Windows 7 – Can’t See Specific Bluetooth Device
I ran into a problem on a co-worker’s Windows 7 computer yesterday when his bluetooth keyboard just stopped working. It was an Apple bluetooth keyboard, but it had been working fine for a couple of days so there shouldn’t have been an issue.
We started with some standard troubleshooting:
- Turned keyboard off, then back on in “discovery” mode. – Didn’t work, the computer wouldn’t see the device, but 3 other computers could see it and pair with it successfully…this told us nothing was wrong with the bluetooth module on the keyboard.
- Tried to discover and pair my Apple bluetooth keyboard with his Windows 7 computer. – My device was immediately discovered and pairing was not a problem…this told us there must be some glitch/corruption with the computer or bluetooth stack that is directly related to the hardware profile of his specific keyboard.
Once we were able to make this determination, we knew we had to find where the computer might be holding some information about this device. Our belief was that we could restore connectivity to the device by removing this information and allowing it to be regenerated. In our quest to find and remove this data, we went to:
> Control Panel > All Control Panel Items > Devices and Printers
Sure enough, the keyboard was listed as a device. So we highlighted it and hit the delete key. As soon as we did this, his keyboard was “discovered” by the computer and it paired successfully.
I’m not sure if this was just a freak thing or if it might prove to be a more widespread issue, but if you have a similar problem perhaps this will give you a starting point. Please leave a comment if you experience an issue like this, if this fixed your problem, or if you found a different way to solve the issue.
