Lose bluetooth devices when switching users

[paulmeyers42]

I've been having this problem on my 5k iMac for quite a while, across different OS versions. Every now and then the bluetooth devices associated with my Apple ID (or is it iCloud account?) disappear. I also lose the ability to unlock the Mac with my Apple Watch. It's been frustrating, because I couldn't figure out the pattern. Sometimes logging out clears it, but the only real solve is to reboot or reset the PRAM.

I stumbled upon a post at the Apple support forums where someone said this happened to them whenever they would switch users. So I tried that it definitely seems to recreate the problem consistently. However, that was an old thread and a resolution was never posted.

Has anyone had this problem? Does anyone have a solve for it?

I'm thinking of rebuilding my Mac from scratch - I think it's been a long time since I've done a clean install. But that's a pretty major effort and I'd prefer to avoid that.

Thanks!

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Basic question - are those different Mac user accounts signed into different Apple IDs? To use Unlock With Apple Watch the Mac user account needs to be signed into the same iCloud account as the Watch.

 

[paulmeyers42]

Yeah, the other accounts are using different Apple IDs, all on the same family account. "Unlock with Apple Watch" works fine for the most part for me, for example when I wake the Mac from sleep on my account. It does stop working occasionally. I haven't conclusively tied it to the user switching though, but so far they definitely seem correlated.