MacBook – Enable Internet Sharing over Bluetooth PAN

bluetoothinternet-sharingmacbook proNetwork

I'm trying to share my MacBook Pro's internet connection with my iPad over Bluetooth. The MacBook is running Snow Leopard.

On the Sharing preference page, I can select Ethernet as the source, but when I select Bluetooth PAN (or any of the other options) for the target, nothing happens. The status next to Internet Sharing changes to Off, and I can't check the Internet Sharing option in the list on the left.

Selecting another entry from the list (like Screen Sharing) and then going back to Internet Sharing, everything is back to the initial state with a red status and the message that I need to select how to share the connection.

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Is anyone familiar with this issue and can explain why this is happening and how to fix it?

Best Answer

Maybe you need to update Snow Leopard via combo update. It happens sometimes that an earlier version has problems with internet sharing (sometimes even an update could break it).

For example I could not establish successful Internet sharing on OS X Tiger 10.4.11, but with 10.5.8 I had the best experience.

For Snow Leopard, maybe you could try 10.6.8? 10.7.5 Internet sharing is working, although sometimes, it's not fully stable. It can be that you need to click on connected iPad/iPhone and same time on "Connect to" on established Bluetooth connection on the Mac to get it working.