Bluetooth connectivity issues

Resolve Wi-Fi and Bluetooth issues caused by wireless interference

Apple cannot fix what is wrong. In all probability you have a cable leaking RF in the 2.4Ghz frequency, which is used by both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. We know this to be true by your own words : when you connect your Apple bluetooth accessories by wire the problem goes away. This necessarily proves the problem is wireless in nature. If the problem is wireless in nature, then something is interfering with the wireless signal. If something is interfering with the wireless signal, the most likely culprit is a faulty cable. To Wit :

If you're using USB 3 devices with your computer, you can limit their potential to interfere with nearby wireless devices:

• Use a high-quality, shielded USB cable with each USB 3 device.
• Move your USB 3 devices—including any USB hubs—farther away from your wireless devices.
• Connect USB 3 devices to the ports farthest from your computer's Wi-Fi antenna. For example, if your computer has ports on the back, prefer the USB ports closest to the middle. If your computer has ports on the side, prefer the USB ports closest to the front.
• Turn off any USB 3 devices that aren't in use.

Apple cannot, does not and will not warrant the fitness of products they do not manufacture. Therefore, it is not logical or reasonable to demand a "fix" from Apple. The "fix" for which you search is unplugging every cable within 30 feet of your Mac, and plugging them in one at a time until you find the faulty cable(s).

Good luck !

As it has been said earlier or maybe in another thread - the USB and Bluetooth have power shared, thus, when certain devices are plugged in and heavily used the signal for the keyboard /mouse is too weak for that period of use. That’s the first issue.

Secondly, if the WiFi signal of the router you connect to is 2.4ghz then that will cause erratic behavior for the Bluetooth keyboard /mouse. The fix here is to connect to the 5Ghz band for your router (I was fortunate to have that option with my brand of router)

this is has been the results of my investigations and the other option if you have lots of data transferring over USB is to get a powered USB hub. But I haven’t tried that.

I'm curious: did you test it with just the new router before doing the re-install? I ask because all I did was change my router and make sure I connect only to the 5GHz network and that solved my problem completely. That's all it took.

MKberlin I'm quite sure it's the full re-install indeed. I took my mac mini to all different places and setups and everywhere the trackpad or keyboard would disconnect. In some places it would sometimes take more than an hour to show the trouble, but it would always happen. Until now after the full re-install.

I also had an issue with my login screen: my mouse pointer would be super slow and buggy in the system login screen and on my keyboard I sometimes needed to strike a key 5 or 6 times to make it appear in the password field. Very annoying, but that seems to be fixed as well now.

My Mac Mini started out with intense Bluetooth problems. I traced it to low power on the internal power bus that runs BOTH the USB and the Bluetooth interfaces, which is why it’s so hard to diagnose. First, I added a powered USB hub to reduce power consumption. Unfortunately, I also later found that the fan spinning up under load has the same effect. Apple did a fix of sorts in the last update, but this also made mouse actions in games more sluggish because the reconnect routines (which is what was removed and caused the problem) needs to be gone for the next big Apple initiative.

Yes, it’s an Apple problem, but across at least four groups who aren’t talking together. Luckily, Diablo works good enough for me, even with the laggy mouse.

The real fix is a higher wattage power supply.

Zapping the PRam seems to fix the problem for a while for me. I've had to do it a couple of times but my Apple trackpad was unusable otherwise. It kept un/re-connecting every few minutes. Seems to be okay after zapping PRam a couple of times.

Has anybody looked at the connection quality of their bluetooth devices? I just checked by OPTIONB-clicking the bluetooth icon in the stratus bar and inspecting my connected mouse, keyboard and trackpad.

The values I see are between -45dB and -63dB for RSSI.

Looking at different sources on the web I find comments that anything below -50dB is considered a bad connection.

My mouse is about 50cm away from the macMini! How can that give me -63dB?

What values do you see there?

I don't even have the WiFi turned on on my Mac Mini, I use the Ethernet port, always have. I still have had the same issues with Bluetooth not working well, if at all.

So far for me I have had fewer issues with the Logitech UltraThin mouse then the Magic Mouse. I also get very limited range with my BT headset compared to that I was getting off the iMac. That part I can understand since the iMac BT antenna could have been at the top of the display but the mouse and KB issues are inexcusable as they are within a foot of the computer.

FWIW it works much better with the outer USB port unoccupied and the backup hard drives relocated under the desk but still nowhere near as well as it should, especially for an Apple product.

I actually had nothing on the USB ports. I also have the latest Apple keyboard and mouse.

It was the router 2.4ghz frequency that was affecting my setup

changing the router WiFi to 5Ghz looks like it’s worked for me. So weird. I’ve have the same setup as you.

Would love to hear if it worked for you too

Turning off 2.4ghz worked for me.

I've found that it's a power problem, but complicated immensely because the power is SHARED between the USB and Bluetooth hardware. Similar things happened to PCs back in the early days of USB. What a fun mess, I bought several hubs before I found a mystical combination that worked, then I never changed it. So far, the addition of a powered hub has fixed my mouse tracking problem. Like any good game of Jenga, I'll probably think twice before adding another USB device to the mix.

It is unlikely a power issue, but a "shielding" issue from the USB-3 cable, which is an known issue of USB-3 to interfere with BT. In your case, when you switched to a powered hub, the power version may have different shielding so the problem did not occur. For a device that the shielding is fundamentally bad, plug in the power or not, does not matter.

I am having major issues with Bluetooth, Apple must know this by now but are staying silent. My first Mac Mini 2018 3.2Ghz i7 kept diconnecting the mouse and the keyboard randomly and when I plugged in the trackpad to pair it also loses intenet connectivity. I sent it back as presumed faulty unit as was totally unusable. I now have the replacement and although not quite as bad I constantly lose keyboard connection and was losing Magic Mouse too until I swapped to my logitech which is more stable. The tackpad also works, however, if I plug my SD card reader into a thunderbolt port I lose internet again - WiFi shows connected but no internet. Once I unplug the SD card reader it I get the internet back. There is a fundamental design issue here and Apple need to either recall the Mac Mini 2018 or issue a fix of some sort as it's infuriating. As I write this I have lost keboard connection 3 times, seems to be when taking a pause typing.

Have you tried to have wifi on, but not connecting to any network at all?