Apple keyboard/mouse/trackpad stop working intermittently

In order to do the following you will need a USB keyboard and mouse!!! Any USB keyboard and mouse will work, if you do not have a set borrow or buy them, they are inexpensive.

• Connect the USB keyboard and mouse
• System Preferences - Bluetooth
• Un-pair both the wireless keyboard and mouse
• Turn off Bluetooth
• Restart the computer in Safe Mode per Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support
• Restart the computer normally
• System Preferences - Bluetooth
• Turn on Bluetooth
• Pair the wireless keyboard and mouse and test
• remove USB keyboard and mouse.

Please use the following Apple Advice letter for how to handle your problem. If your Apple wireless mouse, keyboard, or trackpad isn't working as expected - Apple Support

Either yours is a Bluetooth behavioral problem, or early symptoms of more mischief about to befall you…

My Late-2013 27" iMac was purchased used this summer from the local University. Worked like a charm up until mid-October, when I began to experience Magic Mouse 2 disconnects, wired Apple keyboard freezes, mounted drive ejects, and jagged graphics across my screen. On multiple occasions, I reset the SMC (shutdown, unplug, wait 15s, power on), and NVRAM resets. These would fix the issue for about a minute, then the mayhem repeated. Running El Capitan 10.11.6. Switching USB ports made no difference. Safe Boot, and booting into Recovery with Disk First aid were all useless.

Managed to get clean High Sierra installed, but on reboot, even a wired mouse and keyboard would freeze, and after about a day, was able to get configurations done, and reboot. This clean install of the operating system made no difference, and all of the above issues returned with a vengence, and I retired the iMac.

Since the USB ports and Bluetooth are all in the same physical area of the logic board, I assumed that this was the failure, and the cost would be $500 before labor for the new logic board. Not worth it.

s_w_i_t_t_e_r_s wrote:

Thanks. Nothing in that article applies, so I think it must be a software issue. The problem started out of the blue and nothing changed with my hardware setup prior to that.

Please do all the troubleshooting steps in the article as described even if you feel they don't apply to your situation. If the problem persists then you will need to get a USB keyboard and mouse (borrow one if you don' have them) to fix the problem.

Unplug *everything* third-party from your Mac. Every hard drive, every dongle - every bit of it. Test to see if the bluetooth woes continue.

The problem is rarely with the Mac. Almost always the problem lies with a third-party peripheral where the manufacturer has cut corners in the proper shielding of their cabling. The cable 'leaks' a 2.4 GHz signal which, more often than not, interferes with bluetooth and can even interfere with WiFi.

Once you have stable bluetooth then plug the third-party devices in one at a time and test. When your Mac bluetooth goes wonky, you have found the culprit. Replace that cord with a high-quality cable and your problem should be fixed.

A known issue.? Honestly I don't know 🤔. I was involved with another thread and that user found that switching handoff off solved his bluetooth issues. I haven't experienced any issues on my late 2015 iMac so I can't test it to prove or disprove. Please post back and let us know if that works or not.

The suggestion to unplug everything is a solid piece of advice if this doesn't fix it. Interference is a major cause of blue issues.

By chance do you have Handoff turned on in system preferences? Try turning it off to see if your bluetooth problems stop.