El Capitan - Bluetooth Not Available

Bluetooth devices become unresponsive

Seiko and Macounette reported that resetting the PRAM resolved their issue, but your notes only mentioned doing an SMC 'restart' (I presume you did this by disconnecting the power cord per the SMC reset instructions). I suggest resetting the NVRAM using the How to Reset NVRAM on your Mac instructions provided by Apple and then see if the issue persists.

This is not the normal new iMac experience, and purchasing additional hardware to make it work is not the norm. If the issue continues make sure you follow up with Apple so your issue is documented. Please let us know whether the NVRAM (commonly referred to as PRAM) reset resolves the issue.

Resetting NVRAM

1. Shut down your Mac.
2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command (⌘), Option, P, and R.
3. Turn on your Mac.
4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys immediately after you hear the startup sound.
5. Hold these keys until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for a second time.
6. Release the keys.

After resetting NVRAM, you may need to reconfigure settings for speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, and time zone information.

I've had no luck getting Bluetooth back at all since upgrading to El Capitan. Gone from preferences and the menu bar shows it not available.

Sounds like Apple has yet again dropped the ball on this one. I keep checking for updates, expecting them to release one to fix the problem that so many are having. Strange.

I've been having the same serious issue on my iMac after (clean) installing El Capitan and the recent 10.11.1 upgrade.

Upon booting, no bluetooth apple keyboard to enter my account credentials.

I had to connect my usb keyboard to login to el Capitan to discover that system could not find the internal bluetooth circuit and therefore no bluetooth keyboard or magic mouse or trackpad !!!

Im sorry apple but this is unacceptable.

With some time consuming experimentation i found out that by disabling the FileVault encryption and rebooting

bluetooth was back on. I could now enter my credentials on the login screen with my apple wireless keyboard and once entering el capitan, bluetooth preference pane was back with all the bluetooth features.

I reported the bug to apple and until furter notice, make your system less secure by disabling FileVault.

At least that worked for me so far.

Bluetooth -> No information available (greek language) with FileVault enabled.

Update: Miraculously once i disabled FileVault, my iMessage on my iMac started to sync with my iphone and seems to be working fine. So i tend to think that FileVault is causing issues on many levels.

@msc03:

As to your finding some SMC reset instructions "elsewhere", does that mean not Apple's instructions? I notice there are PLENTY of incorrect instructions for SMC reset coming from Youtube and blogs. Why would you need those sources, when you already have Apple's support pages?

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1411 (resetting SMC Intel-based notebook Macs)

i've been seeing this problem on my MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2013) since upgrading to El Capitan. i got excited when i saw "Fixes an issue that may cause Bluetooth devices to disconnect" in the 10.11.2 release notes ( About the OS X El Capitan v10.11.2 Update - Apple Support ), but alas, i'm still seeing the issue.

luckily i don't use bluetooth often with my MBA, but for those that do and are tired of rebooting, running these commands in a Terminal window should get things working again:

--

sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/IOBluetoothFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/BroadcomBlue toothHostControllerUSBTransport.kext

sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/IOBluetoothFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/BroadcomBlue toothHostControllerUSBTransport.kext

--

Bluetooth disappeared after 10.11.4 update. I download the OSX Combo 10.11.4 - Download OS X El Capitan 10.11.4 Combo Update - and ran it. After a full restart, Bluetooth is back again. All working fine.

I don't have a solution either, just a workaround, as I've been experiencing this issue since upgrading my brand-new iMac 27" Retina (late 2015) to 10.11.4 (it was sold with 10.11.3). Here's a description of my issue (similar, but not quite the same, as to the ones mentioned here):

After a reboot, Bluetooth is shown as "not available" (the Bluetooth icon is greyed out and crossed with a lightning), and my MagicMouse 2 does not respond.

Deleting preferences (plist files) does not help . But when recreating them, I noticed that it seems trackpad prefs get written to even though there's no trackpad on this iMac... I also checked the console and there are dozens of warning messages - log files indicate Bluetooth service as not being available and "Missing Bluetooth Controller Transport".

I haven't tried: PRAM reset, SMC reset.

I have tried: deleting Bluetooth plist files, as well as shutting down the Mac, disconnecting all USB devices, waiting a few minutes, reconnecting everything and rebooting.

My only workaround is quite a funny one: when Bluetooth does not work, I plug my old Microsoft USB mouse to the USB port on my Apple keyboard and reboot. When the Mac reboots with this mouse attached, the Bluetooth service / controllers load normally and my iMac sees MagicMouse 2 and both live happily ever after until the next reboot.

FWIW:

• Putting the iMac to sleep does not seem to affect or reproduce the Bluetooth issue. Only rebooting with the MagicMouse connected does.
• My Bluetooth controller is also Broadcomm, firmware v114 c4547 and Apple Bluetooth Software version 4.4.4f4 17685.
• This iMac was set up as a new iMac and I imported manually my documents, photos and application data. No "old" system or library data was transferred from my previous iMac.
• I've also filed a bug report with Apple.

Actually "just" a reboot will typically restore the Bluetooth function. And it doesn't always die when you sleep the laptop, but it seems to lose the plot if you sleep it with a Bluetooth device connected and it can't find the device when it wakes (eg you went out without your mouse).

But not always.

Most reliable work-around: use a wireless mouse with a USB dongle instead. *sheesh*

But actually this appears to be a known problem clashing with USB3. I have switched back from my Anker 8-port USB3 hub to my OWC thunderbolt dock to see if the situation keeps reoccurring now (I switched to the USB3 hub because I had too many devices 😮 so I've rationalised somewhat.

See here for interesting stuff: http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/magic-mouse-and-bluetooth-option-is-dead-wit h-yosemite-10-10.1803267/

Resetting the SMC ("red herring" as you so quaintly phrase it) is a relatively standard troubleshooting step to take when Bluetooth is missing from a system. What you describe worked for you is a subset of a SMC reset - depending on the platform.

Resetting the SMC may be a "red herring" to you, but it works for many people. I am posting this for the benefit of others reading this thread so that no one is confused.

Barry

I am now looking at doing a clean install of El Capitan to replace my upgrade installation*. At this point I am thinking I will use Migration Assistant to put all my "stuff" back but I should probably plan to do a manual re-install of everything as that would be much cleaner. *sigh*

Do you always disconnect the headphones before sleeping the machine? I am having some success in improving reliability by always making sure I disconnect stuff when the machine is awake, rather than asleep. I have to anyway as a rule because of the mounted external hard disks but if I unmount, sleep and then unplug I have noticed more issues than if I unmount, unplug and then sleep.

*Sounds like overkill for a random Bluetooth issue I know but I am also having intermittent issues with the keychain access and iCloud and that can get serious pretty quickly. It's just a case of finding the time to do it...

Tried this. Unfortunately it didn't work for me on my Macbook Pro. This continues to get more and more frustrating. It is odd that different "fixes" are posted as remedying the issue but they don't work for everyone. Had an update from Apple today; hoped it would fix it but no go. Guess I'll keep waiting. Just really strange! I'm not very familiar with the "back side" of OS X but I keep wondering if there isn't some registry (or whatever it'd be called) entry that needs to be changed to on or something...

I had this problem, and neither resetting the SMC nor deleting the Bluetooth plist worked for me. There's an Apple support article somewhere that I found which says to try removing all USB devices and restarting the machine. I unplugged everything that was attached to my machine (inc. display and power as a few articles suggested removing the magsafe connector when resetting things), and that seemed to have worked.