, and it seems to be getting worse, wifi drops out. The only way to restore it is to turn bluetooth off, not great when trying to use the magic mouse and keyboard.

  • by Ikester,

    Ikester Ikester Jan 30, 2015 6:10 AM in response to darrenhill
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Jan 30, 2015 6:10 AM in response to darrenhill

    I also still see the problem with 10.10.2

    I posted these stats in the WiFi problems thread (>150 pages by now) but I'll post it here as well:

    ## Bluetooth OFF
## Average: 66.12 Mbits/sec
## (max and min values discarded)

IkeMBP:local$ iperf -c herobrine -t 120 -i 10
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to herobrine, TCP port 5001
TCP window size:  129 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[  5] local 192.168.1.162 port 55484 connected with 192.168.1.30 port 5001
[ ID] Interval       Transfer     Bandwidth
[  5]  0.0-10.0 sec  80.2 MBytes  67.3 Mbits/sec
[  5] 10.0-20.0 sec  79.4 MBytes  66.6 Mbits/sec
[  5] 20.0-30.0 sec  79.0 MBytes  66.3 Mbits/sec
[  5] 30.0-40.0 sec  77.9 MBytes  65.3 Mbits/sec
[  5] 40.0-50.0 sec  76.5 MBytes  64.2 Mbits/sec
[  5] 50.0-60.0 sec  78.5 MBytes  65.9 Mbits/sec
[  5] 60.0-70.0 sec  80.0 MBytes  67.1 Mbits/sec
[  5] 70.0-80.0 sec  78.4 MBytes  65.7 Mbits/sec
[  5] 80.0-90.0 sec  74.6 MBytes  62.6 Mbits/sec
[  5] 90.0-100.0 sec 78.5 MBytes  65.9 Mbits/sec
[  5] 100.0-110.0 sec 79.9 MBytes  67.0 Mbits/sec
[  5] 110.0-120.0 sec 80.8 MBytes  67.7 Mbits/sec
[  5]  0.0-120.0 sec   944 MBytes  66.0 Mbits/sec

## Bluetooth ON and no device connected
## Average: 58.40 Mbits/sec
## (max and min values discarded)

IkeMBP:local$ iperf -c herobrine -t 120 -i 10
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to herobrine, TCP port 5001
TCP window size:  129 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[  5] local 192.168.1.162 port 55491 connected with 192.168.1.30 port 5001
[ ID] Interval       Transfer     Bandwidth
[  5]  0.0-10.0 sec  70.0 MBytes  58.7 Mbits/sec
[  5] 10.0-20.0 sec  71.0 MBytes  59.6 Mbits/sec
[  5] 20.0-30.0 sec  68.6 MBytes  57.6 Mbits/sec
[  5] 30.0-40.0 sec  70.4 MBytes  59.0 Mbits/sec
[  5] 40.0-50.0 sec  72.9 MBytes  61.1 Mbits/sec
[  5] 50.0-60.0 sec  70.2 MBytes  58.9 Mbits/sec
[  5] 60.0-70.0 sec  72.2 MBytes  60.6 Mbits/sec
[  5] 70.0-80.0 sec  70.0 MBytes  58.7 Mbits/sec
[  5] 80.0-90.0 sec  62.5 MBytes  52.4 Mbits/sec
[  5] 90.0-100.0 sec 70.1 MBytes  58.8 Mbits/sec
[  5] 100.0-110.0 sec 66.5 MBytes  55.8 Mbits/sec
[  5] 110.0-120.0 sec 67.4 MBytes  56.5 Mbits/sec
[  5]  0.0-120.0 sec   832 MBytes  58.2 Mbits/sec


## Bluetooth ON and Magic Mouse CONNECTED
## Average: 38.08 Mbits/sec
## (max and min values discarded)

IkeMBP:local$ iperf -c herobrine -t 120 -i 10
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to herobrine, TCP port 5001
TCP window size:  129 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[  5] local 192.168.1.162 port 55481 connected with 192.168.1.30 port 5001
[ ID] Interval       Transfer     Bandwidth
[  5]  0.0-10.0 sec  46.4 MBytes  38.9 Mbits/sec
[  5] 10.0-20.0 sec  46.6 MBytes  39.1 Mbits/sec
[  5] 20.0-30.0 sec  52.6 MBytes  44.1 Mbits/sec
[  5] 30.0-40.0 sec  46.1 MBytes  38.7 Mbits/sec
[  5] 40.0-50.0 sec  46.1 MBytes  38.7 Mbits/sec
[  5] 50.0-60.0 sec  45.5 MBytes  38.2 Mbits/sec
[  5] 60.0-70.0 sec  40.5 MBytes  34.0 Mbits/sec
[  5] 70.0-80.0 sec  38.1 MBytes  32.0 Mbits/sec
[  5] 80.0-90.0 sec  43.4 MBytes  36.4 Mbits/sec
[  5] 90.0-100.0 sec 46.8 MBytes  39.2 Mbits/sec
[  5] 100.0-110.0 sec 45.9 MBytes  38.5 Mbits/sec
[  5] 110.0-120.0 sec 46.6 MBytes  39.1 Mbits/sec
[  5]  0.0-120.0 sec   545 MBytes  38.1 Mbits/sec


## 802.11n (5GHz) - Bluetooth ON and Magic Mouse CONNECTED
## Average: 38.08 Mbits/sec
## (max and min values discarded)

IkeMBP:~$ iperf -c herobrine -t 120 -i 10
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to herobrine, TCP port 5001
TCP window size:  129 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[  5] local 192.168.1.162 port 53924 connected with 192.168.1.30 port 5001
[ ID] Interval       Transfer     Bandwidth
[  5]  0.0-10.0 sec  94.9 MBytes  79.6 Mbits/sec
[  5] 10.0-20.0 sec  98.8 MBytes  82.8 Mbits/sec
[  5] 20.0-30.0 sec  98.1 MBytes  82.3 Mbits/sec
[  5] 30.0-40.0 sec  98.2 MBytes  82.4 Mbits/sec
[  5] 40.0-50.0 sec  98.4 MBytes  82.5 Mbits/sec
[  5] 50.0-60.0 sec  97.6 MBytes  81.9 Mbits/sec
[  5] 60.0-70.0 sec  98.2 MBytes  82.4 Mbits/sec
[  5] 70.0-80.0 sec  98.0 MBytes  82.2 Mbits/sec
[  5] 80.0-90.0 sec  97.5 MBytes  81.8 Mbits/sec
[  5] 90.0-100.0 sec  98.4 MBytes  82.5 Mbits/sec
[  5] 100.0-110.0 sec  99.6 MBytes  83.6 Mbits/sec
[  5] 110.0-120.0 sec  50.9 MBytes  42.7 Mbits/sec
[  5]  0.0-120.0 sec  1.10 GBytes  78.9 Mbits/sec

    Also noticed the consistency and stability of the 5 GHz test

  • by DonOz,

    DonOz DonOz Jan 31, 2015 9:55 PM in response to Ikester
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 31, 2015 9:55 PM in response to Ikester

    Thanks Ikester, and also darenhill.   I too have these problems, not fixed in any way by the recent update. I am in Melbourne, Australia.  I recently began using my MacBook Air with a monitor and bluetooth keyboard and mouse (Apple);  I berated my internet retailer for pathetic wifi performance speeds, only to discover that the speed increased five-fold when I disconnected my bluetooth keyboard and mouse by turning off bluetooth.  I am appalled by the deterioration of performance and equally appalled by the apparent lack of a fix.  Otherwise, I am a long-term Apple user, using every device...but thing Apple should be ashamed to allow this gap for so long.  Thanks for your reinforcing that this is not my imagination!

Page 1 Next