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Simon · Jul 3, 2009, 07:15 AM

So I got iPhone tethering to work with my MBP over BT. It worked very well actually. After I was done I turned off tethering on the iPhone and shut off BT on both the iPhone and the MBP.

A few days later I tried it again. I turned on tethering and BT on the iPhone and switched on BT on the MBP. The MBP saw the iPhone but it couldn't connect to the iPhone over BT. The BT assistant said the iPhone was all set up to share the network. And the interface was there in Sys Prefs > Network. The BT Sys Pref showed the iPhone as around and paired, but the indicator next to connect was red and nothing I did (including cycling BT and tethering) changed that. Tethering itself worked fine though when I used the USB cable instead. It seemed to be a purely BT related problem.

Determined to get it to work again over BT I tried logging out and back in but no dice. I then rebooted the MBP and suddenly everything worked fine again. As if nothing had ever happened. I stayed tethered for about two hours. Then I shut off everything. A few days later I tried it again and once again the MBP saw the iPhone through BT but couldn't connect. Nothing I tried changed that. I again rebooted and once again that seemed to fix it.

Any ideas what's going on here? I really don't think having to reboot each time to get BT to connect is the way this is intended to work. Any advice? Things I can check? Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

ghporter · Jul 3, 2009, 08:19 AM

I've been confused about what the iPhone is supposed to do with Bluetooth. Apparently it's NOT for transferring files, because it seems to flatly refuse to do that (on more than one phone). The connection for sharing a BT network is easy to make, but other than this and headphones, just what DOES Bluetooth do on the iPhone? I get the impression it's not exactly "smoothly" implemented. Or that I simply haven't found "the list" of will-do and won't-do features.

Your having to reboot YOUR MAC to get the connection to work properly is just plain weird.

CharlesS · Jul 3, 2009, 01:01 PM

What MBP is it? With my old early 2008 MBP, it was doing that all the time with my RAZR2 and my Apple Wireless Keyboard, but I haven't noticed it yet with my new(ish) unibody.

Simon · Jul 4, 2009, 05:00 AM

This was on a 2.4 GHz "Mid 2007" MBP. It's running 10.5.7.

My problem is that I don't really know how to do any more 'troubleshooting' with BT connections. Is concluding that BT is simply flaky on this type of MBP all I can do? Kinda sucks because rebooting to tether is a PITA. Feel like Windows.