Arch Linux

Rammerhead

Member

Registered: 2022-09-29

Posts: 18

[SOLVED] Cannot connect Bluetooth device after recent system update

Yes, the title says "SOLVED" as I narrowed it down to a recent package upgrade. Yesterday (6th Oct), I did a pacman -Syu i.e. performed a full system upgrade. This upgraded many packages, and among them were included:

[ALPM] upgraded libpipewire (1:1.6.7-1 -> 1:1.6.9-1)
[ALPM] upgraded pipewire (1:1.6.7-1 -> 1:1.6.9-1)
[ALPM] upgraded pipewire-audio (1:1.6.7-1 -> 1:1.6.9-1)
[ALPM] upgraded libwireplumber (0.5.15-1 -> 0.5.18-1)
[ALPM] upgraded wireplumber (0.5.15-1 -> 0.5.18-1)
[ALPM] upgraded pipewire-jack (1:1.6.7-1 -> 1:1.6.9-1)
[ALPM] upgraded pipewire-pulse (1:1.6.7-1 -> 1:1.6.9-1)
[ALPM] upgraded gst-plugin-pipewire (1:1.6.7-1 -> 1:1.6.9-1)
[ALPM] upgraded pipewire-alsa (1:1.6.7-1 -> 1:1.6.9-1)

Next reboot (today), I notice I'm unable to connect to my bluetooth headphones at all. Was getting errors such as below in bluetoothctl (I lost the raw log lines but saved the error codes):

org.bluez.Error.Failed br-connection-unknown
org.bluez.Reason.Remote, Connection terminated by remote user

Found the following log in journalctl:

a2dp-sink profile connect failed Protocol not available

Wiped my configs and reinstalled the packages but to no avail. Eventually I decided to just downgrade the packages using the downgrade tool from AUR:

[ALPM] downgraded libpipewire (1:1.6.9-1 -> 1:1.6.7-1)
[ALPM] downgraded pipewire (1:1.6.9-1 -> 1:1.6.7-1)
[ALPM] downgraded pipewire-audio (1:1.6.9-1 -> 1:1.6.7-1)
[ALPM] downgraded libwireplumber (0.5.18-1 -> 0.5.15-1)
[ALPM] downgraded wireplumber (0.5.18-1 -> 0.5.15-1)
[ALPM] downgraded gst-plugin-pipewire (1:1.6.9-1 -> 1:1.6.7-1)
[ALPM] downgraded pipewire-alsa (1:1.6.9-1 -> 1:1.6.7-1)
[ALPM] downgraded pipewire-jack (1:1.6.9-1 -> 1:1.6.7-1)
[ALPM] downgraded pipewire-pulse (1:1.6.9-1 -> 1:1.6.7-1)

Reboot, and viola. Bluetooth is working again

Wrote this page so someone else suffering with the same issue can find out about it too