iPhone/Windows Bluetooth Pairing Unsuccessful

Question

Level 1

15 points

iPhone/Windows Bluetooth Pairing Unsuccessful

Some time in the last month or so, my iPhone 7 will no longer pair with my Windows laptop. The iPhone 7 is running iOS 11.4 and the laptop is running Windows 10 Version 1803 (Build 17134.81).

If I start pairing from the Windows side, I can pair successfully, but connections fail. If I start pairing from the iPhone side, pairing immediately fails. The error message i in both cases is

Pairing Unsuccessful

"<hostname>" is not supported.

The standard response in these forums seems to be "why are you trying to pair", so I'll answer that I use it for network tethering and the Windows security feature that autolocks Windows when it detects the bluetooth device is out of range.

My current theory is that pairing stopped working at the iOS 11.3 update or perhaps the Windows 10 1803 update, but I haven't been able to confirm that.

Is there any debugging that I can do to determine the cause of failure?

iPhone 7, iOS 11.4

Posted on May 30, 2018 1:58 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

dlcrow Author

Level 1

15 points

May 30, 2018 8:21 PM in response to kb1951

Those are the exact steps that I used unsuccessfully.

If I click "pair" in Windows 10 first, then I get paired and Windows goes through a "setting up" step. The Windows PC name shows up in the paired list on the phone and vice-versa. If I click on the phone to connect or on the PC to connect, then I get the message I indicated above with only a choice to "Forget the Device".

If I click on the Windows 10 PC name in the iPhone configuration screen before pairing, then I immediately get the message above, but with a choice of "OK" since the phone is not paired, yet.

Reply

Answer 2

Jul 7, 2018 12:41 PM in response to dlcrow

I have the same issue, Windows 10 1803 (17134.137) and iOS 11.4 on an iPhone 7. Machine is a Bootcamped late 2015 15" MacBook Pro. I hadn't tried Bluetooth pairing in a few years, so I'm unsure if it's an issue specific to these specific versions (although Windows 10 1803 was a mess, so I wouldn't be surprised).

Reply