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I have a late-2010 Mac Mini (maxed out at Mac OS X 10.7.5) with 2 bluetooth devices (keyboard and headphones). I've had intermittent issues with bluetooth connectivity, but this past weekend, the connection went out while I was watching a movie and I could not get either device to reconnect. So I think that the antenna has just gone bad. I discovered that I can confirm this diagnosis using "Bluetooth Explorer" (part of XCode). I installed that remotely and intend to test it out when I get home.

Assuming that I confirm that the antenna has just gone bad (or even if it hasn't), can I just purchase a bluetooth dongle, such as the "Kinivo BTD-300 Bluetooth 3.0 USB adapter" and expect to be able to circumvent the issue or will the built-in & faulty bluetooth capability interfere with the use of the dongle?

hepcat72
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  • Let me get that, your BT headset is not working but your Bluetooth keyboard is! – Ruskes Feb 09 '15 at 16:43
  • Neither the keyboard nor the headset work when the problem occurs. Sorry for any ambiguity. I rarely use the keyboard. I confirmed the other night that the headset works fine when I pair it with my iPad, so it's not the headset. No bluetooth device currently works with my computer, hence my question stated above: "can I just purchase a bluetooth dongle ... and expect to be able to circumvent the issue?" – hepcat72 Feb 11 '15 at 18:34
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    that is a yes to USB- BT dongle. – Ruskes Feb 11 '15 at 19:04
  • OK, well I ordered a BT-dongle. I checked with Apple's tech support first and they said it should work. I read some articles that warn about jumping through hoops to get the computer to prefer the dongle over the built-in BT capabilities. We'll see how it goes. One note: I wondered if I could get a dongle that provides BT 4.0 capabilities, but my mini, maxed out at 10.7.5, can't even run the BeaconOSX app, so I decided not to splurge on a BT 4.0 dongle. – hepcat72 Feb 13 '15 at 00:01
  • FYI I deleted my answer since it was not correct. – Ruskes Jun 24 '15 at 22:00
  • For all I know, it still could be correct and whatever is happening is affecting whichever BT antenna is currently being utilized. I just don't know for sure yet what the source of the issue is. My hunch was that it was the antenna - perhaps damaged when I installed a new hard drive awhile back, but it could just as easily be a software issue. Though it doesn't seem to be the anyconnect security agent since it has happened again since I uninstalled that. – hepcat72 Jun 25 '15 at 21:45

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