MacBooks Experiencing Bluetooth Problems

flowolf writes in with news that Apple seems to be having difficulty getting to grips with a Bluetooth problem on MacBooks. Bluetooth goes unavailable intermittently from what users are assuming is a hardware problem, and while it's out the machines won't stay in sleep mode. Complaints started last spring on the Apple forum, which is still quite active. Many people have had to send their MacBooks for repair more than once without a satisfactory resolution.

Bluetooth mice and keyboards...

[Speare]

I recently moved, and found some troubling differences in Bluetooth performance. At the old place, my bluetooth keyboard and mouse worked quite solidly: smooth responsive mouse motion and I could type full speed without problems. The range was quite good with no deterioration at 5ft. At the new place, the mouse often jitters or sloshes as I move it, and if I type quickly, once in a while it will receive the keystrokes in a different order. (At first I felt it was just an occasional transpose mistake on my part, but every once in a while, a whole word will be received *mostly* backwards.) There's a noticeable improvement/degradation effect if I simply move a Coke can around on my desk, even if I keep the mouse within about 2ft of the Mac. The mouse is so bad I switched to an older radio-based wireless mouse instead.

I'm guessing from other cases mentioned on the web that Bluetooth gets stuck trying to resend packets if there's interference killing some packets. I imagine this sort of jitter and resend loop can be a big problem if it happens in a sleep mode.

Silence from Apple

[klagermkii]

The real problem is the total lack of communication from anyone on Apple's side to these kinds of problems. Bluetooth problems have been an ongoing issue since I started using Tiger (10.4.4), with everything from the aforementioned "Bluetooth unavailable", to problems with using DUN via Bluetooth (dial up too often via DUN and it just mysteriously dies), to issues where Bluetooth PAN simply disables itself. Now after a good 2 years this kind of stuff gets really tiring but no one at Apple says a word which adds an extra layer of frustration to the whole process. Are they even aware of the problems from their aluminium tower?

Now compare that with Microsoft who also had Bluetooth problems [msdn.com] with their phones, and you can actually get some kind of interactivity with the developers. Your end users might end up being a bit nasty to you on the forum, but it's far less than the ill-feelings your brand generates if you just clam up.

Re:Bluetooth mice and keyboards...

[AltGrendel]

I'd be curious as to the age difference between the two places. Newer construction tends to use the metal studs internally for drywall, I'd like to know if that makes a difference. Did you move from a townhouse to a house. An apartment maybe?

Anyway, I'm sure that the difference in construction have a lot to do with it.

Bluetooth, meh

[kevmatic]

I haven't been terribly impressed with bluetooth. I bought a (rather expensive) bluetooth mouse for my Acer laptop, and I keep experiencing random disconnects in Windows with it. Not in Kubuntu, though. The mouse works perfectly in Linux.

And evidently the XP Bluetooth stack is some third party thing you can uninstall and reinstall, because I had to reinstall it to even get it to do anything.

And it seems that most phones have very few bluetooth features beyond headsets. Like you can't upload and download photos without some crappy phone tools software if you have a Motorola.

Has anyone found bluetooth to be reliable for them? Any success stories?

Yes

[El Lobo]

My girlfriend (yes, I have one) have a macbook pro and has been experimenting this problem since the day she bough the thing. Sometimes it works well, but some days blue toth connections just intermitently sut downs and there is no way to get it right. The thing is that there is no way to consistently reproduce the problem.

The funny thing is that Apple support here in Stockholm said to here that "there is nothing wrong with it".... Oh well...

Old problems...

[sakusha]

I've noticed a few oddities with Apple's BlueTooth keyboards and mice, but nothing that makes them totally unusable. I have a Quad G5 and a BlueTooth Keyboard and Mighty Mouse. Every two weeks or so, I get a "Lost Connection" message about my mouse, it goes totally dead, so I have to plug in a USB mouse, go to BT Settings, and manually re-pair the mouse before it will work again. Now just the other day, I got the same error with my Apple BlueTooth Keyboard, had to re-pair that too. But after the re-pair, everything works fine. I'm baffled, there is no obvious cause for the loss of contact, and even if it was something basic like RF interference, the devices should work again if I just power them down and back up again. But that's not sufficient, I have to delete previous BT settings and re-pair. That sounds like a software problem in the OS or drivers. Oh well, it doesn't happen often enough to be more than a minor annoyance.

Re:Bluetooth, meh

[Anonymous Coward]

When it comes to Bluetooth on phones, your issue is with the provider. Try GSM phones instead of Verizon.

With my Motorola RAZR from Cingular/AT&T, I can download/upload images and songs/ringtones via the Browse device on my PowerBook. I can also sync my calendar and address book with ease. I can pair my Headset and my Acura TL Handsfree with ease. And last, but not least, I experience the good old days of slow Internet browsing when I use it as a modem. (It's slow because it's GPRS.)

So, yeah. Cell phone provider's suck. The only ones that let you do anything good with your phone are those that don't require your phone to physically designed to only work with that provider. I just wish there was a better option than AT&T in my area. (T-Mobile doesn't work 5 feet into my house.)

Re:Bluetooth mice and keyboards...

[Speare]

I would have thought that adding metal would make the signal worse. If anything, it's the opposite. I moved from a 12-year old apartment building with steel central vents, and a glass-and-steel desk, to a 120-year old house with wood floors, slat-and-lath walls, and a mostly wood desk. If anything, the old place must have been *absorbing* signal.

Apple needs more Engineers

[Anonymous Coward]

I am starting to get fed up with OSX - I got a brand new replacement MacBook Pro after going through three weeks of unsuccessful repairs and damage during repair. I continously get dropped Aiport connections along with a ton of errors in system log about ath_intr_proc or something like that. Apple says they are aware of this problem - yeah ok, it's 3 months already. Where is the fix?

Next, every update kills some applications - 3rd time now, iWeb 2.0.2 update killed the whole iLife set of apps - they no longer start due to missing framework or something. This is a long known bug with Apple's linker dyld which zeroes shared libraries while pre-linking. No word from Apple on when/if it will be fixed - so people have to keep their fingers crossed everytime they do an update. Apple's response for the time being is to replace those zeroed files from install DVD. _ALL_ of my previously reported bugs (some 2 years old now) have had no updates from Apple yet.

Contrast this with MSFT - The network stall issue is already being worked upon and they handled the whole thing in a good way - there was even Developer interaction. Similarly with slow file copy I was able to talk to their support team and Engineers - a fix is already in place. Recently I tried installling Blackberry software which failed - Vista automatically applied right compatibility settings and restarted the install - it went on successfully. Vista is again very nice with Driver support attempts - Even with 64-bit edition, most of my MacBook Pro hardware gets drivers from Windows update - WHQL certified Silicon Image drivers for my expresscard SATA work flawlessly on Vista - suspend/resume/yanking-the-card all works fine. With Apple I have to download them from obscure Silicon Image website, they are not certified or tested, they crash regularly and even eat my iPod disk for no reason and I have nowhere to go to complain.

Microsoft is a company built to handle the problems that come with widespread success - Apple is clearly not and they need to recruit to catch up.

Logitech Bluetooth Has Similar Problems

[Gertlex]

I use just a bluetooth mouse for my everyday computing.

My Logitech V270 occasionally stops working. The most efficient solution I've found has been to toggle my Dell laptop's bluetooth via the wireless hotkey (Fn + F2 for me), pause, turn off mouse, turn on bluetooth, pause, turn on mouse.

The fact that it occurs both with and without Logitech's Setpoint software indicates that it's either a hardware problem or bluetooth stack problem. And it's not just me, it's a common complaint on Logitech's forum that has gone unanswered.

Re:Apple needs more Engineers

[EastCoastSurfer]

I agree that Apple is stretched beyond its resources at the moment. They've even admitted as much when they delayed the next OS X because they were working on the iPhone. Personally I hate the iPhone, because from what I can tell it's destroying Apple from a company management standpoint. They are dealing with resource constraints now, getting more heavy handed than they have ever been when it came to hacking their devices and pre-announcing products to manage stock price. I wonder if we'll (other apple supporters/fanboys) look back and see the iPhone as the jump-the-shark moment for Apple?

Re:M$ and ACPI Strike Again.

[Achromatic1978]

Err... one reason amongst many possibles - because HP didn't develop the BT device, or write the driver?