Problem with Bluetooth - (Attention Mac cult members)

gibbons

gibbons

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The Mac my wife and daughter use has a Bluetooth wireless keyboard (also a Mac). It has worked for about a year. Yesterday it stopped working. We changed batteries and thought that would take care of it. No joy.

I rebooted the Gack, I mean the Mac, and the Bluetooth keyboard couldn't be found. I rebooted again and it found the keyboard and tried to "pair" with it (giving me a number to type using the keyboard) but it won't pair. I run the assistant again and it can't find the keyboard at all. Reboot - it finds the keyboard but won't pair. Repeat until many, many unkind words are spoken about Steve Jobs, his products, and his followers (except the ones on this forum :) ).

Other Bluetooth devices (mouse, phone) still work with the computer. Bad keyboard? Thanks.
 
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gibbons said:
The Mac my wife and daughter use has a Bluetooth wireless keyboard (also a Mac). It has worked for about a year. Yesterday it stopped working. We changed batteries and thought that would take care of it. No joy.

I rebooted the Gack, I mean the Mac, and the Bluetooth keyboard couldn't be found. I rebooted again and it found the keyboard and tried to "pair" with it (giving me a number to type using the keyboard) but it won't pair. I run the assistant again and it can't find the keyboard at all. Reboot - it finds the keyboard but won't pair. Repeat until many, many unkind words are spoken about Steve Jobs, his products, and his followers (except the ones on this forum :) ).

Other Bluetooth devices (mouse, phone) still work with the computer. Bad keyboard? Thanks.
Click to expand...

I had a lot of trouble getting and keeping my Bluetooth enabled PDA paired with my laptop. I vaguely remember that there was some kind of limit to how many devices it would pair with and I think I had to "unpair" (enable discovery?) something to get it to work again.

Here's a couple links:

http://www.learntomac.com/os-x/bluetooth-pairing/

http://kb.palmone.com/SRVS/CGI-BIN/...SupportKB,ts=Palm_External2001,Case=obj(15382)
 
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Jann has all wireless mouse and keyboard and WiFi. It tended to be flaky until 3 or 4 system updates, all with "improvements with handling bluetooth devices" until the day I was amazed that you can hold down the T key on the wirelesss keyboard and the Mac goes into target disk mode BEFORE THE OS BOOTS! just as it does with a wired keyboard.

My Macbook has worked fine with a Logitech Bluetooth mouse and Bluetooth keyboard. I can pick the keyboard up and type and what I type gets sent to the mac after the whole power up and handshake deal. It is amazing.

My advice?
Just make sure you have system updated.
Also be sure the batteries are really fresh. We got burned with that, too.
 
gibbons said:
Other Bluetooth devices (mouse, phone) still work with the computer. Bad keyboard? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Quite possibly, though I generally expect good quality from Apple-brand products. Of course, nobody's ever 100%.

I'd say, do this:

1) Run Software Update (2nd item under the apple menu) to make sure you've got the latest everything.

2) Turn Bluetooth off and on (or the whole darn computer, if you so desire). I seem to get a lot of "hangups" with my phone through Bluetooth, this sometimes solves it (more often, it's the phone's fault and I have to reboot the phone...)

3) Open the Apple System Profiler (should be in Applications/Utilities, or you can choose 'About This Mac' from the apple menu and click the "more info" button) and click "Bluetooth." You're a tech-savvy guy, see if something in there doesn't look quite right. If the computer "sees" the keyboard, info about the keyboard should be displayed as well.

4) go to www.apple.com/support and do a search. They have a very extensive database of good info there. "Bluetooth Keyboard" returned 174 results, so you should be able to give specific symptoms and get something more relevant.

5) Let us know if any of this works!

OBTW, it can't be Steve's fault, he didn't invent Bluetooth. :D
 
flyingcheesehead said:
OBTW, it can't be Steve's fault, he didn't invent Bluetooth. :D
Click to expand...

Kent,

Don't confuse me blaming Steve for me thinking it is actually his fault - I just couldn't resist. :rofl: That was for you and Mike. I knew you'd appreciate it. :no:

Thanks for the input everyone. I'll try again this morning.
 
Here's the solution:

1) Remove brand new Energizer batteries from keyboard.
2) Install brand new Duracell batteries in keyboard.
3) Run Bluetooth setup wizzard.
4) ???????

Thanks folks for the suggestions and the help.
 
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gibbons said:
Here's the solution:

1) Remove brand new Energizer batteries from keyboard.
2) Install brand new Duracell batteries in keyboard.
3) Run Bluetooth setup wizzard.
4) ???????

Thanks folks for the suggestions and the help.
Click to expand...

And I bet it would also work if you now:
4) Remove brand new Duracell batteries from keyboard.
5) Install brand new Energizer batteries in keyboard.
6) Run Bluetooth setup wizard.
 
gprellwitz said:
And I bet it would also work if you now:
4) Remove brand new Duracell batteries from keyboard.
5) Install brand new Energizer batteries in keyboard.
6) Run Bluetooth setup wizard.
Click to expand...

No way, I'm not changing a thing. It's working now and we'll leave it at that. (But you're probably right):yes:
 
gibbons said:
Here's the solution:

1) Remove brand new Energizer batteries from keyboard.
2) Install brand new Duracell batteries in keyboard.
3) Run Bluetooth setup wizzard.
Click to expand...

I thought you had just replaced the batteries without solving the problem. What did you do, replace them with some dead ones you were saving?
 
lancefisher said:
I thought you had just replaced the batteries without solving the problem. What did you do, replace them with some dead ones you were saving?
Click to expand...

I had. I replaced them with new new ones. I'm sure it wasn't the batteries, just happened to work once I'd replaced them again.
 
gibbons said:
I had. I replaced them with new new ones. I'm sure it wasn't the batteries, just happened to work once I'd replaced them again.
Click to expand...

OK. Probably the "recycling" of power to the keyboard put it back into the proper mode for pairing to work.
 
The obviously solution to the problem is to switch to Linux. Kubuntu to be exact.
 
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