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With ubuntu 19.10 I have been attempting to pair my Airpods with my laptop. There seems to be a problem with pairing and system is unable to add them as Bluetooth device. This happened after an upgrade from 19.04. Changing ControllerMode in /etc/bluetooth/main.conf seems to have no affect. Any help appreciated.

Samuel Zachara
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3 Answers3

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Try adding ControllerMode = bredr to /etc/bluetooth/main.conf file. Restart bluetooth service using the following command sudo systemctl restart bluetooth. Then try repairing with airpods, this worked for me in 19.10.

rahduro
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    This worked for me too! I am using Sony WF-XB700 on Ubuntu 20.04. I think this issue is not airpods specific but due to Bluetooth 5.0 or whatever tech TWS headphones use. – Karanjot Singh Nov 09 '20 at 14:14
  • Changing ControllerMode to bredr in 20.04 does not work. – Sephethus Dec 02 '20 at 15:01
  • Did you restart bluetooth service after that, it works on my end. – rahduro Dec 03 '20 at 00:56
  • @Sephethus it worked for me. Check that you have only one uncommented line with ControllerMode = bredr, I had ControllerMode = dual uncommented – littleguga Dec 07 '20 at 18:36
  • For Ubuntu 20.04 I had to use ControllerMode = bredr to get this to work in addition to trusting the device manually through bluetoothctl. – james-see Dec 06 '21 at 00:36
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The bluetooth GUI didn't work and ControllerMode did nothing for me. I couldn't get it to pair, I just 'connected' in bluetoothctl and it worked. I fixed it like this:

Start the bluetooth controller in terminal

bluetoothctl

Inside the bluetoothctl, list the devices that it detects

devices

Find your device. The number XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX is the name of your device to Ubuntu. Forget about the text "Airpods" or whatever, that just helps you find your number.

Trust your device

trust XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

Then just connect it

connect XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

I'm not sure if trusting did anything, but I know it was not trusted before because I ran info XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX and it told me. Not sure if I was already paired or not. Not sure if Airpods were in pairing mode when I connected. Connecting just worked. My ControllerMode is still the default. Type help in bluetoothctl to mess around with it. Ubuntu 20.04

sammy
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I had the same problem. Changing ControllerMode doesn't work.

I Noticed that clicking airpod device to connect makes other devices unavailable to click and Bluetooth manager freezes.

Try to reload Bluetooth service then click connect again and airpods will appear as connected device.

sudo service bluetooth restart

Connected airpods

danjjl
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Vlad Ulianov
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