Arch Linux

Insane-Boy

Member

Registered: 2006-02-27

Posts: 243

[Solved] bluetooth speaker

Hi all,

I've got a bluetooth speaker as a xmas present and I hoped i'd be able to make it work easily under arch linux, however, this isn't the case.

What is the problem?
- I can successfully discover, pair and connect to the device, the A2DP sink profile is able to produce some music too. However, the speaker has to be within 10 cm from the laptop otherwise the sound starts lagging - as if we miss certain signals and the sound isn't smooth. If it's 20+ cm away there's no sound at all. By specification the speaker should work within 10 meters and it works fine under windows with at least 5 meters distance.

System details:
- Laptop HP Probook 450 G2 (integrated bluetooth device- Realtek RTL8723BE)
- Up2date arch with KDE

What I've tried?
- Going through the Arch wiki page on setting up a bluetooth audio headset -> Same result
- Updating pulseaudio & bluez to their git versions -> Same problem
- Installing a different arch kernel (I'm using linux by default and I've tried with linux-zen) -> Same result
- Updating the linux bluetooth kernel driver -> Same result
- Tried booting ubuntu 16 -> Works perfectly fine within at least 5 meters distance.

Also, everytime when I get missing sound I see lots of these in the journalctl:
Jan 05 20:29:14 dpp pulseaudio[617]: [bluetooth] module-bluez5-device.c: Skipping 13870 us (= 2444 bytes) in audio stream
Jan 05 20:29:14 dpp pulseaudio[617]: [bluetooth] module-bluez5-device.c: Skipping 23897 us (= 4212 bytes) in audio stream
Jan 05 20:29:14 dpp pulseaudio[617]: [bluetooth] module-bluez5-device.c: Skipping 50793 us (= 8956 bytes) in audio stream
Jan 05 20:29:14 dpp pulseaudio[617]: [bluetooth] module-bluez5-device.c: Skipping 60897 us (= 10740 bytes) in audi

Has anybody encountered a similar problem? Or.. what is so different between ubuntu 16 & latest arch so that it works fine in ubuntu but doesn't work in arch?

Many thanks in advance!

Last edited by Insane-Boy (2017-01-07 12:56:00)

c00ter

Member

From: Alaskan in Washington State

Registered: 2014-08-28

Posts: 421

Re: [Solved] bluetooth speaker

I use pavucontrol to insert a 99 ms latency for my BT speaker column. I'm sure there is otherwise a .config somewhere also, but having it GUI-fied is why I use a DE. YMMV.

Regards

---

UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things. -- Doug Gwyn

Insane-Boy

Member

Registered: 2006-02-27

Posts: 243

Re: [Solved] bluetooth speaker

Thanks for the reply - forgot to mention I've tried this and doesn't help either!

Other ideas/thoughts?

PS: When I turn off the kernel module for the wifi card the bluetooth works fine..

Last edited by Insane-Boy (2017-01-05 22:02:58)

Insane-Boy

Member

Registered: 2006-02-27

Posts: 243

Re: [Solved] bluetooth speaker

http://apple.stackexchange.com/question … e-yosemite This one explains one is going on... should be tagged [Unsolvable] for now i guess.

Insane-Boy

Member

Registered: 2006-02-27

Posts: 243

Re: [Solved] bluetooth speaker

Issue solved after updating to latest realtek wifi drivers  - https://github.com/lwfinger/rtlwifi_new/