Bluetooth problem
 

This is not the first time I am having difficulties with getting my netbook to communicate with my Bose Soundlink 3 Bt speaker.

And a quick check reveals that I am not the only one who has problems with Bt on Linux. I am using LM 18.2 - fully updated and upgraded. The Bluetooth speaker comes on, and makes a happy "paired" sound. And when I play something on VLC on the netbook, it plays alright - in the sense that the sliders in pavucontrol show movement. But no sound emerges, either from the speakers on the netbook, or from the Bose.

I have also tried turning off the wi-fi since that turned out to have been one of the problems in my earlier adventure in this neck of the woods. No go.

Oh yes, and this may well be relevant - a few days back, the entire setup was working perfectly. I am not aware of having done anything, other than turning the computer off, and booting it back up again the next day. Now, no amount of booting - up, down, and sideways - is of any avail.

Help!

Hello Alok,

You may have to make sure the proper profile is active in pavucontrol: Configuration tab ... Mute the built-in profile and activate the profile corresponding to the bluetooth speaker.

Hello Rickkk,

Back again, I am!

I had a look at the profiles in the Configuration tab, and none of them seems particularly right. Anyway, I'll list them, and maybe you can tell me which one is secretly Bose!

Analog Stereo Duplex

Analog Stereo Output

Digital Stereo (HDMI)Output + Analog Stereo Input

Digital Stereo HDMI Output (unplugged)

Digital Surround 7.1 (HDMI)Output + Analog Stereo Input

Digital Surround 5.1 (HDMI)Output + Analog Stereo Input

Digital Surround 7.1 (HDMI)Output (unplugged)

Digital Surround 5.1 (HDMI)Output (unplugged)

Analog Stereo Input

Off

*

That's it. Make sense?

Hey Alok :)

It won't be any of those - there should be a second series if the bluetooth speaker is functional.

Do you use a GUI of some sort to configure bluetooth on your system or the command line ? I know you said you heard the "paired" sound from the speaker, but from what is looks like in pavucontrol, it doesn't seem to be showing up ...

Check to see if bluetooth is enabled, functioning and that your Bose speaker is definitely paired.

Hi again Alok,

I just reviewed the issue that I helped you with last summer with this setup.

It seems that at the time, your problem was possibly related to conflicts between your WiFi and Bluetooth radios ... Turning off WiFi was your solution back then.

Have you tried that this time around ?

Cheers.

*** EDIT *** ... OK forget this idea - I just reread your first post above where you mention you have tried this already ... Get back to us with the answers to my previous post. If it was working from last summer up until a few days ago, it will surely resurrect once again from its ashes ... ;) ...

OK, the "paired" sound has gone.

The Blueman devices page is frozen, and no device is shown as found.

And when I try and say "set up new device", I get a message "no adapters found".

Maybe there is something wrong with my Blueman installation. Should I uninstall, and reinstall?

Thanks.

Hey, I'm newbie too here...had such problem long time ago...pity don't remember how solved it.

Hi Rickkkk,

That damned GUI is infuriating!

Could you please send me a set of command-line commands that I can run to check if the Bluetooth on my netbook is working at all?

And by the way, I have "removed" the Blueman from the Software Manager page.

Alok

Pity you don't remember, Chiroden. But the reassuring thing is that it WAS solved once - so it may be solved once again!

Meanwhile, Rickkkk - with my minimal skills, I entered "bluetooth" at the command-line and got the response "bluetooth = on". Thanks very much! I want to ask the netbook - preferably in plain English! - if it can "see" the Bose speaker that is sitting right next to it.

Well, the problem seems resolved - for now. I had someone visiting me - a graduate student from a local tech school. And he had a bash at my bluetooth problem - and managed to lick it. From what I gather, he first purged the system of all blueman, and pulseaudio, and every thing related - and then installed them once again. And presto, it seems to work. He told me he had written a script which I am supposed to run if the problem recurs. I would have posted the script here, but I can't seem to "read" it enough to copy-paste it. It's extension is "sh", and I don't know what program I can use to read it. If anyone's interested, I can try and pass it on.

Thanks, good people!

Alok Rai

Hi Alok,

Glad your friend managed to help you out.

the .sh extension is a bash (command-line) script - you can read it in any text editor. If your friend made it executable, just clicking on it will run it. Easiest to open your favourite text editor and just open the file to read it.

For command line instructions - no problem - I manage all my bluetooth stuff from the command line.

Assuming your bluetooth adapter is physically present and its module (driver) is loaded, AND pulseaudio and all of its helper software is installed and running on your system ( ... usually is by default on Mint) ... :

To start the bluetooth service:

To start the bluetooth control interface:

Once in bluetooth control ...

To power on your adapter:

To initiate the agent:

To scan for devices (make sure your bluetooth speaker is on and ready to be paired):

To pair the speaker, find the MAC address of the found device whose description most closely matches your Bose speaker, and issue this command (you can cut and paste the actual MAC address to make it easier):

.... where the X's is the Bose's MAC address

... you should now hear your "paired" beep from the speaker and bluetoothctl will confirm pairing is successful.

Now to connect the paired speaker:

... same thing as for pairing .. happy beep and confirmation from bluetoothctl.

You should now be able to play through your speaker. As previously mentioned, you may additionally have to make sure the appropriate sound profile and output device is selected via pavucontrol, but that's about it.

Hope this helps - let us know how things go !

Hi Rickkkk,

No end to adventure! When I logged on this morning, and tried the Bluetooth, no sound! Ran the script - error messages - and no sound. Blueman was coming on, so tried the Devices page, and at the end of the pairing process, got the message that the device was "successfully paired, but failed to connect."

After this, I thought I'd try the sequence of commands that you had sent. Went successfully, until the last step - connect (Bose sequence of xx:xx...). Now I got the message: Failed to connect: org.bluez.Error.Failed

So, not quite square one, but not much more than square two!

All yours!

Alok

And here, for what it's worth, is the bash script -

#!/bin/bash

dmesg | grep -i blue >> dmesg_msg.txt

if ($(cat dmesg_msg.txt) == *"driver"* );then
echo "Driver is available"
else
echo "dmesg shows no driver"
fi

echo "`hcitool dev`" |& tee hcitool_dev.txt
if ($(cat hcitool_dev.txt) == *"hci"* );then
echo "Found the Bluetooth device"
else
sudo apt-get purge blueman bluez bluetooth pulseaudio-module-bluetooth
sudo apt-get install blueman bluez bluetooth pulseaudio-module-bluetooth
sudo echo "load-module module-switch-on-connect" >> /etc/pulse/default.pa
sudo reboot
fi

Hi Alok,


A quick thing to check before getting into anything more complicated ...

One of the situations I've experienced that caused the behaviour you're noticing (device pairing but not connecting) was when another bluetooth controller had already connected to the peripheral (speaker). In my case, it was my mobile phone, with which my BT speaker was also paired. As soon as I turned on the bluetooth speaker in the vicinity of my mobile phone, which had its bluetooth radio on, the phone would grab (connect with) the speaker before I had a chance to connect to it with my laptop.

So could you just quickly check to see if any other bluetooth-enabled device may be interfering ?

Hi Rickkkk,

Have been out of town for the last few days - hence the silence....

So, got back, and ran the sequence of commands you'd sent. And took care to keep my mobile far away in another room!

This time the sequence went fine until I got to #pair XX:XX... Response: attempting to pair [next line] Failed to pair: org.bluez.Error.AlreadyExists

I went ahead, and tried #connect XX:XX... Response: Failed to connect: org.bluez.Error.Failed

Hope this makes some sense! I think there's something called org.bluez that doesn't like me!