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Bluetooth disappearing!


potluck
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This problem seems to happen on normal macbooks, but not on osx86s. The standard solution on Apple's help is to reset nvram - but this doesnt work on an osx86.

 

I cant use my keyboard! any ideas?

 

10.5.6 on an intel core duo, Shuttle xpc sx48p2

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I have my osx86 box running 10.5.8 nicely on an ASUS P5KPL-CM and have very few complaints.

Recently when Apple released the Magic Mouse, I wanted to get one so I figured it was time to put a bluetooth dongle on my USB port and buy one.

 

I got the Belkin USB adaptor because it's actually Apple Logo ready and recognizes mac out of the box. I took it home and hooked it up, tested it on my iPod and forgot about it, figuring everything was just fine.

 

When I got my new Mighty mouse (delivered to me at work) I happily used it the rest of the day at work on my 24" iMac and got very comfortable with it fairly quickly. I figured doing the same at home would be as much of a snap. Unfortunately this wasn't the case, sort of...

 

At first it wasn't recognizing the mouse, and was saying "no bluetooth device connected" This meant it wasn't seeing the Belkin adaptor... strange... I unpaired my iPod and all devices until the list was empty, and then had the option to add a new bluetooth device, so I proceeded to add the magic mouse. During the "search for new bluetooth devices" dialog, I had the option to turn Bluetooth on, which was the sticky part. In searching for the device, you can turn your bluetooth on, but without searching, the On/Off checkbox was unavailable!

 

I figured it wasn't a big deal, since it was now on and working and recognizing the Magic Mouse fine. I proceeded to download the Magic Mouse update and reboot my computer. When I rebooted, no mouse, no bluetooth. I had to plug in my USB mouse just to get to system prefs and see what was up. I was able to re-pair the Magic Mouse by removing it and re-adding it like before, but this is really annoying to do every time you boot, and if you have several devices or need another mouse present to do it, it's a ROYAL PAIN IN THE ASS.

 

So I did a little looking around and found a very seamless solution that works perfectly well, allows you to boot up and have your Bluetooth mouse detect perfectly fine with no need to to anything except wiggle the mouse to confirm that it's been detected!!

 

Here's the fix:

 

First, download blueutil by Frederik Seiffert (hopefully attached to this message!). It's a free OSX command line utility for your bluetooth. You will have to install it with the included installer, or you can do it from terminal copying the blueutil command into /usr/local/bin

You can test that it installed properly by typing in some of the following commands:

 

blueutil status
blueutil off
blueutil on

 

The status command will tell you if you bluetooth is on or off, where on and off actually turns your bluetooth on and off!

 

2. Next, install the following .plist launch daemon.

Open terminal and type switch to super user (type in your password when asked) and create the property list (.plist):

 

sudo -s
touch /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.osx86.bluetooth.plist

 

Now open your favorite editor (i.e. vi or nano) and create the file by inserting the following code into it (copy and paste is ok):

 

nano /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.osx86.bluetooth.plist 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
       <key>Label</key>
       <string>Bluetooth Activation Daemon</string>
       <key>ProgramArguments</key>
       <array>
               <string>/usr/local/bin/blueutil</string>
               <string>on</string>
       </array>
       <key>StartInterval</key>
       <integer>5</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

 

What this plist does is tell your launch daemon to start the blueutil program every five seconds and tell it to turn your bluetooth on. That way if it becomes unplugged or reset etc., it will just come back the next time the daemon runs, in about 5 seconds. This is the same thing that a LaunchDaemon does if your finder crashes. Eventually you will see your dock pop back up because a launch daemon is smart enough to hang around and look once in a while to see that the dock is ok and restarts it if it's not.

 

Note that the <integer>5</integer> is the number of seconds it waits between attempts to turn on your bluetooth. If you're in less of a hurry, you can change it to 10 or 15, but I found it annoying to wait that long during testing, so I set it to 5 seconds.

 

Save the .plist file and make sure the ownership of the file is set to root, then launch this bad boy with the launchctl tool:

 

chown root:wheel /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.osx86.bluetooth.plist
launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.osx86.bluetooth.plist

 

If you decide you want to {censored} around with the interval, make sure you stop and restart the daemon so that the changes take effect:

 

launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.osx86.bluetooth.plist 
launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.osx86.bluetooth.plist 

 

The next time you reboot, the launch daemon will automatically be started (that's what launch daemons do!!), so you don't have to type anything into terminal. Just sit back and use your mouse or keyboard or what have you.

 

Please post here if you have any success with other devices (or less happily, failures). This solution works for me and my Belkin Bluetooth adaptor, but may not be as wonderful for you. On the other hand, this solution might be able to let someone sleep who has had no end of grief since they started using bluetooth! Here's hoping it's good news for YOU!!

 

Mr Moebius

blueutil.dmg

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  • 1 month later...

installing blueutil as discribed works fine. After installation blueutil status sends me an "is on" message (but it dont work after 10.5.8 update/latest security update)

then i follow your lines with creating the plist. After reboot: no Bluetooth ... but from now on

blueutil status says:

Error: Bluetooth not available

 

launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.osx86.bluetooth.plist says:

Bluetooth Activation Daemon: Already loaded

 

 

Any idea to get my bluetooth mouse back?

On Apple Machines zapping the PRAM works i can read in many apple discussion boards. any hint to do anything like this with oSX86 machines? ^^

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// get bluetooth working ...

 

no idea why ... have backupped one hour all possibillitys:

- IOBluetoothFamily.kext

- IOBluetoothHIDDriver.kext

- IOUSBFamily.kext

 

from 10.5.2, 10.5.8 and 10.5.8 with security update 0006-2009

mixed, combined etc ... also deleted every *.bluetooth.plist i found on my system - and tons of restarts later and the kexts from latest version (10.5.8 with security update 006-2009) installed my bluetooth is back!!! no hacks, no patches! also my devices are connected fine and working as full as before on 10.5.2

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