I have a Macbook Pro (late 2011) with the latest OS X (10.9.4) and once in a while the Bluetooth subsystem disappears and the system hangs for a few seconds every ~10 minutes. The icon in the menu bar looks like this:
And there is no Bluetooth system preference anymore:
This happens once every 2-3 days and I have no idea what the cause could be.
Question: How can I restart the bluetooth subsystem from the command line to make it available again? Or (more interesting of course) what is the cause of this infrequent hang and how can I heal it completely?
I cannot remember which software I've installed at the time the error started to show, it might have been bootcamp to support a 32 bit windows in a virtual machine or some Citrix software (Citrix Access Gateway)
Best Answer
Here is the list of all Apple BT symbols and they meaning.
Additional steps:
Log in as different user to see if it is your profile related.
Start in safe mode to see if other applications are making problems
Since you have another major problem with missing BT in sys pref, resetting SMC and PRAM might help.
Use Manual method to ON/OFF the BT
Type Bluetooth in Spotlight
Select Application- Bluetooth Exchange
will bring up a switching window
Last not least, reinstall your OS.