Bluetooth issues after Catalina update

[Sebastian Rydberg]

Hi! I'm having Bluetooth and Firewall issues with the OS Catalina update. I've got the latest generation Mac Mini. I've tried to follow different troubleshooting pages after updating to Catalina on my Mac Mini after some issues cropped up, to no avail. Apple Support have tried helping too. My Apple keyboard sometimes loses connection. My Magic Mouse is sluggish, sometimes not responding at all (not moving or scrolling down or even clicking!). I have tried reinstalling it and removing drivers and Preference files from the library. I had no Bluetooth issues until this update.

On top of this, I keep getting Firewall notifications to allow incoming signals. I've given all the apps permission to bypass the Firewall so I'm at a loss here. Again, this never used to happen until this update. Would really appreciate any help as I don't want to restore to a past version. Thanks!

 

[newellj]

Can't help on the firewall, or Catalina-specific issues. I can tell you that with every version of MacOS going back 10 years or so I've had intermittent issues with BT.

Right now I'm using a late 2012 and a late 2018 (both; both running Mojave) with two of the last version of the Magic Keyboard and a Magic Mouse on the late 2018 and a Magic Trackpad 2 on the late 2012. The keyboards are rock solid until the batteries get low. The MTP2 has also been rock solid. I have two MM. One is just flakey. The other one is good but not perfect until the battery gets down to around 20%. Changing the batteries seems to solve the problem.

I have ferrites (RF chokes) on EVERY USB-A cable that's connected to either of the Minis. Easy/cheap from Amazon and I think they help.