2018 Mac Mini bluetooth and Wi-Fi interference

MK, what I found was couple things I did before the router. So I am not sure which did it. A significant change was when I moved my wifi printer (epson 2500) about 10 feet away from my Mac mini. I also moved the 2.4 ghz router about 5 feet away from mini. That didn’t seem to change anything. But what seemed to make another big change was use a HDMI cable and not the VGA cable from my HP monitor. That seemed to change everything. Would I move my printer back next to mini? Maybe if I am the mood to juggle cables around. LOL. On one of the blogs entries its said to use ferrite to surround cables. I did that on the power cable of the. HP monitor (both sides of cable). So no disconnecting of track pad 2 or keyboard 2 both from apple. But I do have once in awhile my entire monitor goes black and then comes back on ok. But sometimes it goes all snow and I have to hard reset by holding down the power switch to reboot it. Then it’s ok. I doesn’t happen much. Maybe twice in a month (I have my Mac mini 2018 for about 1 12 month. All said. I did change it to 5 Ghz and of course don't know if it works or not.

Hey Chris, thanks a lot for your response! I do have my wifi printer ('Brother' in that case) next to me, so that might be something to consider and try out. As for monitor cables, I'm currently using thunderbolt to display port - which does a great job in and of itself. You know how frustrating it feels to buy a new Apple system and then things really don't work... so I've been up and down the forums and (after trying all the software-stuff like debugging, resetting, clearing, reinstalling OSX etc) it seems it all comes down to either V2 Magic Mouse and Keyboard or 5Ghz network. If you say you got the latter and it works, perhaps it's thanks to that now? I just don't feel I want to throw €250 at Apple for new Mouse and Keyboard when the old ones work perfectly with all other computers - and when a 5 Ghz router would be 'only' €80,- by comparison. I just don't wanna make another futile investment.

...thanks for advice. Was about to return unit to Apple. Like many others on this thread, upgraded from 2012 model (wish I hadn't) and had issues with wifi/bluetooth since new. Just turned off my 'usb hub' power (connected to x4 ext drives) and Wifi connected. Going to try longer cable and hope increasing the distance will enable ongoing connectivity. What a pain...

I'm having the same problem (except I upgraded from a 2011 Mac Min). Thanks everyone for your thoughts. I just tried turning off Wifi, since I'm connected with an Ethernet cable. I'll have to take a look at my cables, and ferrite cores, too.

With my new Mac mini I had the same Magic Mouse problem. Everything was fine until I attached an HDD with a USB cable. It was very jumpy as thought the Bluetooth was too far from the CPU. The problem turned out to be the USB 3.0 cable. The cable was to an external backup HDD via eSata. It had nothing to do with proximity to the HDD, rather the cable itself. When I swapped the cable out for an older USB 2.0 cable it worked fine again. Same proximity, same eSata dongle, same HDD. Also, the Bluetooth keyboard and Touch Pad were fine, only the mouse was affected. The Mac mini is in a rack about 15 feet from the bluetooth mouse, touch pad and keyboard. All is well again, but it is curious that the USB 3.0 port with a USB 3.0 cable caused a mouse issue.

It's asking for the password to your router. All most recent routers have security in the form of 2 or 3 methods. Apple wants you to use the WPA2 version. Usually you can find it on the bottom of your router (or combo modem router). As soon as you give this you will connect.

Same issues here (switched from 2011 Mac Mini with no issues to 2018 Core i5).

Because of the pitiful internal storage in the new units I have a 1Tb SSD (Samsung Evo 960 in a carrier) connected via Thunderbolt port for photo & media, a USB-C hub connected which adds an SD port & a couple of extra USB3 ports (branded Lenovo).

No printers in the vicinity but there is an XBOX One X which is turned off / connected via Ethernet.

The Macs WiFi has been stable throughout but I’ve only owned it for 2 weeks so later versions of OSX may have patched issues here.

On Bluetooth issue, everything just dies. Keyboard / Mouse just bombs out and their green lights flash furiously. Sony WH1000 headphones turn themselves off. Issue lasts for about a minute then slowly recovers itself and things fire back up.

Not or surprised given how glitchy modern tech is, but this seems basic and avoidable. It’s hardly state of the art tech. Is it BT v4 or v5? Surely these latest versions should be evolved, well developed and resilient by now!

Thought Id share as I haven’t managed to fix it yet and get the issue daily.

So I am have a similar issue but I upgraded from an 11 to an 18 and just swapped the Mac Mini out. It recognizes my logitec BT mouse but won't recognize the Apple Magic Keyboard (original) so I can't even set the thing up because I have no keyboard. I have all BT items turned off around me. I am using WiFi but I don't really have an option for an ethernet cable here right now. I can go get a USB one to probably get through, but then I'm concerned this is going to be an ongoing issue? Is this something that be fixed via software/firmware update or do I just take it back. This really sucks as I NEED a new computer ASAP! I have been waiting 2-3 months to get this thing, bring it home and it's broken out of the box, I have never experienced anything like this with Apple in all my years... I'm shocked and really ******.

The LED issue may be valid, not necessarily that of the actual bulbs but a combination of the bulbs and what they are installed into. Did some checking on frequencies etc and it was noted that the support architecture that supplies and coverts the incoming power can create disruptive frequencies. Is that enough to make Bluetooth flacky? I think that this as well as the fact that the Bluetooth installation in the Mac minis is rather weak contribute to it's off and on failure.

@Coqui13, feel your pain with the iMac, luckily I have just purchased an Alienware computer for daily chores and have set the Mac aside exclusively for managing photo library duties. Whilst the AW 17R5 is exceptional, Win10 still has its quirks with such a customised build so even with that it’s not all plain sailing.

I am replying due to your keyboard issue, I suffered similar and ended up having to remove keyboard batteries and then hold the power button on the keyboard for much longer than the stated time which didn’t just put numbers up for Bluetooth pairing but put the keyboard into some kind of reset (eg drops all remembered connections) mode. From memory I think I got a flashing light on the keyboard and then it finally connected. I think I may have connected it to another apple device in the past and it was focussed on this. I couldn’t locate any Bluetooth.plist files to delete in Mojave. Other than this try the Bluetooth reset function by (I think), holding down either the SHIFT and OPTION buttons whilst clicking the Bluetooth bar (if you have it set to on show on the top toolbar) and run the debug option. Apologies if you’ve tried all this already but thought it was worthy of mention.

I’d attach a screenshot but when I just tried to take a photo using my Apple iPhone camera uploading to an Apple forum it said it can’t do it because the image is over 5Mb; just about says it all

:-(

Good luck getting some fixes.

Warren, thx for the reply and info, but I have one problem in that it's not pairing from set up. I am now on my old Mac Mini and it works fine, but when I swap mini's I can't get past making an account on the new one. So I am still at the set up screens. I can't get to any area where I can do anything. I did replace batteries and hold down power button till I got a blinking light, but nada. I am going to go get a USB keyboard for now I guess but I'm torn whether I should just return it because I'm afraid the BT will be a long term issue. I am in kinda rural Spain in the mountains at the moment so it is a long drive to go get anything which makes it an even bigger pain.

I have this same issue, and it isn't just the Magic Mouse. My Apple wireless keyboard and trackpad all disconnect and reconnect seemingly at random. The problem is more pronounced when the CPU is under heavy load, so I suspect there might be a thermal issue.

Inexcusable, really, to have ZERO functioning inputs at random times. I've found that plugging a charging cable into the keyboard will oftentimes "wake up" all three devices, but it's still a pain, and interrupts my workflow.

Seriously ****** off about this. Macs are supposed to get out of the way so I can work, not make demands on my time and attention like some discount Windows machine.

I had the same issue with one of the latest MBPros with USB-C ports.

As other posters have noted the problem is interference in the 2.4GHz band due to leakage from poor quality USB-C cables.

Intel wrote a white paper on this in 2012: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/io/universal-serial-bus/usb3-frequency-interference-paper.html

In my case it was USB-C to 3 x USB 3.0 hub with a 15cm lead.

The solution was simply to wrap the lead in aluminium (or tin) foil.

Problem solved!

My problem then, is, that everything worked fine on the mac mini 2014. The ONLY new thing was the Mac Mini 2018. There were no new cords and NO USB-C or USB 3 cords in use when this happens.

But I'm willing to try the tin foil trick. And, I'll post an update in a few days if it works or not.

The 2014 Mac mini did not have USB-C ports and thus could not possibly have had the 2.4GHz interference problem mentioned above.

If no USB-C or 3 ports are in use on your 2018 Mac mini then there could be a fault with your Mac mini.

It's also possible that interference is being carried by the HDMI lead which I assume you are using to connect your monitor.

(My LG monitor which I use via USB-C came with unusually thick USB-C and HDMI leads which suggests they have good shielding and that HDMI leads might be an issue too).

Another possibility is that there was some existing interference occurring on the 2.4GHz band (when you had your 2014 Mac mini) which did not noticeably impact keyboard or mouse use but for some reason now affects your new Mac mini.

Good luck with the foil.