EDIT: after an ultimate SMC/PRAM reset, @doublepluskat's solution below finally worked. Currently typing on my A1016 keyboard. Many thanks!
I have trouble pairing again my white Apple Wireless Keyboard (2003) (S/N M9270LL/A or A1016) to my 15-inch 2016 MacBook Pro after update to Monterey 12.0.1. Here is how the problem unfolds:
- Device turned on and in 'Discovery' mode, it appears in the 'Bluetooth' panel in 'System Preferences', in the list of unpaired devices.
- By clicking on 'Connect' button, nothing happens until 'Return' key is pressed.
- Then, the panel indicating the 6-digit 'Passkey' appears (the Passkey being different each time) and then immediately disappears.
- If no key is pressed though, the panel never appears and pairing simply fails; then the Connect button is clickable again within approximately 20 seconds.
- Device status in BT panel then indicates 'Passkey doesn't match' (as I was unable to enter the passkey anyway).
I have tried turning Bluetooth off and on, rebooting Mac and reseting SMC+PRAM countless times, as well as replacing the batteries. Since I own two of these I tried with both and the problem is exactly the same. The two worked seamlessly on that computer before the update. I haven't got another computer to test them on unfortunately. My headphones, mouse and DualShock 4 controller pair and connect fine to that same computer since I don't have to enter any passkey. I would like to avoid having to downgrade to get my external keyboard to work if possible.
Please note that I was unable to reset the Bluetooth module or delete all devices since these options don't seem to be present anymore by opening Bluetooth menu in Menu Bar while pressing alt+shift after update to Monterey. To overcome this I sought various methods of doing the same by other means without any of them being helpful in the problem I'm encountering:
How to restart Bluetooth service from command line
To me, it simply seems to be a software bug of the UI. Update, see below I reported it to Apple through their bug report interface, though I'm not sure they ever read these.
With that said I would like to know if I'm the only one to encounter these UI problems, and if there's any way to bypass that passkey pairing. Thanks in advance,
Kind regards,
EDIT: I tried pairing using blueutil in Terminal as per this post :
Pair with a Bluetooth device over Terminal
However the same thing happens in terminal. Nothing happens until I press return. As soon as I press return, pairing immediately fails without giving me the opportunity to enter the passcode. If I try to enter the 6-digit code then return, it does the same as it doesn't recognize the passcode I entered. Here is the error messages:
alexis@macbook-pro ~ % blueutil --pair 00-0a-95-45-9b-58 000000
Input pin 000000 on "Apple Wireless Keyboard" (00-0a-95-45-9b-58)
2021-10-31 08:44:43.900 blueutil[2637:220491] IOBluetoothDevicePair BluetoothHCIPINCodeRequestReply - 0
2021-10-31 08:44:44.466 blueutil[2637:220493] -[IOBluetoothDevicePair peerPairingCompleted:withError:]: Calling connectionComplete on IOBluetoothDevicePair. Status: 31
2021-10-31 08:44:44.470 blueutil[2637:220493] -[IOBluetoothDevicePair peerPairingCompleted:withError:]: Calling connectionComplete on IOBluetoothDevicePair. Status: 31
Failed to pair "00-0a-95-45-9b-58" with error 0x1f (Unspecified Error)
I also tried with different 6-digit codes with no result. So to me it doesn't seem to be a problem with the UI but rather with the IOBluetooth