MacBook Pro won't pair with old, white apple wireless bluetooth keyboard

Alec Jacobson

September 12, 2009

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Recently purchased a used wireless apple keyboard (the old white bluetooth ones). Old white wireless apple keyboard I had a lot of trouble pairing it with my macbook pro, running mac os x 10.5 leopard. Using the Bluetooth Setup Assistant, I would hit a wall. It seemed that it was able to "see" my keyboard. It showed up as "found" but then when I chose to pair with it, I got stuck with the message: 'The pairing attempt was unsuccessful. Make sure your keyboard is in range of this computer, turn on and "discoverable." When ready, click Continue and try again.' And beneath that "Unable to pair with your keyboard. Click Continue to try again."

Unable to pair with keyboard

Continuing to try again was useless, so instead I went back to the "Select Device Type" screen of the assistant. Instead of choosing "Keyboard", I chose "Any device". It saw my keyboard, but before selecting it I checked under "Passkey options..." to make sure "Use specified passkey" was checked. Then after I selected the keyboard, it sat on "Gathering additional information about..." but eventually finished. I was prompted for a pass key, which I entered and then viola the keyboard was recognized.