I have an IMac that, for some unknown reason, insist on using a bluetooth mouse at startup.
I do not have a bluetooth mouse! The consequence of this is that I cannot login to the machine anymore.
How can I start the machine so that I can correct the problem?
How can I avoid having this problem in the future?
iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
Connect a wired mouse. If that does not work, the reboot into Safe Mode, and see if that works as expected, and then try booting normally. If that doesn't work, reset the PRAM and — if that fails — try resetting the SMC. Then... donno.
Thanks. I do have a wired mouse connected, but it does not want that. However, after about half an hour it will give up looking for the bluetooth mouse and accept the wired mouse. Resetting the PRAM sounds like a good idea; so I will try that.
It's also possible that there's some sort of add-on or third-party software package that's involved here — was this an OS X system that you installed, or something that was acquired already installed? If the OS X software was already installed, there can be add-ons and tools that might not be known to you, and that might really want a wireless mouse.
These add-on tools are usually placed in standard directory locations on OS X, so — once the system has booted – you can download and run and post the report from the Etrecheck tool, and somebody here can have a look at that for what's installed. For background on the tool in the forums, there are many Etrecheck reports and discussions posted around the forums, if you want to run a quick search and see what this configuration-reporting tool is used for, and how it works.
Have you tried going to System Preferences/Bluetooth and turning Bluetooth off? If the mouse shows there, select it and you should be able to delete it.
This only happens when the machine has crashed. I then have to turn it off by using the power button. When I turn the machine on again, the bluetooth will be turned on, allthough I never turned it on. At one time (when the machine was new) I had a bluetooth mouse, and the machine will start by looking for this mouse. After some time it will abandon the search and accept the wired mouse.
I have opened the bluetooth panel and deleted the bluetooth mouse, and I turned off th option to open the bluetooth panel at startup. That only made things worse. It took way longer before it would accept the wired mouse.
I have since fetched my bluetooth mouse, in order to start the machine in these cases. But it immediately started looking for a bluetooth keyboard ( yes, I di have one of those too, when the machine was new). It does abondon after some time.
I have reset the PRAM, I have not tried the SMC. I will try, but I doubt it will have any influence.
For my part I do not understand how the bluetooth can turn itself on like that?
The machine in question has been installed by myself from new 4(?) years ago. It has been updated to 10.6.8 by updates from Apple. Nobode has touched it otherwise. The problem started a week ago, it never occured before. It only occurs after a machine crash. When I have to turn the machine OFF by using the power button.
I have downloaded the Etrecheck tool. It does tell me that some of the add-ons have "Invalid signature!" or "No signature".
I have no idea what this can mean!
That means that the files referenced either have no associated digital signature, or the signature is not as expected — that could indicate a problem, or it may simply be because 10.6.8 is very old, and Etrecheck isn't working quite right that far back.
If this is a new behavior, then there's either something in the software configuration that's recently changed, or there may well be a corruption or a hardware problem that is arising here.
After the reset is attempted, next see if an external storage device with OS X 10.6.8 freshly installed on it shows the same (mis)behavior.
Most systems with OS X 10.6.8 support can get as far as 10.7.5, as another potential option.
I had the same thoughts. I have not changed anything in this configuration for a long time. I need to keep it, because I have some old programs, that i do not want to upgrade. But I can install a new version of the system on an external disk and see if the problem dissapears.
If it works I have to decide to upgrade the old software 😟.
Tokn363 wrote:
I have downloaded the Etrecheck tool. It does tell me that some of the add-ons have "Invalid signature!" or "No signature".
Hello Tokn363,
The idea behind EtreCheck is to show an overall snapshot of your entire machine. Any individual line may not have much meaning. But all the lines taken together may tell a story. Those failures that you mention may or may not be significant. There is no way to tell without seeing the full EtreCheck report.
I think the fact that your Mac is crashing is a bigger problem than having forgotten its Bluetooth settings.
Inexistant Bluetooth mouse at startup
