[HotDog]

Can anyone point me to where the table of bluetooth devices is found in the System? I just opened my BT preferences and there are hundreds of devices listed, and deleting them one by one is killer. Surely there must be a table in a file listing these devices.

Thanks.

[DMBryant]

I have just noticed this as well! I actually went through and deleted them all one-by-one until the list was completely empty. Put the machine to sleep and when I woke it up 8 more random entries had appeared in the BT list!

So I deleted those 8 until the list was empty and just to check, slept and woke the machine again.

The list now shows loads of them!

Anyone know what's going on????

---------- Post added at 02:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:37 PM ----------

Okay, running NBI with 'Fix Bluetooth' appears to remove all the entries from the list.

---------- Post added at 02:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:40 PM ----------

Slept and woke the machine again and now I get 'Bluetooth: Not Available'!!!!

---------- Post added at 03:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:49 PM ----------

Right, turned off machine, turned it back on and now I've got bluetooth again. Re-ran NBI 'Fix Bluetooth' and rebooted machine. Checked bluetooth devices and the list is empty. Slept machine, woke it up and now there are hundreds of BT devices again!

[HotDog]

Yes, DMBryant, your description of the situation is much better than mine. I can clear them 1 by 1, which is a nuisance, or you can go to SYSTEM-->LIBRARY-->PREFERENCES--> and move "com.apple.Bluetooth.plist" to the trash. That works for a minute, and then the preference pane is soon repopulated with BT addresses. Makes me think this may NOT be the master table of BT devices; still on the hunt.

Let me know.

[DMBryant]

Yeah, it looks like the com.apple.Bluetooth.plist file gets filled periodically with empty HIDDevices:

<key>HIDDevices</key>
<array>
<string>00-1c-00-1f-c0-94</string>
<string>00-00-00-00-17-43</string>
.........
</array>

Does anyone know what causes this? Does anyone else have this problem or is it just us two?

[fatmac]

I tried deleting them, which works for a while, but they always come back. It seems to be a feature with 10.6.3 and NBI 8.4, and it's happening on Mini 9 and 10v. The good news is that Bluetooth is still working OK, it's just a nuisance that doesn't seem to hurt anything (so far).

[DMBryant]

It just seems to slow BT down. It made it virtually impossible to add pair new devices as I think it is searching through its existing list or something. Remove them all and it pairs instantly. I have also noticed that the BT menu appears to take longer to appear once you click on the BT icon. Other than that though, it does appear to work

[HotDog]

Your findings parallel mine, exactly. I was getting frustrated by the lag in the pull down BT icon in the menu bar, which prompted me look directly into the Preferences, hence the awareness of all of those BT devices not paired but there anyway. Never tried using my Apple AL keyboard with BT on, but not discoverable; when would one have BT on an not discoverable, anyway? A mystery for sure.

[fatmac]

Here's what I noticed. When I delete all the phantom device ids they stay gone until I put the Mini to sleep, then they start accumulating again. They will also start accumulating if I pair my bluetooth mouse with another Mac then have to run the setup assistant to pair it with the Mini again. I never see the problem until I do one of those two things.

I was wrong. The table randomly fills up with phantom devices and it's even m0ore annoying with 10.6.4.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Deleting /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist and setting up your bluetooth devices all over again will give you some relief from the problem for a little while. But after a few reboots they start filling up again.

[DMBryant]

Okay... so... I just updated to NBI 0.8.4pre and then 10.6.4. Bluetooth was the same as before, the menu took ages to appear and the plist was FULL of phantom entries. So I manually removed all empty entries from the DeviceCache section and emptied the HIDDevices section and now the bluetooth menu seems fully responsive and there are no phantom devices in the BT prefs. I have even rebooted and it stays the same!

So, either NBI 0.8.4pre has fixed it or 10.6.4 has. Or, it might be emptying the DeviceCache section of the plist as I am pretty sure I never did that before (but I dont think it ever had that many empty entries before)... or maybe it is just a fluke and it will break again in a bit. I will keep an eye on it

[jfd]

Originally Posted by DMBryant

Okay... so... I just updated to NBI 0.8.4pre and then 10.6.4. Bluetooth was the same as before, the menu took ages to appear and the plist was FULL of phantom entries. So I manually removed all empty entries from the DeviceCache section and emptied the HIDDevices section and now the bluetooth menu seems fully responsive and there are no phantom devices in the BT prefs. I have even rebooted and it stays the same!

So, either NBI 0.8.4pre has fixed it or 10.6.4 has. Or, it might be emptying the DeviceCache section of the plist as I am pretty sure I never did that before (but I dont think it ever had that many empty entries before)... or maybe it is just a fluke and it will break again in a bit. I will keep an eye on it

I have exactly the same problem on my Lenovo S10e using S10 Snow leopard Enabler under 10.6.3. Can you tell me exactly which file you found the DeviceCache section and HIDDevices section in as it does not appear to be in my com.apple.bluetooth.plist file.

Thanks