Bluetooth: Not Available

[Post Production]

I realized this just the other day. My Bluetooth icon is dimmed out, and when I click on it, it says that "Bluetooth: Not Available".

I rarely use bluetooth, and the last time I used it was last month sometime to send files to my phone. Between now and then, the only major thing I did was upgrade to 10.4.5

Anybody got any idea?

 

[jh2112]

restarting usually fixes mine.

 

[macworks]

Ditto. This happens on my PowerBook 15" (1.5 Ghz) once in a while. A reboot always fixes it for me.

 

[Post Production]

Unfortunately,.rebooting was the first thing I tried,..no dice.

 

[macworks]

Perhaps you need to reset your PRAM. There are two ways to do this:

1) Shutdown -- don't use restart
2) Hit the power button to turn on, then immediately hold down COMMAND OPTION P R on your keyboard and continue to hold them down until you've heard the machine chime three times.

OR

1) Shutdown
2) Power on with the COMMAND OPTION O F keys held down.
3) You should get a white screen with black text.
4) TYPE: reset-nvram
5) Press return
6) TYPE: set-defaults
7) Press return
8) TYPE: reset-all
9) Press return
10) your computer should then reboot.

Otherwise, perhaps you need to run repair permissions.

If none of those things helps, try booting from a different hard drive with OS X on it (if available). If the bluetooth still doesn't work booted from another disk, then you probably have bluetooth chip that's no longer working.

 

[cpurdy]

I realized this just the other day. My Bluetooth icon is dimmed out, and when I click on it, it says that "Bluetooth: Not Available".

I rarely use bluetooth, and the last time I used it was last month sometime to send files to my phone. Between now and then, the only major thing I did was upgrade to 10.4.5

Yes, you are pulling too much power e.g. through your USB ports.

At least one problem is that the bluetooth adapter flakes out and even turns off when it doesn't get enough power. Unplug your USB & firewire stuff (which is what caused the issue on my MBP), shut down the machine, let it rest for a few minutes, then power it back up.