No Bluetooth adapters found RTL8821CE

LionHeartIV · 10-29-2019, 08:39 AM

Hi Rickkkk

Settings tab - please see shot-2.png

I am unfamiliar with the bluetooth command line, could you please help with this?

Rickkkk · 10-29-2019, 08:58 AM

OK - not much there in the Settings tab ...

For bluetoothctl, start the command line interface :

Code:

sudo bluetoothctl

... if the package is present on your system, you will be presented with a new command prompt, following the detection of the MAC address of your bluetooth controller. Something like this :

Code:

Agent registered
[CHG] Controller xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx Pairable: yes
[bluetooth]#

.. in my case above, the "Agent" is already registered and on, but the sequence of useful commands to issue, in order, would be :

Code:

power on

... this does what it implies .. powers on your bluetooth controller's radio.

Code:

agent on

... described above ...

Code:

scan on

... this scans for available bluetooth devices to potentially pair with, connect to and use, listing them with their MAC addresses.

Try that for now and report back the output.

If the bluetoothctl command yields "command not found", report back as well. We'll have to install the missing package.

LionHeartIV · 10-29-2019, 10:09 AM

Hi Rick

it just seems to hang forever...

Code:

$ sudo bluetoothctl  
Waiting to connect to bluetoothd...

Rickkkk · 10-29-2019, 10:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LionHeartIV

Hi Rick

it just seems to hang forever...

Code:

$ sudo bluetoothctl  
Waiting to connect to bluetoothd...

That is *really* odd. That usually means that the bluetooth systemd service is not running .. which a previous command confirmed it *was*.

Would you mind checking the output again of :

Code:

systemctl status bluetooth

Code:

lsmod | grep btusb

Code:

rfkill

.. please ?

LionHeartIV · 10-29-2019, 10:28 AM

Code:

$ systemctl status bluetooth
● bluetooth.service - Bluetooth service
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: inactive (dead)
     Docs: man:bluetoothd(8)
$ lsmod | grep btusb
$ rfkill
ID TYPE DEVICE    SOFT      HARD
 0 wlan phy0   blocked unblocked

I have BlueZ version 5.48

$ bluetoothd -v
5.48

Do I need to upgrade to 5.51 ?

Rickkkk · 10-29-2019, 11:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LionHeartIV

Code:

$ systemctl status bluetooth
● bluetooth.service - Bluetooth service
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: inactive (dead)
     Docs: man:bluetoothd(8)
$ lsmod | grep btusb
$ rfkill
ID TYPE DEVICE    SOFT      HARD
 0 wlan phy0   blocked unblocked

I have BlueZ version 5.48

$ bluetoothd -v
5.48

Do I need to upgrade to 5.51 ?

Wow.

The current state of your system, according to those command outputs, has changed completely since your last post.

The bluetooth driver module is not loaded
Your wifi adapter is soft blocked in rfkill (probably not pertinent to this situation, but still strange since we unblocked it ....)
The systemd bluetooth service is inactive

... This explains why bluetoothctl (or the gui app, for that matter) isn't working ...

Did you reboot between posts ?

As for the BlueZ version, I would be surprised if it was the sole reason, but if Mint's repos have an updated version, you could try that. Make sure your entire system is up to date, for that matter.

I'm wondering if something is preventing the bluetooth module from loading at boot, which would prevent the bluetooth service from working. Do you know if you have a combined wifi/bluetooth adapter in that machine ? Show the output of :

Code:

lsusb

Rickkkk · 10-29-2019, 12:04 PM

Never mind my last question - I looked up your adapter - it is indeed a combo card. There is anecdotal evidence of difficulties with the bluetooth functionality under linux, but it doesn't seem categorically impossible ...

I would update your system and reboot. Then:

Check state of driver and bluetooth service
Load both manually if not already the case
Check state of bluetooth (and wifi) adapter in rfkill
Once you know that all is well with the above, without rebooting, then try both your bluetooth gui app and bluetoothctl if necessary.

Let us know .. again ...

...

LionHeartIV · 10-30-2019, 02:06 AM

Hi Rick

Time difference, it was time to sleep, had to shut down the laptop.

Code:

$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 05c8:0238 Cheng Uei Precision Industry Co., Ltd (Foxlink) 
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 09da:2403 A4Tech Co., Ltd. 
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 045e:0810 Microsoft Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Sorry, could you give me the Linux commands again for each of your steps? Thanks.

Rickkkk · 10-30-2019, 07:35 AM

Hi LionHeartIV,

Your wifi / bluetooth adapter doesn't appear in that list. Could you report the output of :

Code:

lspci

... please ?

LionHeartIV · 10-30-2019, 09:06 AM

Okay, thanks again for your persistence.

The output - as requested:

Code:

$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Device 3e34 (rev 0c)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Device 3ea0 (rev 02)
00:04.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor Thermal Subsystem (rev 0c)
00:08.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/v6 / E3-1500 v5 / 6th/7th Gen Core Processor Gaussian Mixture Model
00:12.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Device 9df9 (rev 30)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Device 9ded (rev 30)
00:14.2 RAM memory: Intel Corporation Device 9def (rev 30)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Device 9de0 (rev 30)
00:17.0 RAID bus controller: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile SATA Controller [RAID mode] (rev 30)
00:1d.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 9db0 (rev f0)
00:1d.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 9db1 (rev f0)
00:1d.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 9db4 (rev f0)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Device 9d84 (rev 30)
00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Device 9dc8 (rev 30)
00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation Device 9da3 (rev 30)
00:1f.5 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Device 9da4 (rev 30)
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)
02:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter
03:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: SK hynix Device 1327

Rickkkk · 10-30-2019, 10:50 AM

Hi again LionHeartIV,

The bluetooth adapter isn't showing up anywhere most likely because the driver wasn't loaded when you queried the system for devices (lsusb and lspci).

It would be interesting if we could at least get bluetooth running to prove that it can work, and then figure out why the driver module isn't loading automatically at boot ...

Could you please refer back to post #22 and do what is listed there, beginning with a system update. Reboot after the system update but once you start going through the other steps (essentially manually loading the driver and starting bluetooth), don't reboot again before reporting back on your status.

Thanks.

LionHeartIV · 10-31-2019, 12:22 AM

Hi Rick.

1) My system is up to date.

2) Presume these are the steps in post #22?

Code:

$ systemctl status bluetooth
● bluetooth.service - Bluetooth service
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: inactive (dead)
     Docs: man:bluetoothd(8)
$ lsmod | grep btusb
$ rfkill
ID TYPE DEVICE    SOFT      HARD
 0 wlan phy0   blocked unblocked

(I'm leaving my laptop on all day.)

Rickkkk · 10-31-2019, 11:38 AM

Hi LionHeartIV,

No, those are just the status query commands. Assuming that your system is still in the above state, in order, execute:

Code:

sudo modprobe btusb

Code:

rfkill

... verify that bluetooth adapter now shows up in output and that its status is unblocked. If blocked, unblock it with :

Code:

rfkill unblock {ID}

... replacing {ID} with the proper identifier ... Last time it was 0.

Code:

sudo systemctl restart bluetooth

Code:

systemctl status bluetooth

... if status is now active and running, go to your gui app and see if adapter now shows up.

Report back :-)

LionHeartIV · 11-01-2019, 02:47 AM

Rick

Thank you for your patience with this, however, because of the time difference and the obvious difficulties - I've decided to throw the towel in and call it a day.
I will probably buy a Bluetooth dongle and live with it as is.

Thanks again!

Rickkkk · 11-01-2019, 07:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LionHeartIV

Rick

Thank you for your patience with this, however, because of the time difference and the obvious difficulties - I've decided to throw the towel in and call it a day.
I will probably buy a Bluetooth dongle and live with it as is.

Thanks again!

Understood - I hope you have an easier time with your alternative.

Feel free to return should you decide more assistance is required.

Cheers.