Handoff / Continuity not working between iPhone 6S Plus and new MacBook Pro?

mr_coldharbour

Well-known member
Dec 26, 2015
50
0
0
Visit site
Handoff / Continuity not working between iPhone 6S Plus and new MacBook Pro

I've been trying all day to get Handoff working between my iPhone 6S Plus (iOS 9.2.1) and my MacBook Pro (15inch, Retina, mid-2015 model) running OS X 10.11.3 El Capitan. Seems to be a common issue amongst users, I did search online to see how what people are saying but nothing recent, is it working for the rest of you?

Here's what I did:

Yes I did make sure that I was signed in on the same iCloud account on both the iPhone and the Mac, same WiFi network (internet working just fine), bluetooth on. I did the usual rain/fire-dance of toggling things on and off such as WiFi, bluetooth, signing out and back in of my iCloud account on both the iPhone and Mac, rebooting them both, (un)checking/toggling on/off Handoff on both the iPhone and Mac. Reset PRAM, SMC, etc. Made both the iPhone and Mac "FORGET" one another and re-connected/paired them. I even trashed the bluetooth .plist file on the Mac and started anew just to be sure. Personal Hotspot between the iPhone and Mac works just fine, but Handoff never seems to work.

Before anyone asks, yes the iPhone was restored AS NEW, not from a backup as I never do that and never will. Both devices are practically brand new–purchased both a little over a month and a half ago. The Mac also was never restored from a backup, this is a fresh new MacBook Pro which was running Yosemite which I then immediately after purchasing updated to El Cap. And finally, yes, I made sure Handoff was checked/toggled on on both the iPhone and Mac.

Again, the two pair just fine when it comes to using Personal Hotspot, but the Handoff feature never works.

Any help would be really appreciated. Cheers! :yes:

-MacBook Pro (15inch, Retina, mid-2015 model) on OS X 10.11.3 El Cap.
-iPhone 6S Plus (iOS 9.2.1).
 

Just_Me_D

Ambassador Team Leader, Senior Moderator
Moderator
Jan 8, 2012
59,681
627
113
Visit site
Re: Handoff / Continuity not working between iPhone 6S Plus and new MacBook Pro

That's a good one, but dang, I don't know what to tell you. You seem to have done everything I would have done. I know it's a long shot, but is it possible that a virus/malware scanning app or a firewall setting could be preventing the connection?
 

mr_coldharbour

Well-known member
Dec 26, 2015
50
0
0
Visit site
Re: Handoff / Continuity not working between iPhone 6S Plus and new MacBook Pro

Thanks for taking the time to respond. No I don't have anything like that, I just have the OS X built-in firewall enabled in Security & Privacy settings, which always is by default. But nothing else. And I made sure that I haven't blocked any incoming connections. I'm really at a loss of words and options as to what to do. I'm hoping anyone can help out and point me in the right direction.
 

mr_coldharbour

Well-known member
Dec 26, 2015
50
0
0
Visit site
Re: Handoff / Continuity not working between iPhone 6S Plus and new MacBook Pro

Sorry for the double-post. But I finally got Handoff working between my MBP and iPhone 6S Plus. Not sure what triggered it to work, but it just decided to show the little icon on the Dock left of the Finder icon from a contact I was viewing in the Phone app. Everything worked great but I couldn't get Safari browsing to transfer over to the Mac from the iPhone and vice-versa, though I never guessed in a million years that "Private Browsing" maybe had something to do with it so I went ahead and turned that off and, voila, it worked! Though I'm all about private-browsing and keeping Safari both on my Mac and iPhone as cache-free, junk-free and as light as possible, so browsing COMPLETELY in "public" browsing mode is not an option, so I'll go back and browse in my usual private-incognito mode forgoing the fact that I won't be able to use Handoff for the Safari-browsing bit/portion of it, which I'm OK with until Apple releases an update to address that (but I guess that goes against the "PRIVATE" browsing aspect but it is from devices which are approved) or at the VERY LEAST inform people about this as this was a fluke fix on my part. Apple needs to make things clear and not just assume everyone uses their devices uniformly just as they (Apple) would show on their demos or the ways they would.

But at least the feature works and now this thread can be marked as SOLVED and therefore closed!:yes::yes:
 

Trending Posts

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
259,863
Messages
1,764,770
Members
441,208
Latest member
janikhan1234