[SOLVED] No actual sound with Pulse on bluez' "Handsfree Head Unit (HFP)", except Pulse's own sounds.

I have a weird problem with my Bluetooth headphones.

What works:

1) A2DP with Pulseaudio and Bluez.
2) Switching to Handsfree Head Unit (HFP) using Bluez GUI.
3) Recording audio using the Handsfree Input.
4) Hearing Pulseaudio's own sounds, e.g., the sound which helps to understand the volume level in pavucontrol. You can drag the slider and hear as the sound goes up and down.

What does not work:

Actually playing any other sound. mpv, mplayer, vlc, any other player trying to play any sound produces nothing but the "volume indicator" in the pavucontrol's "Output Devices", and "Playback" tabs moving.

The headphones do not produce an actual sound. The headphones make a tiny "click" when playback is started, there is some background sound of the headphones working, but there is no actual sound of the record coming out of the headphones.


I am not trying "Headsed", to fighting with "ofono" should not be required, I believe.

FWIW, the headphones model is Marshall Monitor Bluetooth.

Sounds similar to my experience described here:
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pulse...7#note_1016305

The second proposed solution in the second post solved the issue for me.

Originally Posted by kgha Sounds similar to my experience described here: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pulse...7#note_1016305 The second proposed solution in the second post solved the issue for me.

Wow, that is right to the point!

So, the "first" solution worked for me. The codec is now CVSD, which makes everyone sound a bit like a robot, but at least now I hear things.

How did the "second" solution work for your? If it disables the native backend, does it mean that you have to install ofono, and all that GSM stack?

No need fiddling with ofono, thankfully. Even if HFP is disabled, the HLS backend works fine with my bt device. And sound quality's OK (at least for webmeetings).

What is HLS? Did you mean "HSP", "headset"?

In fact, the "second option" didn't even let me connect the headphones, but maybe I'm doing something wrong.

Originally Posted by Lockywolf What is HLS? Did you mean "HSP", "headset"?

Sorry, my bad. HSP, of course.

Here's my options in pavucontrol - configuration:

Profile:
High Fidelity Playback (A2DP Sink)
Headset Head Unit (HSP)
Handsfree Head Unit (HFP) (unavailable)

Codec with A2DP: SBC

with HSP: CVSD or mSBC. pavucontrol seems to default to CVSD, but mSBC also works if I choose it.

Originally Posted by kgha ... with HSP: CVSD or mSBC. pavucontrol seems to default to CVSD, but mSBC also works if I choose it.

Does the audio quality noticeably change if you use that drop-down menu?

Because (see that bug on freedesktop) it seems that the menu is not actually working, at least not all the time.

Anyway, I guess, this is not very important, CVSD is enough for voice, and hopefully they will repair this mSBC problem in the next version of Pulse and/or Kernel, if there are people working on it.

Can't say I can hear a difference when switching between CVSD and mSBC. But I can't say that the sound is "robot-like" (as you describe it) either. And no marked difference between the A2DP and the HSP profiles, except of course that HSP is mono.
N.B. Igor writes on github-pulseaudio that the dropdown menu isn't implemented yet for the handsfree profile, but maybe it works for HSP?
No idea why only the second "solution" worked for me and only the first for you. Maybe hardware related (different bt devices, different wlan/bt cards)?