Mac Mini: either Magic Mouse OR Keyboard won't pair at startup

Question

OK I'm stumped and apparently Apple Support is stumped too. I have a problem with my new Mac mini. It will not pair to both my wirelesss keyboard and Magic Mouse on startup. I have an old white "Wireless Keyboard," sometimes referred to as the Bluetooth Keyboard. It's about 6 years old, I purchased it in 2006 with a late Power Mac G5 Quad. It worked great.
But now I just bought a new Mac mini, i7 2.7Ghz, running all current updates to MacOS X 10.7.4. I paired the new Magic Mouse and the Wireless Keyboard just fine. But on every reboot, the keyboard would not pair, it would always go to the Bluetooth Assistant and say no keyboard was attached. I would have to turn the keyboard power switch on and off, usually a couple of times, before it would recognize it. Sometimes I even had to go to the bluetooth menu item and manually Connect the keyboard.
I called Apple tech support under warranty, we tried many things like deleting the bluetooth settings and recreating them, even turning the mini off and pulling the power cord for 30 sec (lol wut). But nothing would work. The Apple tech said, oh well, it's an old product, the higher level tech says it's not supported. Live with it.
But NOW I have just the opposite problem. Sometimes my Magic Mouse won't pair and the keyboard will. So obviously there is no technical reason why this mini won't pair with the keyboard on boot, it IS supported. But invariabley one device or the other, either the keyboard OR the Magic Mouse will not pair at startup. This is particularly a pain if the mouse won't pair, I have to keep a USB mouse plugged in so I can use the bluetooth menu to Connect. Now this is insane. I have to use a USB mouse to connect my wireless mouse.
So, Apple Support didn't have any ideas. Maybe someone else has some ideas. I don't see any reason why my new Mac mini won't pair with both bluetooth devices at boot time. It should work.
Also I have a few gripes with the Magic Mouse, I'll toss those in too. Wow it burns batteries fast. I bought some Duracell NiMH rechargeables and a recharger, this added considerable cost to the product. But mostly I am having some sort of ergonomic problem. I am constantly doing something that causes the Dashboard to come up, even though I only have one finger on top of the mouse. I also occasionally pull up the "show all windows" feature of an app, which slows things down pulling up the windows unnecessarily and then me going back. I must be activating a two finger gesture with one finger on the side. I don't know how to prevent this, or even where I'd turn them off.
But even worse, I am geting tendonitis or carpal tunnel syndrome or something, due to the way this mouse has to be operated. I have never had this problem in my life. It seems that I am constantly holding up my index finger so I can right click. This is causing strain in my hands, and soreness. You can't right click with both fingers on the mouse. Or at least, I have never been able to. I just don't seem to be able to run this mouse well. If anyone has some tips, I would sure like to hear them. I like the scrolling gestures but I hate how it right-clicks and how it accidentally double-clicks. Oh someone please help save my wrist and tendons!
I liked the Mighty Mouse a lot, once I figured out how to clean the roller. But apparently it will not work with the Mac mini. I can pair it but it will only move up and down, it will not move the cursor left or right. Weird. I would use the old Mighty Mouse if I could get it to pair.

Answer 1

I have exact same problem. Mid 2010 mac mini Intel core 2 duo. Have Trackpad and silver bluetooth keyboard (both bought about a year ago). Suddenly today, Track pad stops working, keyboard was fine. After much futzing with computer and keyboard/trackpad restarts, etc, I was able to pair the track pad, but keyboard is no longer found by the mini. Once trackpad is paired, I can use it as a mouse, but none of the trackpad configurations for gestures work, and things like dragging a window around the screen is choppy, indicating I would think a spotty connection between trackpad and computer.
I also have a macbook pro that's about 3 years old, and both track pad and bluetooth keyboard pair up with this without any problem at all, so it's not the bluetooth devices.
when looking at the console of the mini, I get PAGES of errors for today, with things like 'can't get battery percentage", [BNBTrackpadDevice] getReport returned error .... for reportID ...., thousands of lines of ***Missing version string for product ****
Also, mini can't find the iPhone 3gs, the laptop or the iPad when trying to pair.
I'd say there's an issue with the Bluetooth controller or hardware, but if anyone else has had a similar experience and fixed it, please chime in.