bluetooth intermittently cuts out

Disabling Handoff seems to have done the trick...but only after a restart. The Bluetooth.plist deletion and restart did not change my BT audio dropouts. (My trouble was on a Bose Soundlink Mini II on an 2012 iMac running Sierra 10.12.2) Thanks for the tips all!

I have the same issue with my iPhone. Difficult connection and when it happens, drops and frequent cutouts with 10.2.1. I though bluetooth issues had been resolved for good in a former update.

Hope this is resolved soon..

Hi Carolyn,

I am having a similar issue with my bluetooth speakers, sometimes they intermittently cut out, I’m unsure if its my speakers or if its my computer. I have a mid 2012 MacBook Pro running OS X Sierra and I looked up that file but there is none with that exact name but one similar and don’t want to erase it if its not the problem.

Is there a reason for why bluetooth cuts out? I believe it has happened with my iPhone 6S too, but its rare, and mostly happens with my MacBook Pro. What should I do to fix this? I do not believe its the speakers since they are new and I have taken care of them quite well. My laptop, however, is quite old so it may be the source of the issue.

Additionally, and I don’t know if it has anything to do but when I’m playing music on my computer through my bluetooth speakers it sounds ok, but when using Netflix, for example, it starts cutting out sometimes.

Thanks,

@seanpdixon THANK YOU!

Disabling "Allow handoff between this mac and your iCloud devices" fixed all cuts between my mac (Sierra 10.12.3) and my "Bose SoundLink Mini".

Once I disabled it, restarted the mac and voilà...

thanks again !

I am running Sierra 10.12.5 on an i7 Macbook Pro Retina 2014 with 16GB of memory and have purchased two (yes 2) different UE Boom Bluetooth speakers over the course of the last two years. Yet I am still unable to use them in conjunction with my $2200 computer. I have tried everything mentioned in this forum and still continue to deal with constant cutting in/out no matter what kind of audio I am playing from my Macbook (iTunes, Spotify, Youtube, Netflix, etc,.). Obviously, like everyone else here, I have tried these speakers with my iPhone and find virtually no issues whatsoever.

How can such a huge company have literally no answer for this when we, their loyal customer base, do nothing but throw them absurd amounts of money on a regular basis?? Fix this Apple!!!

I fixed my issue by turning off WiFi. It seems that the chip is habaing IO issues when both are running when connected to some Bluetooth devices. I have no issues in my Toyota or with my Bose system but with my Mercedes and Samsung devices I have the issue.

I have had a similar problem with my headphones. I wrote this shell script to turn Bluetooth off remove the recent devices and then re-enable Bluetooth.

#!/bin/bash
# Description - Seems to fix Bluetooth connectivity issues some times...

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist ControllerPowerState 0
sudo kextunload -b com.apple.iokit.BroadcomBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport
sudo kextload -b com.apple.iokit.BroadcomBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport
sleep 1
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.Bluetooth.*.plist -c "delete :RecentDevices" > /dev/null 2>&1
sleep 1
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist ControllerPowerState 1
sudo kextunload -b com.apple.iokit.BroadcomBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport
sudo kextload -b com.apple.iokit.BroadcomBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport

As the description says, it may fix the Bluetooth sometimes... Not sure why it works, it's just something I came up with after digging through the plist files and finding a big list of recent devices.

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.

Then re "pair" the Bose Link.

Thank you. This worked for me 🙂

Hi ..

For Bluetooth.

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.

Then re "pair" the Bose Link.

For the Wi-Fi try diagnostics. Instructions here > Wi-Fi: How to troubleshoot Wi-Fi connectivity

For the iPhone.

Reset the device:

Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button together for at least ten seconds, until the Apple logo appears.

If that doesn't help, tap Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings

If by speaking, you are referring to Dictation, open System Preferences > Dication & Speech then select the Text to Speech tab. Try a different Speaking Rate.

Picture editing depends on which software you are using ???

Reset the SMC on the computer.

Barry

I am having the same issue and it is maddening. I have reset the PRAM, the SMC, and deleted the file Bluetooth.plist. Nothing is working. I am running Yosemite. This wasn't a problem until recently. I am guessing it has something to do with the OS upgrade.

My first thought was that it was the speakers. I dropped $200 for Dre Beats speaker and the same thing. It isn't the speakers.

Thank you. This worked for me. I was having issues connecting any BT devices (speakers, mouse, iPhone) to my Air, but after I deleted the file, everything is working now. Thanks again.