For those who don’t like to read: the fix.
I upgraded to Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) from Leopard (OS X 10.5) last week and everything seemed to go off without a hitch, until…
I have a bluetooth, wireless, keyboard that I use for work. At some point in the past week, not initially, my keyboard started acting up. At first I didn’t think anything of it because the lady’s computer is also paired with the same keyboard and when the problem first occurred it was because the keyboard was connected to her computer, also on Snow Leopard, rather than mine. I ended up removing the keyboard from her bluetooth setup and re-pairing (no pun intended) the keyboard to my computer. Everything worked fine and I went through my day.
The next day, I found that my keyboard would not pair up again. WTF!? So I go through the process again, thinking maybe Laura and I did a keyboard swap or something and that was the problem. Re-paired, everything’s cool. Whatever. If it happens again, I’ll deal with it.
Finally, today, day 3, I start up my computer and the keyboard won’t connect. Immediately I try to re-pair the keyboard and suddenly the computer tells me there must be some compatibility issue. Thanks Apple. I have an Apple keyboard I’m using with an Apple Macbook Pro and I have a f***ing compatibility issue. You’d think they would make sure that bluetooth continued to work between upgrading from Leopard to Snow Leopard. Oh well.
So I resort to Google. And basically what I find is that I have to reset my System Management Controller (SMC). Do I know what an SMC is? No. Do I care? Not really… okay, so I do a little. Apparently the SMC handles a lot of the lower level operations performed by the computer like “the power button”. Sweet Apple. Okay, so what to do. You have to reset the SMC. To do this follow the steps specified here. Be sure to read through the process and select the procedure that matches your computer. Different laptops, desktops, etc. will have a different method for resetting the SMC.
All in all, it’s disappointing that Apple overlooked this issue. Seems too often that companies can be aware of an issue be keep it quiet for the majority of users that don’t use (in this case) bluetooth, while those that due have to spend have their day in frustration.
Dear Apple,
Don’t pull Quit pulling a Microsoft.
Your Friend,
Mr. Customer
Howdy. Very first I need to say that I genuinely like your weblog, just identified it the past week but I’ve been reading it constantly since then.
I look to concur with most of your respective views and opinions and this post is no exception. absolutely agree with you.
Thank you for the great webpage and I hope you preserve up the good function. If you do I will keep on to read it.
Use a wonderful day.
Thank you so much for posting this. Saved me a lot of annoyance. I bought a new Mighty Mouse and in the process of not being able to pair that, also lost the connection to my keyboard! I tried a number of things suggested on support.apple.com, but it was this that fixed it.
The keypress didn’t seem like it did anything, but once it started back up it connected the bluetooth fine.
Thanks again!
Josh
[…] into my laptop. Apple’s keyboard on the other hand uses bluetooth to connect. I have had several problems with connectivity on these. My wife also has used one of these and having two in the house makes […]
I’m having the same problem. Useless!