Connect bluetooth regularly inconsistent

Question

Connect bluetooth regularly inconsistent

Hi, first time post-er here.

I've been using a MacBook Pro for about 3 years now. I was running Mountain Lion for about 2.5 years and then completely wiped my system and loaded Yosemite after that. You can also factor in that I've had the mainboard replaced, and I assume the mainboard has the bluetooth hardware. In both operating systems and before and after the mainboard replacement I've had a consistent problem with Bluetooth. The problem is when I try and connect a bluetooth device. I can usually get the first pairing/connection to work fine. But subsequent connections are painfully difficult and require 3-5 attempts on average.

In my Mountain Lion days, I was using a bluetooth speaker and experiencing this. The speaker has since broken.

Currently I experience this problem with an Apple Mouse I bought about a month ago.

This morning is a perfect example:

Restore laptop from sleep by lifting the cover.
Visual check on bluetooth icon shows that BT is activated.
Mouse is turned off. Turn mouse on, see light blinking.
Click mouse a couple times, move it around, no connection.
Go to bluetooth icon, find mouse, click "Connect" in the menu.
Move mouse around, click click click. Nothing.
After about 10 seconds of clicking, moving, and waiting, repeat steps 4-6

The same thing happened when I had the bluetooth speaker.

System preferences show that no updates are available to my Mac. And frankly the symptoms have been consistent beyond versions and even hardware.

Is Apple just bad at doing bluetooth? Is this just normal bluetooth behavior?

--Annoyed.

Current Specs: OSX Yosemite, 10.10.4, MacBook Pro Rentina

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.4)

Posted on Jul 30, 2015 9:21 AM

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Answer 1

brenden dv

Community Specialist

Aug 1, 2015 9:22 AM in response to kashimcgilloway

Hi kashimcgilloway,

I'm sorry to hear you are having these issues with your Apple mouse and MacBook Pro. If you continue to have intermittent but persistent Bluetooth connection issues, you may find the information and troubleshooting steps outlined in the following articles helpful:

Troubleshooting wireless mouse and keyboard issues - Apple Support

Wireless input devices: Bluetooth frequently asked questions - Apple Support

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth: Potential sources of wireless interference - Apple Support

Regards

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Answer 2

Aug 3, 2015 9:17 AM in response to brenden dv

Thank you for your offer of support Brenden. I stepped through the articles you provided but didn't find anything that wasn't already attempted.

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Answer 3

Aug 3, 2015 9:30 AM in response to kashimcgilloway

Hi kashimcgilloway. I do not have that much experience in using bluetooth devices with Macs and OS X, but I have long experience in using them with PCs/Windows. I can tell that similar behaviour is not that unlikely at least for Windows as your computer has been "sleeping"/inactive for a significant amount of time and would need to reconnect to your external hardware. If I were you, the next time I use my mouse, I would:

1. Open the mac

2. First move around the mouse to make sure it is active

3. Wait a few seconds

4. Try to reconnect with the mouse from your mac.

If it reconnects normally, I would consider this normal behaviour. Once again I am not experienced in using a bluetooth apple mouse, but at least for a Windows machine this would be normal performance.

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