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supernobby

Member

Registered: 2017-07-22

Posts: 16

Bluetooth audio intermitted interruptions

Hello, sorry, for another Bluetooth audio thread. But I could not find help in others. And at some point this also worked better.

The issue I have, the Bluetooth audio plays fine for a few seconds, then for a few more seconds sound gets interrupted as if the would be a bandwidth issue or something like this, then plays fine again for a few settings and then the problems again. This repeats over and over. So, Bluetooth audio is currently not usable.

I use KDE Plasma 6.5.5 on a MacBookPro11,3. WLAN is off to eliminate the often mentioned source for trouble. And my headphones is also the only connected Bluetooth device at the time. This also happens with different Bluetooth headphones.

At some point I had also installed the "rtkit" package and the rtkit-daemon.service is also still running. Is this no longer a appropriate measure? Or does someone have an idea what could cause this trouble?

If I can provide more diagnostics, I will of course provide them.

Thank you!
Andreas

killertofus

Member

Registered: 2025-02-10

Posts: 153

Re: Bluetooth audio intermitted interruptions

are you using pipewire or pulse?

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supernobby

Member

Registered: 2017-07-22

Posts: 16

Re: Bluetooth audio intermitted interruptions

Hi, thanks for the reply. I am using pipewire.

supernobby

Member

Registered: 2017-07-22

Posts: 16

Re: Bluetooth audio intermitted interruptions

I made a little audio recording of the issue. Hope you can listen to it. As I see no option here to add a file, I placed it here:

https://magentacloud.de/s/F7PqDwTyELNgmkD

There it seems, there is a constant cycle of 20 seconds normal play and then 40 seconds of interruptions, which then repeats.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,037

Re: Bluetooth audio intermitted interruptions

Which WLAN/BT chip/driver is this?

lspci -kd ::0280

old macbook is likely broadcom in which case they are somewhat known for being troublesome in general.

supernobby

Member

Registered: 2017-07-22

Posts: 16

Re: Bluetooth audio intermitted interruptions

Thanks for having a look. Here what I get:

$ lspci -kd ::0280
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM4360 802.11ac Dual Band Wireless Network Adapter (rev 03)
        Subsystem: Apple Inc. Device 0134
        Kernel driver in use: wl
        Kernel modules: bcma, wl

But as I remember times without such an issue, maybe it is something else.

As the problem seems to have a rather constant period, what can be some strategy to find out, what happens after 20 seconds and what happens after (or takes until) a minute?
I have now even WLAN enabled. But the problem is the same. 20 seconds normal replay, 40 seconds with interruptions.
And this is also not synchron to starting a replay in an audio app. Replay can also start in the 40 seconds interruptions phase. But this 1 minute cycle is still constant.