Arch Linux

extrapalantine

Member

Registered: 2016-07-15

Posts: 62

Bluetooth headset doesn't show up in PulseAudio config

Hello,

I've been trying all day to get my new 66 Audio BTS Bluetooth headset to work with Arch on my Asus R500A laptop. It seems to be recognized and paired in bluetoothctl, but (aside from one brief instance that I can't reproduce) I can't get the Bluetooth device to show up in pavucontrol.

The controller and device show up normally in bluetoothctl:

$ bluetoothctl -a 
[NEW] Controller 6C:71:D9:5B:61:D8 ben [default]
[NEW] Device 00:1A:7D:E2:34:BC 66 Audio BTS
Agent registered

And:

[bluetooth]# show
Controller 6C:71:D9:5B:61:D8
	Name: ben
	Alias: ben
	Class: 0x00010c
	Powered: yes
	Discoverable: no
	Pairable: yes
	UUID: Generic Attribute Profile (00001801-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
	UUID: A/V Remote Control        (0000110e-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
	UUID: PnP Information           (00001200-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
	UUID: Generic Access Profile    (00001800-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
	UUID: A/V Remote Control Target (0000110c-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
	Modalias: usb:v1D6Bp0246d0528
	Discovering: no

Except, this is strange:

[bluetooth]# trust 00:1D:43:6D:03:26
Device 00:1D:43:6D:03:26 not available

I dug deeper with the help of some other threads on the Arch forums, and found that it's initializing at startup:

$  dmesg | grep Blue  
[   10.906202] Bluetooth: Core ver 2.21
[   10.906231] Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized
[   10.906235] Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized
[   10.906238] Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized
[   10.906243] Bluetooth: SCO socket layer initialized
[   22.675824] Bluetooth: BNEP (Ethernet Emulation) ver 1.3
[   22.675829] Bluetooth: BNEP filters: protocol multicast
[   22.675836] Bluetooth: BNEP socket layer initialized
[ 2312.795951] Bluetooth: RFCOMM TTY layer initialized
[ 2312.795972] Bluetooth: RFCOMM socket layer initialized
[ 2312.795981] Bluetooth: RFCOMM ver 1.11

It's up and running in hci:

$ hcitool dev
Devices:
	hci0	6C:71:D9:5B:61:D8

$ hciconfig -a hci0   
hci0:	Type: BR/EDR  Bus: USB
	BD Address: 6C:71:D9:5B:61:D8  ACL MTU: 1022:8  SCO MTU: 183:5
	UP RUNNING PSCAN 
	RX bytes:1617 acl:0 sco:0 events:95 errors:0
	TX bytes:4805 acl:0 sco:0 commands:95 errors:0
	Features: 0xff 0xfe 0x0d 0xfe 0xd8 0x7f 0x7b 0x87
	Packet type: DM1 DM3 DM5 DH1 DH3 DH5 HV1 HV2 HV3 
	Link policy: RSWITCH HOLD SNIFF 
	Link mode: SLAVE ACCEPT 
	Name: 'ben'
	Class: 0x00010c
	Service Classes: Unspecified
	Device Class: Computer, Laptop
	HCI Version: 4.0 (0x6)  Revision: 0x102
	LMP Version: 4.0 (0x6)  Subversion: 0x1
	Manufacturer: Atheros Communications, Inc. (69)

It's unblocked:

$  rfkill list      
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no
1: asus-wlan: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no
2: asus-bluetooth: Bluetooth
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no
3: hci0: Bluetooth
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no

All the necessary packages are installed:

$ pacman -Qs blue  
local/bluez 5.40-1
    Daemons for the bluetooth protocol stack
local/bluez-hid2hci 5.40-1
    Put HID proxying bluetooth HCI's into HCI mode
local/bluez-libs 5.40-1
    Deprecated libraries for the bluetooth protocol stack
local/bluez-utils 5.40-1
    Development and debugging utilities for the bluetooth protocol stack
local/pulseaudio-bluetooth 9.0-1
    Bluetooth support for PulseAudio
local/sbc 1.3-1
    Bluetooth Subband Codec (SBC) library

Here are some relevant outputs:

$ lsmod | grep -i blue             
bluetooth             454656  30 bnep,ath3k,btbcm,btrtl,btusb,rfcomm,btintel
rfkill                 20480  6 cfg80211,bluetooth,asus_wmi
crc16                  16384  2 ext4,bluetooth

$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor DRAM Controller (rev 09)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller (rev 09)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI Host Controller (rev 04)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev c4)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev c4)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev c4)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation HM76 Express Chipset LPC Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series Chipset Family 6-port SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 04)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 04)
02:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)
03:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8411 PCI Express Card Reader (rev 01)
03:00.2 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 0a)

I followed the instructions on the ArchWiki Bluetooth headset tutorial, restarted pulseaudio (and my computer) several times, but the headphones still won't show up in pavucontrol. Why would "pair" and "connect" work, but not "trust"? And what's the link I'm missing with pulseaudio?

Last edited by extrapalantine (2016-07-15 17:24:30)

jeremy31

Member

Registered: 2015-11-01

Posts: 149

Re: Bluetooth headset doesn't show up in PulseAudio config

See what

pactl list short | grep bluetooth

extrapalantine

Member

Registered: 2016-07-15

Posts: 62

Re: Bluetooth headset doesn't show up in PulseAudio config

pactl list short | grep bluetooth shows me

8	module-bluetooth-policy 

What's missing?

extrapalantine

Member

Registered: 2016-07-15

Posts: 62

Re: Bluetooth headset doesn't show up in PulseAudio config

It just occurred to me to try systemctl status bluetooth:

● bluetooth.service - Bluetooth service
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: active (running) since Sun 2016-07-17 16:43:23 EEST; 46min ago
     Docs: man:bluetoothd(8)
 Main PID: 340 (bluetoothd)
   Status: "Running"
    Tasks: 1 (limit: 512)
   CGroup: /system.slice/bluetooth.service
           └─340 /usr/lib/bluetooth/bluetoothd

Jul 17 16:43:22 ben systemd[1]: Starting Bluetooth service...
Jul 17 16:43:23 ben bluetoothd[340]: Bluetooth daemon 5.40
Jul 17 16:43:23 ben systemd[1]: Started Bluetooth service.
Jul 17 16:43:23 ben bluetoothd[340]: Starting SDP server
Jul 17 16:43:23 ben bluetoothd[340]: Bluetooth management interface 1.12 initialized
Jul 17 16:43:23 ben bluetoothd[340]: Failed to obtain handles for "Service Changed" characteristic
Jul 17 16:43:23 ben bluetoothd[340]: Sap driver initialization failed.
Jul 17 16:43:23 ben bluetoothd[340]: sap-server: Operation not permitted (1)

So, now the problem is to figure out why my Sap driver won't initialize.

extrapalantine

Member

Registered: 2016-07-15

Posts: 62

Re: Bluetooth headset doesn't show up in PulseAudio config

I was able to reproduce the connect-then-disconnect...

[bluetooth]# power on
[CHG] Controller 6C:71:D9:5B:61:D8 Class: 0x00010c
Changing power on succeeded
[CHG] Controller 6C:71:D9:5B:61:D8 Powered: yes
[bluetooth]# scan on
Discovery started
[CHG] Controller 6C:71:D9:5B:61:D8 Discovering: yes
[CHG] Device 00:1A:7D:E2:34:BC Connected: yes
[CHG] Device 00:1A:7D:E2:34:BC Connected: no

...and when I try again a few seconds later...

[bluetooth]# connect 00:1A:7D:E2:34:BC
Attempting to connect to 00:1A:7D:E2:34:BC
Failed to connect: org.bluez.Error.Failed

Super helpful error message there! I still have no idea why this issue is happening. Its willingness to connect seems to change at random.

Sometimes the headphones show up in the bluetoothctl scan; sometimes they don't. As far as I can tell, this is random, too.

jeremy31

Member

Registered: 2015-11-01

Posts: 149

Re: Bluetooth headset doesn't show up in PulseAudio config

Try pairing after

pact load-module module-bluetooth-discover

extrapalantine

Member

Registered: 2016-07-15

Posts: 62

Re: Bluetooth headset doesn't show up in PulseAudio config

Yeah, I tried that, and bluetoothctl says

 Device  00:1A:7D:E2:34:BC not available

jeremy31

Member

Registered: 2015-11-01

Posts: 149

Re: Bluetooth headset doesn't show up in PulseAudio config

You might still need some bluez modules loaded for pulse audio to see the device

Do you have package pulseaudio-bluetooth installed?  As the pactl command should have returned

module-bluetooth-policy
module-bluez5-device
module-bluez5-discover

Last edited by jeremy31 (2016-07-19 09:25:31)

extrapalantine

Member

Registered: 2016-07-15

Posts: 62

Re: Bluetooth headset doesn't show up in PulseAudio config

Yes, I thought about that:

$ pulseaudio --dump-modules | grep blue
module-bluetooth-discover               Detect available Bluetooth daemon and load the corresponding discovery module
module-bluetooth-policy                 When a bluetooth sink or source is added, load module-loopback
module-bluez5-device                    BlueZ 5 Bluetooth audio sink and source
module-bluez5-discover                  Detect available BlueZ 5 Bluetooth audio devices and load BlueZ 5 Bluetooth audio drivers

And yet...

$ pactl load-module module-bluetooth-policy
Failure: Module initialization failed
$ pactl load-module module-bluetooth-discover
Failure: Module initialization failed
$ pactl load-module module-bluez5-device
Failure: Module initialization failed

Those are pretty unhelpful error messages, but the modules are definitely having problems.