Bluetooth not working High Sierra

I just updated today and had to have Apple support walk me through a fix...

After restarting everything in sight. AND disconnecting and reconnecting everything. AND debugging the Bluetooth. Nothing worked. I noticed Bluetooth didn't even give me the option to turn off and next to "Devices" above the empty list was a spinning wheel... searching... for anything.

Apple walked me through powering down and rebooting the SMC.

The simple process (Mine: MBP 2015 15" Retina)

1. Power down

2. Hold SHIFT+ALT+CTRL (on the left side of the key board) + POWER BUTTON for 10 seconds

3. Release all keys

4. Press the power button to boot up

Bluetooth preferences opened up like new. I can turn them on and off and every bluetooth thing in sight was an option.

Typing this from my wireless keyboard now. Hope this helps.

After contacting the Apple Support via chat free of charge I have got the following advice:

1.) Shutdown your Apple device

2.) Disconnect from power supply for several minutes

3.) Delete the VRAM by pressing "Option+Command+P+R" simultaniously when booting => you get a second boot signal

4.) Debugging Bluetooth under OSX by holding Shift+ Alt and selecting the Bluetooth symbol on the desktop top right

Everything works fine again. Hopefully this will help you too.

after upgrading my 2015 MacBook pro to High Sierra, bluetooth stopped working... Error message I was getting is "no bluetooth hardware available". After consulting with online communities, I fixed this problem by restarting MacBook SMC. Following are the steps: 1. shutdown your mac. 2. press and hold left Shift+control+option together with power button for 10 seconds. Release all the buttons at once. 3. Start mac as usual with power button.

After performing this procedure, bluetooth started functioning again. Bluetooth icon in the taskbar became active and bluetooth radio detected other bluetooth devices.

Here is what Missy at Apple online support told me to do to hopefully fix this problem:

1st make sure that the device firmware is updated to the most recent.

Then do the following to try and isolate the problem:

Based on the details you provided, we think you might find the following information helpful:

How to reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac

How to reset NVRAM on your Mac

Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac

See if this helps anyone.

After coming to the realization that there is NO CURRENT FIX for the bluetooth glitch that now seems clear is connected to the High Sierra update - I have reverted my computer to the previous operating update to get rid of High Sierra - I had to do this by restoring from Time Machine, which means that I loose some things, but since I couldn't use my practically new computer dropping bluetooth mouse and keyboard every hour, this is preferable. Hope APPLE finally acknowledges what is so clearly a IOS High Sierra problem and puts a patch out. I will watch for that.

After scouring these boards, I can tell you that the only solution that works is to get rid of High Sierra operating system and go back to Sierra. Instructions easily found on line for restoring from Time Machine back up. I did and it finally resolved. Hoping at some point they will come up with a patch for this bluetooth glitch only happening for those with High Sierra - that is when they acknowledge it exists. Good luck.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradmoon/2017/07/13/this-trick-may-solve-your-mac-b luetooth-connectivity-issues/#683ced1651…

If you have an iPhone, turn handoff off on your computer. I did the whole delete plist files, debug bluetooth steps, nothing worked until I tried the above. Now everything is fine!

Now I know why.....it was connected to another device...

Once I disconnected from the other device, the Macbook then found the bluetooth headphones, and it connected OK.

It was not obvious or clear though. You'd have thought that it'd be easy to show you the headphones, and just say that they are already connected elsewhere..but perhaps not..

Shut down your Mac. Disconnect all usb connected devices. Wait five minutes. Reconnect the usb things and boot your machine. This has worked for me the 20 or so times I've had to do it.

Best,

Tony

It's beginning to look a lot like Windows. Rebooted my system and everything worked again. Was the 3rd attempt I think. Weird stuff.

Hi All

We have Apple Care Enterprise cover. at work. I've just spent an hour on the phone to Apple Care. My problem is not fixed but just for the record here is what we tried.

Also, I'll just add that I did a complete fresh re-install (delete HD and start again) of High Sierra 10.13.2 last night to see if that fixed things (it didn't).

I have a Bose Soundlink Mini II speaker and Apple Keyboard as the devices I wanted to find and pair. Both are discoverable when I look on my iPhone.

Here is what we tried today....

1. Reboot MBP - always the first thing they ask you to try 😁 ✖

2. Toggle Bluetooth off/on (about 20 second wait) - almost as bad as step 1 😝 ✖

3. Turn BT off, Removal of com.apple.bluetooth.plist and com.apple.bluetooth.xxxxxxx plist file, then reboot ✖

4. Reset bluetooth module via bluetooth debug menu ✖

5. NVRAM Reset ✖

6. SMC Reset ✖ when you do the SMC reset, if your power supply is attached with the green light - the light is supposed to change to show the SMC has reset. Mine did not change ... so there is a chance my SMC reset is not working. ⚠

But, after the attempted SMC reset my MBP started to show up on my iPhone as a device that could be paired... but my MBP still could not see my phone. - odd 😝

7. Booted into SAFE mode and tried to find bluetooth devices - could not find anything✖

8. Ran Apple Diagnostics via Alt-D at boot - this showed no issues ✖

At this point they said there are two more options. A fresh install of OSX to a new partiton (or delete main partition and install.) but as I already did a fresh install they recommended the final option which is a Repair call and an engineer will come out and investigate as they think it may be a logic board issue.

They have opened a repair ticket for me and Apple care will contact me within 4 working hours to arrange when they can come and repair.

Will let you know if the engineer fixes it!

At the genius bar, they couldn't replicate the issue we are all having. So I asked them to revert my computer to the last version of Sierra, and guess what? No more BT issues. Everything is working as it should. I hope they correct this on High Sierra so I don't have to keep dismissing the update notifications I am getting.

Hope this helps you guys too.

From that thread, here's someone who seems to know his way around OS X.

https://michaelkummer.com/technology/mac-bluetooth-issues-affect-keyboard-trackp ad/#comment-159391

If you're a real hacker, James has a solution. But it involves patching OS X.

https://michaelkummer.com/technology/mac-bluetooth-issues-affect-keyboard-trackp ad/#comment-159015

Best,

Tony

Folks, OS X 10.13.4 has now been released. When replying to this thread, please let us know which version you're using.

Bluetooth has not crashed since I installed this update a couple of days ago.

Thanks,

Tony (10.13.4)

I appear to have found a solution with my local store to my Bluetooth problem. The fault was that the Mac would drop the Bluetooth mouse and keyboard a few minutes after starting up. Sometimes it would re-establish itself, but sometimes I had to turn the Mac off at the rear button to get them working again.

The advisor at the store noticed that I had a lot of 3rd party programs that started automatically when the Mac was turned on. Although it was a brand new 2018 Mac, these had been transferred over from my last Mac by timemachine. The advisor stopped this long list of programs starting launching automatically and I haven’t had a problem since = 3 weeks ago.

As an aside, I have particular suspicions for the Garmin Connect program which caused my Bluetooth to drop almost immediately when I manually launched it a few days ago.