Arch Linux

BoredBuppin

Member

Registered: 2026-06-08

Posts: 3

Choppy bluetooth audio on "Intel Corporation Raptor Lake PCH CNVi"

Hello everyone,
Recently I started noticing that any audio playing through my bluetooth headphones is excessively choppy, investigating the issue, i found in journalctl that wireplumber was reporting:
```spa.bluez5.sink.media: Missing completion reports for packet (0 suppressed): Bluetooth adapter firmware bug?```, only bluetooth audio is affected, and my headphones will somtimes randomly disconnect too.
It seems that no matter what i try to do, this error remains and the audio is choppy, here is what i tried without success:
-[ ] Disabling bluetooth/wifi coexistence in /etc/modprobe.d/ by setting options ```iwlwifi bt_coex_active=0```
-[ ] Changing my kernel to 6.18 lts
-[ ] Updating firmware with fwupdmgr (fwupdmgr get-devices reports errors about unupdatable firmware due to missing UEFI ESP partition even though /boot is mounted correctly
-[ ] Fiddling around with the wireplumber config and trying to force a lower bitrate, a different audio codec (my headphones only support LDAC and AAC) or switching to mono output
-[ ] Disabling/Enabling Bluetooth Enhanced ReTransmission
No matter what i seem to try, the audio is still choppy to this day, and has been for a while, im running Hyprland on my thinkpad x1 gen8 yoga, and i cannot seem to find any other user with the same problem as mine, despite encountering this issue for about a month now.
Thank you for any help and please apologize and stupid mistakes i made, first time poster on the forums, though i have been reading threads quite often.

Last edited by BoredBuppin (2026-06-11 12:28:24)

kabirbg

Member

Registered: 2020-11-27

Posts: 6

Re: Choppy bluetooth audio on "Intel Corporation Raptor Lake PCH CNVi"

Hey, I'm on 7.0.12 and experiencing the same issue with the exact bug line you got. I tried all the same things you did, as well as downgrading bluez and it didn't fix the issue. It's so interesting that you're the first person I've found also experiencing this, even though I am using COSMIC on a Framework 12 so not really sure what the common thread could be there. Did you find out anything else or were you able to fix this issue somehow?

BoredBuppin

Member

Registered: 2026-06-08

Posts: 3

Re: Choppy bluetooth audio on "Intel Corporation Raptor Lake PCH CNVi"

Hey, I'm on 7.0.12 and experiencing the same issue with the exact bug line you got. I tried all the same things you did, as well as downgrading bluez and it didn't fix the issue. It's so interesting that you're the first person I've found also experiencing this, even though I am using COSMIC on a Framework 12 so not really sure what the common thread could be there. Did you find out anything else or were you able to fix this issue somehow?

May i ask what headphones you are using, could the common denominator be the nothing ear (a)?
I havent had the opportunity to find out more but it does seem odd that this is happening on a Framework 12 as that isn't nearly the same wireless stack as I have... But I'll get back to the issue soon and I'll post here if I find anything new.

kabirbg

Member

Registered: 2020-11-27

Posts: 6

Re: Choppy bluetooth audio on "Intel Corporation Raptor Lake PCH CNVi"

Oops, sorry I'm late—actually ended up reinstalling my whole OS just to see if the bug would go away, and it didn't. I did preserve my /home so guessing it might be a config thing... but if I create a new empty user account and log in I still get the same issue (including when the test user is the very first login after boot), whereas if I just hop on a live usb it's fixed. Genuinely so confused right now—but anyways, to answer your question, unfortunately not as I'm using Bose QuietComfort Earbuds. I have an AX210 card so I believe it's still the same as yours (on a Raptor Lake system)

kabirbg

Member

Registered: 2020-11-27

Posts: 6

Re: Choppy bluetooth audio on "Intel Corporation Raptor Lake PCH CNVi"

WAIT I THINK I SOLVED IT! Is there any chance whatsoever that you have a VPN or any other nonstandard networking set up on your system. I had a Cisco VPN installed, and I just found out that it has a systemctl service that runs in the background even when I'm not using the VPN and haven't opened the client. I disabled and stopped vpnagentd.service, and ta-da! I can't believe it but I think it's actually working now. If you don't have a vpn, I would encourage looking through systemd services just in case there's something there, and/or your networking config.

BoredBuppin

Member

Registered: 2026-06-08

Posts: 3

Re: Choppy bluetooth audio on "Intel Corporation Raptor Lake PCH CNVi"

Yes, this seems to be it!!
That is an amazing find, i would never have found that issue. I am too using a Cisco VPN and stopping vpnagentd did solve the issue for me... why this is, is not obvious to me but thank you so much!
I hope anyone with this same issue can find your reply swiftly, and it might be worth investigating why vpnagentd does this. Ill find out where i should open an issue and do so.
Thank you!