Bluetooth Not Available — Fixed
If you have a Macbook, and at some point, you get “Bluetooth not available” from your laptop, and “No information found” in your System Information app for Bluetooth, it might help if you try to reset the Macbook SMC, as described in Resetting MacBook and MacBook Pro System Management Controller (SMC). I had this problem for the past couple days, and doing this fixed it for me.
(This article is largely published so that others searching for “Bluetooth Not Available” may be able to find it before taking their Mac into the shop.)
May 15th, 2010 at 8:40 am
Most of the time my Mac Pro shows the grayed out bluetooth icon in the menu bar after starting up.
The trick for me is to uncheck “Show Bluetooth status in the menu bar” in System Preferences and then recheck it. Then it works just fine.
So maybe it’s just a bug with the menu bar icon. I think I’ll leave the menu bar icon away and see if bluetooth works effortlessly.
May 20th, 2010 at 9:31 am
This did it for me, I’ve got bluetooth again. Thank you very much!
May 21st, 2010 at 4:00 pm
The solution to all your problems is resetting the SMC. The system management controller s responsible for many low-level functions on Intel-based Macs. These functions include:
Responding to presses of the power button
Responding to display lid opening and closing on portable Macs
Battery management
Thermal management
The SMS (Sudden Motion Sensor)
Ambient light sensing
Keyboard backlighting
Status Indicator Light (SIL) management
Battery status indicator lights
Selecting an external (instead of internal) video source for some iMac displays
Before you reset the SMC try all of these steps, in this order.
1. Press Command + Option + Escape to force quit any application that is not responding.
2.Put your Mac to sleep by choosing the Apple () menu from the upper-left menu bar and then choosing Sleep. Wake the computer after it has gone to sleep.
3.Restart your Mac by by choosing the Apple () menu from the upper-left menu bar and then choosing Restart.
4. Shut down your Mac by by choosing the Apple () menu from the upper-left menu bar and then choosing Shut Down.
If restarting your computer doesnt fix the problem follow these steps:
Portable computers that have a battery you should not remove on your own include MacBook Pro (Early 2009) and later, all models of MacBook Air, and MacBook (Late 2009).
Shut down the computer.
Plug in the MagSafe power adapter to a power source, connecting it to the Mac if its not already connected.
On the built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option keys and the power button at the same time.
Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.
Press the power button to turn on the computer. Note: The LED on the MagSafe power adapter does not change states or temporarily turn-off when you reset the SMC.
June 3rd, 2010 at 9:22 pm
We think we have finally licked our Mac mini wifi problem:
http://www.rainydaymagazine.com/RDM2010/Home/June/Week1/RDMHomeJun0410.htm#MacMiniTempControl
We think ours is temperature related. The experiments we did with FanControl were pretty conclusive. Your mileage may vary.
June 5th, 2010 at 9:32 pm
For me, this problem appears to be heat related. Shutting down and letting it cool for an hour fixes it until it runs hot again. I’m installing smcFanControl to help avoid overheating.
June 12th, 2010 at 3:21 am
Not sure if this is the same as others have reported, but sounds similar. This happens every few days to me – of all the things I have tried, it always seems to get fixed if you shut down, disconnect power, and hold power button down for 10-20 seconds until it makes a noise…..had booted from the old battery and System Profiler said “No information available” on bluetooth….
Thank you……
____________________________________________________________
Johnpeter
June 22nd, 2010 at 12:48 am
Bluetooth disappeared from my Mac Mini running 10.5.8. The suggestion above about removing the bluetooth preferences, shutting down, leaving it for a few minutes and rebooting without anything else plugged in worked for me. I did have to repair my bluetooth keyboard afterwards but it works for now.
July 4th, 2010 at 11:18 am
This worked for me instantaneously! I feel bad for those of you with hard ware troubles…sucks. But this worked for me, thank the good lord.
July 6th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
http://bluhaloit.wordpress.com/2008/06/11/solve-intermittent-bluetooth-problems-on-the-mac-mini/ …helped me.
…mine appeared to be temperature related as well. Temps were up around 175F and bluetooth stopped working. When it came back to around 130F bluetooth came back.
July 16th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
I recently started having the same issue with my Mac Mini, circa 3 years old, running Snow Leopard with all the latest fixes.
I have not tried all the workarounds mentioned here yet, other than changing the fan speed with smc – which did not help.
Strange thing is, bluetooth continues to work perfectly when using bootcamp Windows 7.
September 13th, 2010 at 10:03 am
Thanks everyone. I just had my first incident with this issue this morning. I have a 2008 Macbook 13″ hooked to the Apple large display for which I use a bluetooth mouse. Restarting did not help. But, a full shut down did it. I’ll report back if and when it happens again.
September 19th, 2010 at 7:24 pm
Resetting my SMC worked. Thanks!!!
October 20th, 2010 at 10:28 am
on a macbook5,1 w/ 10.6.4 worked for me. thanks.
November 1st, 2010 at 8:00 pm
[…] http://crschmidt.net/blog/archives/223/bluetooth-not-available-fixed/comment-page-2/ […]
November 18th, 2010 at 12:57 am
Alright folks, something to file under “weird” for you all:
I lost bluetooth on my secondhand Macbook 13″ after upgrading to Snow Leopard. The OS told me it wasn’t available, I tried both PRAM and SMC resets, tried deleting the preferences file, got no positive results.
However, it’s working now. What fixed it was trying out that rinky-dink little media remote that came with it. Once I used that to pull up the media menu, the bluetooth preferences came back, it saw the bluetooth mouse I had paired before the upgrade, and it’s survived several reboots.
No ideas why, but something to try for others who have issues with all the standard fixes out there.
November 22nd, 2010 at 5:21 pm
ON a PowerBook G4, 2007, 15inch.
Read through this feed. Tried PRAM, SCM, Energy Saver Trick, etc. and then finally I just took the battery out and started up with the plug in. BINGO. Bluetooth was back. Before this problem started I had replaced the dead original battery with a refurbished battery ordered online. The battery works. But it would appear that it interferes with Bluetooth somehow.
January 13th, 2011 at 3:16 am
Had this with my MacBook. Tried removing battery and also Cmd+Opt+P+R during boot. Worked.
Then had it with an iMac. Tried just Cmd+Opt+P+R first. Did not work. Then unplugged for a minute and booted again. Worked.
January 24th, 2011 at 11:50 am
Found your page after a quick Google search, performed the SMC reset as described in your link, problem solved. Thanks!
February 3rd, 2011 at 1:30 pm
Thanks! Got my Bluetooth back with this tip.
February 23rd, 2011 at 3:40 am
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
March 24th, 2011 at 1:26 pm
MacBook 1,1, purchased 2006. For several weeks, computer had refused to stay asleep, but awoke itself immediately–much as everyone else has been describing. System Profiler showed Bluetooth to be Not Available.
Reboot did not help. SMC Reset and PRAM Reset at home did not help. Apple Genius was inches away from selling me a new logic board or Bluetooth controller. On second visit to Apple Genius, a SMC/PRAM Reset did work, but within half an hour the problem was back.
Sitting here at home nursing my wounds, I found this web page. Installed smcFanControl and found CPU temperature to be upwards of 67 C. Turned up the fan speed and didn’t notice much effect. Being impatient, I then fetched a cold pack from the freezer, placed it under the MacBook and watched the temperature drop. Around 50 C the Bluetooth controller reappeared in the status bar and the system regained the ability to sleep.
My conclusion as a scientist–this problem is totally correlated with temperature. Keeping my computer on ice does not sound very practical, but I am hoping that having more control of the fan will keep the temperature down.
Remaining mysteries–(1) why this happens, (2) why this only appeared after the computer reached age 5 years (maybe to ask this one is to answer it), (3) why, when the computer is in a vicious circle of sleep-wake up-sleep (but not otherwise doing anything), but temperature does not drop far enough to correct the problem.
April 19th, 2011 at 12:49 pm
I am currently writing this on an old Thinkpad 770 running Ubuntu Linux. My Mac Mini Core Duo is off due to Bluetooth having suddenly disconnected during a mouse click. I keep a spare wired mouse to shut it down. I once had Bluetooth on a Win XP machine and tried to use it to sync with my Nokia phone at the time (8 years ago maybe.) It would lose the signal in the middle of the sync. Bah!
I have concluded that Bluetooth is crap and the only solution is to get rid of it. Not sure if it is hardware or software. Don’t care. You can’t use an Apple computer if the mouse doesn’t work.
I’ve found that Logitech’s proprietary wireless mouse adapter works just great on Macs, Win XP, and Linux machines. So that’s my next stop.
April 19th, 2011 at 12:51 pm
Oh, and for phone syncing, I now use a wired connection.
July 2nd, 2011 at 6:04 am
Hi – I just had the same problem with my bluetooth keyboard after years of no issues. The bluetooth symbol was crossed out and said unavailable. I turned the mac off, took the battery out the back (and out of the keyboard – although not convinced this had anything to do with it). Turned the mac back on and it worked. Phil
August 9th, 2011 at 6:38 am
Resetting the SMC worked for me!
Thanks.
September 20th, 2011 at 2:19 pm
FIXED THE “BLUETOOTH NOT AVAILABLE” PROBLEM!!!!!
I had the same “bluetooth not available” problem… Bluetooth (and everything associated to it including the Preference Pane) had entirely vanished… No mention of any Bluetooth software in System Profiler… icon squiggled out… It was scary!!
For hours I googled and tried everything… Repaired permissions, nothing…. P-RAM, nothing… Rebooted, nothing…
Finally fixed it by taking the battery out for a couple of minutes, pressing the Power button, then putting the battery back in and starting up. All fixed.
Never had such a panic in all my life, so happy it’s resolved. It happened after installing Auto Tune 7, also after my Macbook crashed while tethered (via bluetooth) to my mobile phone. I suspect it was the latter that caused the problem. Hope this fix helps someone else.
September 21st, 2011 at 7:41 pm
Thanks, this has fixed the problem for me.
September 25th, 2011 at 3:51 am
I had the same problem when bluetooth disappeared. At the same time, when I put the MacBook on, a bar appeared in the start-up screen which ‘filled up’ before the computer came on. I shut down and restarted several times but still no bluetooth. Then I followed the simplest advice on here and unplugged the AC power lead, shut down and restarted – it was back! The bar had disappeared, too. Thanks for the advice, it’s hopefully saved me a lot of time, hassle and probably money.
July 24th, 2012 at 6:09 pm
I had the same problem with the Bluetooth disappearing on my Macbook. Your suggestion to reset the SMC did the trick.
THANKS!!
May 9th, 2013 at 11:58 am
Not to hijack this thread but, I need to find a place to bring my Mac for repair. Has anyone ever heard of this mac repair service? It’s right in West Los Angeles, which is close by my home. It’s called – Mac Repair Los Angeles, 11322 Santa Monica Blvd, Ste B Los Angeles, CA 90025 – (310) 966-9099.
September 20th, 2013 at 10:50 am
I don’t know if this is the case for everyone, but I just successfully solved my bluetooth “not available” issue permanently! It was so simple that I feel like a moron!
I have parallels running and I had “devices/USB/Apple Bluetooth Host …..” selected…….as soon as I un-selected it my bluetooth worked!
Hope this helps others!
March 28th, 2014 at 8:11 am
man i tried everything possible. nothing helped. resetting the pmu. erasing bluetooth preferences. restarting. everything. so i am going to have to assume it isnt a software issue. its hardware im afraid. lame lame lame.
April 10th, 2014 at 2:14 pm
For all you guys having this issue with their MacBook Pro 17″ (early 2009): Shut it down, open the case, disconnect the built-in battery, push the power button for 10 to 15 seconds, reconnect battery, close case, start up. Fixed it for me after everything else (resetting SMC/PRAM, deleteing plist file etc.) failed or just made bluetooth work again temporarily. Give it a try!
March 2nd, 2015 at 5:05 pm
[…] to this article, resetting the System Management Controller might to the […]
April 13th, 2015 at 6:33 am
Its about the temperature, the smc has the minimum temp set and with the time, is not enought, so at 70º the module fails, just disable wifi and bluetooth will work perfect.
install smcFanControl and set the constant minimum at 50%.