I thought it might have been my first trainer but it’s off to be fixed, and I have a second ‘spare’ trainer (which seems to have been the absolute best idea) and am having the same issues.
Bluetooth just drops. The speaker stops, the trackpad, the keyboard, the Garmin HRM, Zwift, all of it.
But then it comes back. I go into the Pair menu in Zwift, things pair again and last around 2 seconds, and POOF it’s all down again. Then it’s back, and lather rinse repeat.
I’me trying to figure out what is causing this. It’s not not the trainer as it happened with both. It’s not the accessory dongles because unplugging them didn’t address the problem, BT still dropped. I get a cryptic message that the bluetoothd had an EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT), and Apple doesn’t have a clue.
Anyone else having this issue with a Mac Mini and Bluetooth?
Are you using the Mac Mini BT or a separate BT dongle? If the latter, did you disable the Mini BT?
If you’re using WiFi on the mini, then if possible configure your home to use 5Ghz instead of 2.4Ghz WiFi to avoid interference issues. If not needed at all, turn off the WiFi on the Mini.
Well, I tried to disable the onboard Bluetooth, and it’s all or none. It dies dongle or not, as I said. Apple support did the ‘reset Bluetooth’ dance and blew away the plist files. The Mini is direct wired, and anything not needed, that can be, is turned off. The error hasn’t changed, not that I expected it to “EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT)”
Next steps are reinstall the OS, and replace hardware. sigh (Have to stay positive!) If there is a next time!
This sounds like a macOS bug. bluetoothd should not die even if Bluetooth is suffering from interference. Reinstalling the latest version sounds like a good move. (Or reinstall 12.3.1.) Also try testing with a clean install, not restoring any settings.
It is still possible that it is a hardware issue, but it’s looking very much less likely. One thing that I’m always amazed at is how damn hot those little boxes run, and with Zwift for 2 hours, I’m sure it was hot enough to nearly fry an egg, although the latest failure happened 45 minutes into a one hour ride.
It could be ‘lint’ collected after the last update. It worked yesterday, but that’s happened before. It could be a week or more before it trips up again. Being a refurb, I wonder if it has a now hidden history of issues. Get Apple Care…
If it dies again, reinstall is happening for sure. If it happens again, it’s got to be hardware somewhere, somehow.
It seems you’re on the right track with regards to your efforts to troubleshoot this issue as being a potential hardware problem.
If it is an issue with the Zwift app software somehow causing that strange “EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT)” Bluetooth crash, this is the first I’ve heard of it. However, we can certainly monitor the situation for any trends and escalate the matter accordingly if there are other examples of this.
You may or may not already be aware, but ANT+ pairing is also another possibility for you if you want to try another reliable pairing method other than Bluetooth. You can find more information in this article.
