Bluetooth and Game Controllers [Solved]

Eragon615 · 2021-09-21 01:08:44

Hello all,

I recently (like two days ago) switched to Arch, and I gotta say I'm loving it so far. The only thing that's got me stumped, is my game controllers. I have several, a PS3, PS4, and PS5 controller, as well as an Exlene "Gamecube" controller. Unfortunately, none of them will work for me on Bluetooth. Here's what I've tried so far:

I'm running KDE, so I tried through Bluedevil first (GUI bluetooth manager). It detects the device in pairing mode and attempts to connect, but then tells me there's an error. Oddly, the controller acts as if it's paired, and it shows up in Bluedevil as well, but linux doesn't detect them as controllers, or anything else for that matter.

So at this point I realize I have an issue and start combing over the wiki. I try connecting again using the bluetoothctl (first time I've ever done that) and it pairs with no errors. Confusingly, linux still doesn't see it as a controller.

This computer was, up until two days ago, running KDE Neon (uses an Ubuntu Base) and the controllers worked fine. Something I read said sometimes bluetooth freaks out if you pair it to the same adapter with a new OS, such as in dual boot situations. I have a tablet PC running Manjaro Gnome (yes yes, I've been distro hopping a bit) that I try pairing to. It connects just fine and functions as a controller. Connecting back to Arch still doesn't work though.

I've googled everything I can think of, and I'm not finding anything that looks like my issue, so I'm starting to get desperate. I'm trying any troubleshooting steps I can find, and run

lsmod | grep bt

on both Arch and Manjaro. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with it, but I notice that the bluetooth mod has hidp on Manjaro but it's absent on Arch. I've done my best to google around that, but I'm not finding anything.

So at this point I come to you the community for help. Let me know if I need to provide any further info.

Last edited by Eragon615 (2021-09-21 13:36:40)

Trilby · 2021-09-21 01:16:51

You could try `modprobe hidp` as root - but really the first check should be whether the following two commands report the same version number:

uname -r
pacman -Q linux

If not, reboot.

Eragon615 · 2021-09-21 03:10:30

That's... really embarrassing. I didn't even realize I had updated my kernel, much less that it could affect bluetooth like that. I was copying files from my old hard drive and didn't want to interrupt, so it had been about 30 hours since my last restart. Anyway, thanks for the tip. That was exactly the issue.

Trilby · 2021-09-21 12:43:53

A reboot is only necessary after a kernel update if you need to load new kernel modules that had not been previously used. When the kernel is updated the modules for the "old" (but still running) kernel are removed from disk. Some other distros work around this with various strategies of keeping old kernel modules on disk even after an update. There are also ways to do this in arch, but I've never found it to be worth the hassle ... just anytime a previously-unused kernel module fails to load, check the running and installed kernel versions and reboot (or kexec) if needed.

Please feel free to mark this thread as solved] by clicking "edit" on your first post to prepend [SOLVED] to the title.

Last edited by Trilby (2021-09-21 12:44:42)

Arch Linux

#1 2021-09-21 01:08:44

Bluetooth and Game Controllers [Solved]

#2 2021-09-21 01:16:51

Re: Bluetooth and Game Controllers [Solved]

#3 2021-09-21 03:10:30

Re: Bluetooth and Game Controllers [Solved]

#4 2021-09-21 12:43:53

Re: Bluetooth and Game Controllers [Solved]

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