Apple Catalina Appears to Introduce Massive Jitter - SOLVED!

Sat Oct 31 07:49:05 UTC 2020

On 10/30/20 23:57, Doug Barton wrote:

> I would hesitate to blame BT. I have a macbook pro from ~1 year ago, 
> on Catalina, and I use BT extensively ... mouse, keyboard, and 
> headset. I do have location services trimmed down to just find my mac.
>
> I ran: ping -c 1000 -i 0.1 <router address>
>
> 1000 packets transmitted, 998 packets received, 0.2% packet loss
> round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 1.255/2.378/9.095/0.634 ms
>
> One thing that may contribute to blaming BT however is if you are 
> using wifi on 2.4G only, and/or preferring it, as BT operates in the 
> same frequency range neighborhood. My macbook is connected using 5G.
>
> Happy to compare other settings if there is interest.

What I do know is that there has been more than one fix for most people 
that have had this issue. For some, it has been a dodgy app, and for 
others, it has just been disabling some Location Services.

In my case, what worked was disabling Bluetooth, in combination with as 
many Location Services as I could afford to not use.

I am able to reliably reproduce this issue, so in my case, I can 
certainly blame Bluetooth. Pity, since I do use some Handoff services 
with my other Apple devices, but I won't give up wi-fi stability for that.

And yes, this happens both on 2.4GHz and 5GHz. As you may know, macOS 
will default to 5GHz provided RSSI is at -68dB or better. My laptop only 
ever connects on 2.4GHz if I am outside my house (which is hardly). 
Inside the house, there is always a 5GHz transmitter within -38dB of me.

Mark.