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Yesterday suddenly the bluetooth and wifi stopped working, while iMac was on and on screen saver. I have tried several restarts and tried to follow the bluetooth debug and reset options as well as SMC reset, but nothing worked. Also removed the bluetooth plist from Preferences.

Since I have magic keyboard and mouse with bluetooth I cannot use them and was making the restarts from anydesk using another laptop that I have.

Today after even more restarts and SMC resets the Wifi worked again, but bluetooth still nothing. I am on 10.13 osx and I cannot boot in safe mode or recovery without the keyboard and I have tried the vram boot options on terminal but I was getting that they were invalid.

Lately after the last SMC reset iMac boots on the option screen to reinstall High Sierra but I cannot make any selection even with a usb wired mouse!

any help on how to restart on normal mode or unblock the bluetooth will be highly appreciated.

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  • Which iMac do you have specifically?
    – Allan
    Commented Jun 4, 2020 at 10:09
  • The issue is still not resolved. I have changed both the WIFI module and the bluetooth (on my model they are not on the same airport card), but still no luck. also I have noticed that the USB have stopped working and on the system the USB3 interface is not visible. Finally the internal flash disk reader is not working. I have tried to install High Sierra on a new partition in case it was a problem with the OSX, but on the new installation the keyboard and mouse is still not working. What else could cause this malfunction on those system devices?
    – ToroLoco
    Commented Jul 14, 2020 at 20:41

2 Answers 2

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Unfortunately, the AirPort adapter in your iMac has failed.

Your issue is is just like the issue in the question Mac Mini frequently loses connections (both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth) where the only difference is in that question, The problem was intermittent and yours appears to be permanent.

The AirPort adapter is just the mPCIe card that has a “combo” Bluetooth and WiFi chip (usually made by Broadcom). Dell, HP, Asus and pretty much every manufacturer uses some variant of this chip/adapter. That means this adapter is not very expensive.

However, since the iMac computers from 2012 on have the screen glued in place, the labor could be costly to change the part. If this is the case, upgrade your hard disk to an SSD while it’s open.

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  • I was hoping that it would be something related to software and not on hardware. I will try to find the airport adapter to change it. I have the mid 2011 21.5 model were the front glass is with magnets and I have already installed an SDD as primary drive keeping the normal HD as secondary and also the DVD-Rom Driver :).
    – ToroLoco
    Commented Jun 4, 2020 at 11:23
  • It’s definitely hardware. It’s good that you have the model that’s serviceable!
    – Allan
    Commented Jun 4, 2020 at 12:19
  • I have found some mPCIe cards on amazon, but they mention only WIFI and they have the same product no as my card. Do they also include Bluetooth or they are only WIFI?
    – ToroLoco
    Commented Jun 4, 2020 at 13:22
  • Just looked at the ifixit teardown and there’s a separate bluetooth board, it’s not integrated like every other model is. This could mean my answer is wrong and it’s much more serious or it could be coincidence that separate components simultaneously failed.. Right now, I would disconnect it and see if you regain mouse control. Let me know the results
    – Allan
    Commented Jun 4, 2020 at 16:08
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Did you just get an update? Security update just came out for 10.15; did the same happen for 10.13? If so, a few have reported lost Bluetooth after the update, but in my case, just a keyboard and not the mouse.

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  • I didn’t applied the update, but even When I applied it nothing changed.
    – ToroLoco
    Commented Jul 15, 2020 at 12:00

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