Chosen Solution
I have been using this laptop since 2012. Now, all of a sudden, a series of problems happened: First, bluetooth automatically disables itself, showing a jagged/squiggly line over it and displaying a “Not available” warning. From that point on, it enables and disables itself intermittently. But that’s not all. The interesting thing is that as soon as bluetooth disables the following happens in parallel: (1) WiFi immediately turns off (and won’t turn on again), (2) the internal keyboard stops working, (3) the internal trackpad stops working. Once bluetooth comes back to life - even if for a short amount of time - the internal keyboard and trackpad start to work again, but not the WiFi, which won’t be re-enabled regardless of how many times you try. It happened that if I ran “Wireless Diagnostics” it would magically restart both bluetooth and WiFi, which kept working until I powered off my mac. Sadly, this ‘hack’ won’t work anymore. Restarting the machine used to address those problems, but not anymore. And worse, WiFi started to display “Hardware Not Found”. Finally, deleting .plist files, resetting SMC or PRAM do not solve the problem. I decided to format the SSD and perform a clean macOS (High Sierra) installation - I was running Mojave before - to no avail. That said, I then decided to partition the SSD and install elementaryOS (Linux). Booting into Linux I observed that (1) I am able to connect to the internet via an USB cable attached to my android device, which was not possible on macOS High Sierra, (2) bluetooth might not be recognized right away - as soon as the system starts - and might even be enabled/disabled intermittently, but once it stabilizes and remains enabled, the internal keyboard works, otherwise I have to rely on a USB keyboard, (3) if WiFi is recognized as the system starts, I am able to connect to my router and the internet connection works, otherwise I must rely on my android device via USB as described above, (4) the internal trackpad sometimes work and sometimes don’t - even if the internal keyboard happens to be working - forcing me to use a USB mouse. Has anybody gone through similar experiences?
I ended up unplugging the flat cable that connects the wi-fi/bluetooth card to the motherboard - for that reason I now rely on an ethernet cable to connect to the internet. Also, I stopped using the MacBook built-in keyboard and trackpad. Now, I am using a USB keyboard and mouse. It has been running without any problems for 6 months.
Have you tried resetting the System Management Controller?
I am having the same issue. The mac acts all wonky when I try connecting over Wifi. have tried reinstalling the OS but it doesn’t help. did you fix your issue?
