Bluetooth not working often in 20.04

Question

I'm using powerbeats 3 earphones via bluetooth with my desktop and every 2 days after a boot, I find myself debugging why my earphones don't seem to connect anymore.

I've used the following questions and its answers and used every time I can:

Some of the answers work sometimes, and sometimes a combination of them and rebooting my system seem to magically help.

Symptoms of my earphones not connecting through bluetooth anymore:

Using the GUI, while clicking on the connect on/off button to turn it on, it inmediatelly turns itself off.
Using bluetoothctl, removing the device, trusting the device again and trying to pair just goes on until it fails due to my device turning off being so long trying to pair.

Might be related to some of these packages:

bluez 5.53
libbluetooth3 5.53

I'd like help in debugging this problem, I guess I'm tired of rebooting a few times every few days just to get my earphones working.

Edit: I'm using the tp link ub 400 bluetooth adapter.

"lsusb" result:

Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 004: ID 0a12:0001 Cambridge Silicon Radio, Ltd Bluetooth Dongle (HCI mode)
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 1b1c:1b20 Corsair Corsair STRAFE RGB Gaming Keyboard
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 046d:c077 Logitech, Inc. M105 Optical Mouse
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Edit 2: To clarify compared to this other question:

"hciconfig" result:

hci0:   Type: Primary  Bus: USB
    BD Address: 00:1A:7D:DA:71:15  ACL MTU: 310:10  SCO MTU: 64:8
    UP RUNNING PSCAN ISCAN 
    RX bytes:718 acl:0 sco:0 events:54 errors:0
    TX bytes:3673 acl:0 sco:0 commands:53 errors:0

As you can see, my device shows running compared to the other question in which it shows is DOWN.

I faced the same problem some time ago, I installed the quick bluetooth connect extension and blueman. Most of the time, the extension does the job and when it doesn't I use blueman. You can try the same — Heisenberg, Aug 06 '20 at 04:58
Are you using a USB bluetooth adapter? If yes, please mention the name and model of it in the question. — Random Person, Aug 06 '20 at 08:22
@Heisenberg I'll check them out, are bluetooth connect extension and blueman the names for the packages? — Nicolas, Aug 06 '20 at 17:31
@technastic_tc I have added the USB bluetooth adapter in the question, it is tp-link ub400. — Nicolas, Aug 06 '20 at 17:32
@CristianCordova Nah, just search for quick bluetooth connect extension gnome and install the it from extensions.gnome.org and search for how to install blueman and install it — Heisenberg, Aug 06 '20 at 19:04
Does this answer your question? Bluetoot adapter configuration issue (ID 0a12:0001) — Pilot6, Aug 09 '20 at 15:12
Not the same problem, as Bluetooth is UP in my desktop compared to DOWN in the post. I'll compare with the question when bluetooth stops working.@Pilot6 — Nicolas, Aug 09 '20 at 15:21
Can you try what's written in this post? It exactly has the model you have and it solved the problem: https://fosspost.org/tutorials/linux-bluetooth-problem — Madno, Aug 11 '20 at 07:19
@Madno I think a kernel update might break more than fix in Ubuntu. I'll stay testing with the Blueman + quick bluetooth extension which has been working wonders. If I ever a spare pc that I can brick with no consequences, I'll try changing kernels around. Thanks for the suggestion, it might actually fix the problem for others so u might as well add it in an answer. — Nicolas, Aug 12 '20 at 02:08

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 15 '21 at 13:26

3

This device, TP-Link UB400, works fine with Ubuntu 20.10 (plug & play out of the box) with kernel 5.8.0-38.

answered Jan 15 '21 at 13:26

Paul

31
2

Hey Paul, thanks for your input, would you mind sharing the same commands I posted in order to find out if we do have the same device? – Nicolas Jan 15 '21 at 18:17
works for me "out of the box", Ubuntu 20.10, kernel 5.4.0-88, name in lsusb "Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0bda:8179 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8188EUS 802.11n Wireless Network Adapter" – nazar kuliyev Oct 04 '21 at 00:25

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 04 '21 at 17:51

For anybody that might arrive here, the problem with bluetooth in linux arrives in the combination with a random device which I posted about in this question, combined with pulseaudio which is just terrible in general, specially for bluetooth related concerns.

Being in Ubuntu 21.04 and 21.10 for a while, pulseaudio still fails to work properly, I've been testing Pipewire for more than 6 months at it works out of the box with every device and there's almost no bugs.

I will recommend anybody having bluetooth trouble that give Pipewire an opportunity.

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 27 '21 at 09:29

2

The TP-Link UB400 Nano works fine on Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS kernel 5.8.0-43, plug & play,Bluetooth headset also working without any issue, (install blueman, if not)

answered Feb 27 '21 at 09:29

Akshay Chandran

283

I have yet to test the usb dongle in the 20.04.2 LTS kernel 5.8.0-43, thanks for your response. – Nicolas Mar 04 '21 at 23:48
it does NOT work fine on my Ubuntu 20.04 LTS with blueman and bluez installed and latest kernel update. Bluetooth is a pain in the *** on linux machines – João Pimentel Ferreira Mar 09 '22 at 09:42

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 07 '20 at 11:54

1

Unfortunately, TP-Link UB400 does not support Linux.

Refer this website: https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/faq/2744/

In Ubuntu's official documnetation, it is mentioned that:

Some Bluetooth adapters are not supported on Linux, so you may not be able to get the right drivers for them. In this case, you will probably have to get a different Bluetooth adapter.

Refer this website: https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/bluetooth-problem-connecting.html.en

So I guess the best thing to do is to choose a bluetooth adapter which supports Linux.

answered Aug 07 '20 at 11:54

Random Person

1,496

1

Nothing else to do in this case I guess, anyways, I'll use bluetooth connect extension and blueman as @Heisenberg suggested. – Nicolas Aug 09 '20 at 14:42
Hmm... If you manage to get an unofficial driver for Linux, you can use it. But I wouldn't suggest that method as it is unofficial. – Random Person Aug 09 '20 at 14:46
7

None of BT devices are officially supported on Linux by their vendors. So it doesn't mean anything. – Pilot6 Aug 09 '20 at 14:51
1

Not helpful. You suggest it's not officially supported, but yet you do not supply a list (or the location or one listing officially supported adapter/chipsets. – starbeamrainbowlabs Oct 29 '21 at 14:09

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 02 '22 at 04:37

1

BT headphones with Mic to connect with TP-Link UB400 USB BT dongle on my Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS, and initially it didn't work for me.But after updating some packages , it starts working for me.

sudo apt-get install bluez
sudo apt-get install bluetooth
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

answered Mar 02 '22 at 04:37

Rahul Singh

11

1

This answer does not appear to add anything the other 4 answers have already said. – David Mar 02 '22 at 05:39

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Apr 21 '21 at 11:32

just tried my BT headphones with Mic to connect with TP-Link UB400 USB BT dongle on my Ubuntu 18.04LTS, and initially it didn't work for me. It was always getting connected to onboard BT which my motherboard has. But it is not powerful enough to throw audio to far distance. Hence i wanted to work it out with TP-Link UB400 USB BT dongle.

My Solution which works for Ubuntu 16.04LTS, 18.04LTS. Hence this must work for 20.04LTS as well.

Fear not that there are no any USB BT drivers for this device within Ubuntu. It is very well present.
There is just not a mechanism to change your inbuilt onboard BT to TP-Link UB400 USB BT dongle.
Hence, installed "blueman" with these commands: $ sudo apt-get install blueman $ blueman-manager
this "blueman" now shows two BT dongles (TP-Link UB400 USB BT dongle is one among them. Note that I didn't install any seperate drivers for this). Also, this provides a mechanism now to clearly connect your BT headphones to TP-Link UB400 USB BT dongle.
Thats it, as simple as that. It now gives me a very long range of BT within my home.

HOpe this helps to all TP-Link BT dongle users and saves few bucks in purchasing other new dongle as few suggested here. If this helped please upvote my answer.

hi David, please try this solution. I am very hopeful that it will work in 20.04LTS. Did you try? If so, what was the error you got. — Hari Kishan, Apr 22 '21 at 16:10

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Dec 12 '22 at 22:20

I physically broke my little USB-Bluetooth adapter last week on my old Lenovo Thinkpad.
I managed to pry it out of the laptop's USB-port, and then ordered the least-expensive bluetooth adapter I could find on Amazon: The TP-Link UB400. $9.
I never thought of checking to see if it runs on Linux, until I plugged it in and the standard Bluetooth would not find any devices. Oh-oh! After reading all kinds of defeatist online comments- "TP-Link Bluetooth devices WILL NOT run on Ubuntu 22.04!", I eventually found an answer I liked.
So I installed Blueman-manager 2.2.4 - (sudo apt install blueman) and THIS found my DOSS-Soundbox speaker, albeit as "headphones".
I have yet to dual boot the laptop into Win-10 and try the UB400 there. Gee.. I sure hope it's supported in Windows! ;-)

Bluetooth not working often in 20.04

7 Answers7