Universal Control frequently disconnects between M2 Mac Mini and M1 MacBook Pro, Revived

I am reviving a post by jmpage2 from 9 months ago (feb 2024) with an update from june 2024 that engineering was aware of the problem. The original post is quoted at the end.

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simple description:

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The simple description is that link keyboard and mouse stops working episodically, sometimes for a few seconds and sometimes for perhaps 30s. Occurrence is almost stochastic as the previous poster noted, sometimes only happening once or twice per day, but at other times coming in bunches. I have discovered no cure other than to wait it out. This is pretty vexing as right now my MacBook is the only method I have to connect with the mini - I can and do use ssh to run jobs in the background, but I do want to use the display a fair bit as well.

Sometimes when this happens it can be very hard to actually FIND the mouse, but this is more of an issue when I actually log into the ShareScreen application, as opposed to linking the keyboard and mouse across the devices (which I far prefer).

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details:

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I have a similar problem to jmpage2 but using an M1 MacBookPro with an M2 Mac mini. The mac mini has a Dell S2722DC connected via USB3. I also have the MacBook connected to the mini via Thunderbolt/USB4, though the problem appears unrelated as it persists with the same (episodic) frequency with and without that (the devices are on a common wireless network of course). Both devices are running 15.0.1. The MacBook ALSO shares with an old iPad. When the sharing drops, at least most of the time it drops out to both the mini and the ipad, but the problem persists if the ipad is not present.

I have all the "advanced" features selected (move, push through, automatic).

When the dropout occurs, two icons on the banner (display and screen mirroring) sometimes change. When sharing is working, the display icon generally shows a vertical split with the mouse arrow on the right, and the mirroring icon shows a second display behind and displaced to the upper left from a front display. In each case when I click on the icon both the mini and the ipad show up as devices (blue for link keyboard and mouse on the display icon when working). At least most of the time when the service drops out, the mini will vanish from these but the ipad will generally remain, even if I cannot actually push through to it.

It seems that if I select "arrange" on display settings this *sometimes* accelerates a re-connect, though I suspect this is just busywork while waiting for whatever randomly restores the service. I have found nothing in any log or any other indication of the failure / reconnect. It just blips out and I have to try to move back from the iMac screen (fwiw I have the mini display above the imac in the arrangement, with the ipad off to the right of the iMac, but the exact arrangement does not obviously influence the dropouts).

On some rare occasions, the dropout has had something to do with the ipad going to sleep / locking, but this is NOT fully causal. These are <10% of the total events, and they can occur without the ipad sleeping or indeed without the ipad present at all. However, when that does occur, I can immediately fix the problem by waking the ipad up - this is the only case where I have discovered a more or less assured fix.

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jmpage2 wrote:

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I have an M2 Mac Mini connected to an Apple 27" Studio Display and next to it (24") there is an M1 MacBook Pro 13" connected to an LG HDR 4K display. Both of the Macs are running MacOS Sonoma 14.3.1 at the time of this posting.

I am using an Apple wireless pro Magic Keyboard and a gen 2 Apple Magic wireless trackpad with Universal Control to operate both computers. This is especially helpful because it's difficult to reach the keyboard/mouse on the MacBook Pro while it is connected to my external monitor.

Ever since setting this up almost a year ago I have frequent (sometimes 20+ times a day) disconnects of Universal Control between the two computers. Occasionally (maybe 5% of the time) this is also accompanied by the Apple trackpad completely no longer responding. When this happens the mouse/cursor will jump back to the Mac Mini (primary) and no longer push through to the MacBook. After anywhere from 10-90 seconds it will automatically become reconnected and begin working normally again... for some period of time anyway.

Other times I've made it through a full day of working with only one or two disconnects.

Things I've tried to resolve the problem:

Reboot and reset NVRAM on both computers.

Running the keyboard and mouse with wired USB connections to the Mac instead of using them wirelessly.

Eliminate possible sources of interference by disconnecting nearby devices, powering them off, etc.

Set "reconnect automatically" under Settings->Displays->Advanced

Disabling Firewall on both computers.

I'm really out of ideas at this point.

What more can be done to troubleshoot this problem?