Quote:
Originally Posted by JFreak
Turning bluetooth off/on did not solve it.
Rebooting did not solve it.
Resetting PRAM did not solve it.
Mysteriously, I got my mouse and keyboard back once I disconnected every other USB device except iLok key, which is obviously needed.
Once I put my USB stuff back it has so far been behaving nicely.
So... take a look at your USB, that was the trick here.
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This past 18 months, I've owned 3 differet Mac Minis (2018) and a M1. They all have these Blutooth problems. There are thousands of posts about this all over the net, and Apple has not adressed it at all. We are many that have concluded that it is somewhat of a design flaw, the ports and bluetooth antenna crammed in too close together.
After a year of troubleshooting this, here are my conclusions:
With none of the ports in use, BT is fine.
As you start to plug in devices, the BT problems show up gradually, and the BT range gets smaller and smaller until the mouse and keyboard don't work even within inches of the mac.
Then start to unplug TB and USB devices and the range and stability of BT returns.
I too saw that unplugging USB stuff seemed to be most effective, but I also saw that unplugging high performace things like SSDs had bigger impact than simpler stuff like MIDI devices.
Also, physical objects in the line between mac and device can have a big impact, as does the placement and position. I found that it was better placed on its side with the bottom facing out.
I now use only three of the ports:
1 USB for my Focusrite interface, 1 Thunderbolt for a slow backup SSD, and 1 for a TB hub with SSD, HDMI screen, and more USB hubs.
With lots of experiments on where to best place it, I now have Blutooth working good with my three sets of keyboard/mouse at different distances from the mac, up to 12 feet I guess, so it is possible.
I did try a windows-blutetooth dongle, didn't get it to work, some suggest changing the frequency of BT, didn't work for me. The only two solid workarounds for this are: 1 - Wired devices, and 2 - buy non-apple devices that have their own bluetooth dongle. They work perfectly fine.