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High Sierra kills bluetooth

S

strangedaysuk

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 5, 2010
9
0
I have scoured the net for a while looking into the bluetooth problems with High Sierra and my macbook mid 2012.

It stopped working as soon as I went to High sierra, is disappeared from system information - so it looks like there is no bluetooth device at all. It was definitley working perfectly until the upgrade.

I have tried many of the tricks including deleting the bluetooth .plist file, reinstalling the OS, opening up the mac to check all the connections are good.

An upon looking on the internet there appears to be a thread about this issue here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8129665?start=90&tstart=0

Now, I might have missed a big conversation on these forums here so if I have please point me that way, but its obviously a problem for many older macbook users. I am reluctant to throw away my macbook as its an i7 with 16gb ram SSD drive etc, so not a bad computer and works well with the music stuff I do.

But I use a Korg keyboard that connects with Bluetooth that I use a lot so I really want bluetooth to work. So has anyone any idea where things are with this? Im not trying to blow my own trumpet but I am an IT field engineer so I have some troubleshooting skills under my belt and I have tried everything I can think of and it feels to me like High sierra has either:

1. Damaged, changed the firmware in the bluetooth.
2. Problem with drivers
3. Some users not having issues may have a different bluetooth controller - my mac was refurbished through apple, is there a chance they put a slightly different bluetooth card in there?
4. It has actually died in a very unlucky coincidence.
 
Sounds like you have tried most everything you can do
If you have a Apple Store in the vicinity, I would suggest having them take a look at it
Perhaps they have some diagnostic tools that can uncover something you have been unable to find
Apart from that, you may need to contact Apple and see if you can send it in for a look
[doublepost=1519125768][/doublepost]Looking at the Similar Threads at the bottom of this page it looks like others have started threads which have plenty of views and no responses

Screen Shot 2018-02-20 at 6.21.34 AM.png
 
If you can check with Apple store, let them look at it. If not or if it is too expensive, check some hackintosh forums, there are usb BT plugs which work natively with OSX and you can replace the internal BT card functionality without replacing the original card for ~$20.
 
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Thanks for your help - seems like its just an unknown so maybe a bluetooth dongle is the way forward. If I get to go to an apple store I will get them to look. High Sierra has been the worst upgrade I have seen from Apple - perhaps mavericks being second but many of the issues were resolved.
 
Well, gosh darn it, MF - way to go on making this link hard to add:

www. Howtoisolve . Com /bluetooth-not-working-mac-macos-reset-fixed/

There seemed to be some stuff there that you didn't mention. Join it all back together before surfing!

MF seems to take a dislike to the domain name - unsure why...
 
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A while back and a couple of upgrades ago, I had a Bluetooth problem in that my keyboard and mouse would not work at all
I tried everything and read everything I could to get it back and nothing worked
Then I stumbled randomly on the two commands below
I have no idea what they do or how they work honestly, but I put both in the terminal and rebooted and it worked

So, I doubt it will be a fix for you, but it costs you nothing to try...


sudo kextunload -b com.apple.iokit.BroadcomBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport

sudo kextload -b com.apple.iokit.BroadcomBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport
 
MacDawg said:
A while back and a couple of upgrades ago, I had a Bluetooth problem in that my keyboard and mouse would not work at all
I tried everything and read everything I could to get it back and nothing worked
Then I stumbled randomly on the two commands below
I have no idea what they do or how they work honestly, but I put both in the terminal and rebooted and it worked

So, I doubt it will be a fix for you, but it costs you nothing to try...


sudo kextunload -b com.apple.iokit.BroadcomBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport

sudo kextload -b com.apple.iokit.BroadcomBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport
Click to expand...


Thanks not sure if I have tried this will give it a go.

My issue is that none of the utilities for bluetooth are available as the bluetooth is not even found under system report - just the bluetooth section then something along the lines of no information found.

Whats crazy is the wifi is working fine, and its all one board - I assume it must be separate chips and one has failed.
 
Never got this to work. I live quite far from an apple store, so might have to live with this for now. Such a shame as apart from the bluetooth it seems ok - well apart from that mess of an OS high sierra which is so buggy.....
 
My AirPods work flawlessly with my iPhone and iPad, but when I connect to my MacBook Pro I start to have weird issues. The distance hasn't been as good and getting worse, connects to the wrong output sometimes, disconnects and pings randomly. Very weird, hopefully they'll get the kinks worked out soon.
 
i talked to AppleCare and they had me try a few things. eventually they asked me to double-click bloutooth-file-exchange.app and it said "no bluetooth hardware found". Bluetooth worked before I upgraded to 10.13 so I guess it's unlikely hardware. So now I'm supposed to make an AppleCare appointment and get it fixed. Can't deal with this before March 19th. I hope they don't have me drop off my MacBook three times and then send it in and keep it for a week or more.
 
andiwm2003 said:
i talked to AppleCare and they had me try a few things. eventually they asked me to double-click bloutooth-file-exchange.app and it said "no bluetooth hardware found". Bluetooth worked before I upgraded to 10.13 so I guess it's unlikely hardware. So now I'm supposed to make an AppleCare appointment and get it fixed. Can't deal with this before March 19th. I hope they don't have me drop off my MacBook three times and then send it in and keep it for a week or more.
Click to expand...

Update: I had my "genius" appointment. They tried their "known working" OS from an external drive and bluetooth worked. So it's the OS thats the problem. They asked me to make a time machine backup overnight of my machine and then come back so they can install a new OS on my MBP and i can then use time machine to get my data and everything back. The "genius" wiped my HD next day. I could not actually retore the computer in the apple store from my time machine and they sent me home assuring me everything is fine and the time machine backup would automatically restore everything. Big joke. Time machine did not restore more than about 20 % of my data. I guess they installed a lower OS than High Sierra. All settings and programs are lost. Data are mostly lost in time machine.

I have a carbon copy cloner copy of the HD so I luckily have everything somewhere. However I can't clone this back to the SSD in my MBP. It doesn't boot. Now I have to install Sierra from scratch and the install all programs manually and all data manually and maybe I even remember most of the settings that I like. Keychain has to be installed manually again. A huge mess. The apple store guys are a joke. How can they wipe a HD and guarantee the time machine backup would work if they send me out with a lower OS. I couldn't even check that because I got in the store only to the setup screen before it asked for the time machine restore. If I wasn't so paranoid and wouldn't have extra backups I would have lost most of my data.

Where can I complain about this and has anybody ideas how to fix this without having to reinstall everything by hand?


BTW: now the computer is stuck in internet recovery installing Sierra. I have no idea if it is installing anything or just sitting there. It shows a white apple on a black background with fans at full speed.
 
Update 2:
erased the SSD (had to format it as something different and then again as journaled extended/GUIDto get it to work)
was finally able to install a new Sierra - Bluetooth worked
updated to High Sierra - Bluetooth still worked
migrated all data and settings from a carbon copy of the MBP before all of this mess as a new admin account - Bluetooth still works!!!

So it seems it was a software problem. No idea when/why bluetooth stopped working before but a fresh OS install did it. The major pain really was the fact that the genius sent me home with a sierra version of the OS and I tried to restore from a High Sierra time machine backup. I couldn't see that in the shop because I had only the setup screen in front of me. Genius:rolleyes:

Now I just have to wait for 2 days while Photos syncs to iCloud.
 
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andiwm2003 said:
Update 2:
erased the SSD (had to format it as something different and then again as journaled extended/GUIDto get it to work)
was finally able to install a new Sierra - Bluetooth worked
updated to High Sierra - Bluetooth still worked
migrated all data and settings from a carbon copy of the MBP before all of this mess as a new admin account - Bluetooth still works!!!

So it seems it was a software problem. No idea when/why bluetooth stopped working before but a fresh OS install did it. The major pain really was the fact that the genius sent me home with a sierra version of the OS and I tried to restore from a High Sierra time machine backup. I couldn't see that in the shop because I had only the setup screen in front of me. Genius:rolleyes:

Now I just have to wait for 2 days while Photos syncs to iCloud.
Click to expand...


I missed this sorry - very interesting - I may have to try installing from scratch. Where can and how can I go back to Sierra?
 
strangedaysuk said:
I missed this sorry - very interesting - I may have to try installing from scratch. Where can and how can I go back to Sierra?
Click to expand...
The only way this worked for me was to boot the computer from an external hard drive (a clone of the internal disk made by super duper) and erase the internal disk with disk utility. Then I had to reformat the internal disk otherwise the internet recovery would say "a time machine backup exists, use time machine".
Then I booted the MBP without the external HD attached and after a minute the MBP would show the symbol for internet recovery (i guess you have to be on your home wifi for this to work. I got several options what to do, one of them was "instal a new OS". I chose that one and it took about 60 min and then I had Sierra on my MBP. Keep in mind this i a 2015 MBP, before the last form factor change to the USB-C MBP's.
 
Hi everybody, I experienced bluetooth disconnections since I bought a brand new iMac 27 5k, last january 2018. Especially when it went to stop function. I was very upset. Stop. I tried the following: open monitor preferences > click on "prevent computer to go automatically to stop when monitor is off (or something like this in english...). Well, since that moment everything goes perfect. No more disconnections. Try. Bye.
 
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