Handoff and AirDrop not working in El Capitan

Deleting the bluetooth plist also worked for me. Although I had to do it a couple of times as it still didn't work the first time.

After hours of research, discovery, trial and error - I finally got airdrop working on my iPhone 5s (working on iOS 9.2) with my Macbook Air 13 inches 2012 late model (running on OSX El Capitan 10.11.4).

What worked in the end -

1. Disable bluetooth adapter
2. Open the terminal application
3. Login as super user for the computer by entering the command (without the double quotes) - "sudo su"
4. Enter super user password
5. Change to root directory - "cd /"
6. Find all files for Bluetooth playlist - "find . | grep com.apple.Bluetooth*"
7. Delete all the files found using the rm command. Example if you find a file ./Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist then delete it using the command - rm ./Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist
8. Repeat step 6 for all other files located.
9. Exit terminal once all files have been deleted.
10. Restart Mac. This will restart your bluetooth adapter automatically (if it doesn't then enable the bluetooth adapter manually on your mac).
11. This didn't fix the problem in itself so I proceeded ahead.
12. Disable internet connection sharing from System Preferences on your Mac. System Preferences --> Sharing --> Internet Sharing (uncheck)
13. Open About this Mac --> Overview --> System Report --> Network --> Wifi
14. If the AirDrop section says "Supported" then your Mac does support Airdrop feature. My Mac in this case displayed something different from what others reported. It indicated "Channel 44" in addition to "Supported" for some reason.
15. I logged into my router and changed my WLAN radio channels. I disabled my 2.4 GHz band and fixed my 5 GHz band to channel 44.
16. This seemed to work and I could now see my Mac in my iPhone for AirDrop and vice versa. I was successful in transferring both images and videos off my camera roll.
17. After successful connection I set my radio channels on my router back to defaults (auto select) and the AirDrop still work normally (even on different Channels)

Not sure what exactly was broken in the background but the procedure definitely got me working. Airdrop is truly a flaky feature.

Was it worth the effort??? meh!

Thanks for posting your solution, I will try to see if I have luck with that, something tells me that maybe the problem with airdrop is about that channel that appears on the system report, I remember that my system report shows airdrop locked on a channel (I don't remember which one), maybe airdrop gets stuck on that channel and that is why doesn't work. I'll try and report back if I have lucky.

Well it seem airdrop it set by default to channel 149 on my machine but I do not have a 5ghz router to set that channel and try.

I've been having issues too.

Apologies for laziness. Im just copying my tweet about what solved it for me.

If, like me, you've been having problems sending files from a Mac to iOS using #Airdrop - turn on location services. Now it works. Dumb OS X

In my particular case the location is not working either, I always thought that maybe that have something to do with Airdrop failure but this only happen with El Capitan, I have a dual boot drive and when I boot into Yosemite everything works perfect (location and airdrop) so this is a software issue in El Capitan.

I have tried every single thing suggested on all these pages. This is an El captain issue and Mac need to get their *** into gear and sort it. In the mean time I've actually had to purchase an app that I use on iPhone and Mac bookPro called "Send Anywhere" so far it's the only solution the airdrop between Macbook and iPhone. Airdrop works perfectly between iPhones and iPads but with Macbook Pro El capitan it's pure *****. get it together Apple you owe it to your loyal purchasers.

Here here. An hour or two on the phone to apple support (handed over to various specialists) couldn't fix this. Apple know this is a problem and its in the interest of their loyal customers to fix it.

I got so fed up with them and thats why i had to buy an App for wifi transfer. Pathetic service considering the millions of people who are loyal Apple customers.

Admittedly, I haven't read all 19 pages of this thread so stop me if this has already been discussed. But is anyone else running a vector-based drawing app in combination with a pen tablet on their computer? This was a program combo that I installed within the first hour of owning my new MBP. I then went through weeks of issues with airdrop and continuity as mentioned in this thread. After wiping my computer completely and starting from zero, all functionality returned and worked flawlessly for months. As of two weeks ago, I again decided to install the same software (only the drawing app and the tablet driver, without any other software installs or system changes) and within a day all my old unwelcome airdrop and continuity issues returned. I know that my experience provides anecdotal evidence at best, but I use my computer almost 10 hours a day and it has essentially become an extension of my arms (sad I know). All I'm saying is that I'm in tune my computer, and the combination of installing the same apps with the sudden onset of the exact same problems as before, with a time gap between the two of several months just seemed to line up too perfectly to be coincidental. Could it be that this app and or other apps built on similar architecture are somehow interfering with behind the scenes commands and causing the problems? Or have I finally lost complete contact with reality?

Hi, that was my first thought, "maybe an particular app that produce some trouble", so after try every solution that I found I erased my entire hard disk and then I do a clean install of El Capitan with no other third party software installed, and the result is the same: Airdrop not working.

I'm losing hope that this problem will be fixed in El Capitan because even in the last beta the problem is still there.

This worked for me on :

Mac Pro(Early 2009)+OSXWIFI BT4.0 CARD

Replaced

/System/Library/CoreServices/cloudpaird

with this old version:

http://forums.macrumors.com/attachments/cloudpaird-zip.582125/

from

http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/modded-continuity-activation-tool-btle-cards -with-el-capitan-is-working.1890715/page…

If copying is denied disable rootless

https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-turn-off-the-rootless-in-OS-X-El-Capitan-10-11?sh are=1

Hello,

When I previously spoke with Apple care they said they will release os x 10.11.5 for correcting airdrop and handoff features but today I received the update. After updating still airdrop feature not working. I don't know what is wrong. Any one facing same problem? Can we go to apple store in person for a solution .....?? Any advise

Thank you

Macbook pro retina 2015 early

Iphone 6 iOS 9.3.2

It is working for me. But I see odd BTLE range issues with AirDrop. Devices are not always showing up.

Handoff is fine.

This all is a lot better than earlier versions of El Cap.