Apple Magic mouse frequently disconnects and reconnects

Question

I have an Apple Magic Mouse that I am using on a Lenovo Thinkpad T440s with Ubuntu 14.04 installed. I have successfully paired the device and it works for short periods of time.

The mouse appears to disconnect for several seconds and then reconnect.

Occasionally, I get the error message that the batteries are low ( 0%). The batteries are new.

I have updated the kernel to the newest version in hopes that would solve the issue. It did not. How can I get it to stop disconnecting?

Answer 1

I've had the same problem and recently I tried disabling eSCO mode in the bluetooth module:

echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/module/bluetooth/parameters/disable_esco
sudo /etc/init.d/bluetooth restart
# persist setting
echo "options bluetooth disable_esco=1" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/bluetooth-tweaks.conf

The mouse's connection seems more stable now and I haven't seen a disconnect after tweaking this setting.

My laptop Lenovo W530 has a Broadcom Bluetooth adapter (internally usb is the interface).

If you have a Broadcom Bluetooth adapter, you might have to get a .hex firmware file from a windows driver and put it in /lib/firmware directory to support all Bluetooth features. More info in https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1065400/comments/11 and https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1065400 .

Use hex2hcd to convert windows driver .hex file to .hcd: https://github.com/jessesung/hex2hcd

I found Broadcom .hex files in this windows driver package. Locate the Win7/Win32/bcbtums-win7x86-brcm.inf file and search for the USB ID of your adapter.

$ lsusb |grep Bluetooth
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 0a5c:21e6 Broadcom Corp. BCM20702 Bluetooth 4.0 [ThinkPad]

search for RAMUSB<usb product id in upper case>, for example RAMUSB21E6 for my adapter. There you will find the .hex file name:

[RAMUSB21E6.NTX86.hw.reg]
HKR,,LowerFilters, 0x00010000, "bcbtums"
HKR,,%RAMPatchFileName%,0x00000, "BCM20702A1_001.002.014.1315.1387.hex"
HKR,,%RemoteWakeEnabled%,0x00010001,1
HKR,,%DeviceRemoteWakeSupported%,0x00010001,1

In my case the file was Win7/Win32/BCM20702A1_001.002.014.1315.1387.hex

I then used hex2hcd to convert the file to /lib/firmware/fw-0a5c_21e6.hcd (again that file name contains the USB ids of your Broadcom USB Bluetooth adapter).

Answer 2

I also suffer from this issue, but recently I've found a way to considerably improve the situation, I get fewer disconnects (by an order of magnitude), and much faster re-connect.

OS: OpenSuse Tumbleweed latest

Hardware: HP ZBook 3

Trackpad: Apple Magic Trackpad v1

BT adapter: ID 8087:0a2b Intel

1. disable ESCO echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/module/bluetooth/parameters/disable_esco
2. create (or edit, if you already have one) /etc/bluetooth/main.conf

   [General]
   MultiProfile = multiple
   FastConnectable = true
   [GATT]
   Channels = 5
   [Policy]
   ReconnectAttempts=50
   ReconnectIntervals=1,1,1,2,2,2,3,3,3,3
   AutoEnable=true
   

3. restart Bluetooth sudo systemctl restart bluetooth

After years of living with this problem, I still cannot get rid of it completely. What's weird is, when I first bought the trackpad (in 2011), I used it on a PC with Debian Etch, with a no-name el cheap-o dongle, and the disconnection issue wasn't there. The dongle is still alive, recently found it and tested it, but it now disconnects, like all my other devices.

Answer 3

I believe the proper solution is the following edit to /etc/bluetooth/main.conf :

[General]
Default adapter name
Defaults to 'BlueZ X.YZ'
Name = BlueZ
Default device class. Only the major and minor device class bits are
considered. Defaults to '0x000000'.
Class = 0x000100
How long to stay in discoverable mode before going back to non-discoverable
The value is in seconds. Default is 180, i.e. 3 minutes.
0 = disable timer, i.e. stay discoverable forever
DiscoverableTimeout = 0
Always allow pairing even if there are no agent registered
Possible values: true, false
Default: false
AlwaysPairable = false
How long to stay in pairable mode before going back to non-discoverable
The value is in seconds. Default is 0.
0 = disable timer, i.e. stay pairable forever
PairableTimeout = 0
Use vendor id source (assigner), vendor, product and version information for
DID profile support. The values are separated by ":" and assigner, VID, PID
and version.
Possible vendor id source values: bluetooth, usb (defaults to usb)
DeviceID = bluetooth:1234:5678:abcd
Do reverse service discovery for previously unknown devices that connect to
us. For BR/EDR this option is really only needed for qualification since the
BITE tester doesn't like us doing reverse SDP for some test cases, for LE
this disables the GATT client functionally so it can be used in system which
can only operate as peripheral.
Defaults to 'true'.
ReverseServiceDiscovery = true
Enable name resolving after inquiry. Set it to 'false' if you don't need
remote devices name and want shorter discovery cycle. Defaults to 'true'.
NameResolving = true
Enable runtime persistency of debug link keys. Default is false which
makes debug link keys valid only for the duration of the connection
that they were created for.
DebugKeys = false
Restricts all controllers to the specified transport. Default value
is "dual", i.e. both BR/EDR and LE enabled (when supported by the HW).
Possible values: "dual", "bredr", "le"
ControllerMode = dual
Enables Multi Profile Specification support. This allows to specify if
system supports only Multiple Profiles Single Device (MPSD) configuration
or both Multiple Profiles Single Device (MPSD) and Multiple Profiles Multiple
Devices (MPMD) configurations.
Possible values: "off", "single", "multiple"
MultiProfile = off
Permanently enables the Fast Connectable setting for adapters that
support it. When enabled other devices can connect faster to us,
however the tradeoff is increased power consumptions. This feature
will fully work only on kernel version 4.1 and newer. Defaults to
'false'.
FastConnectable = false
Default privacy setting.
Enables use of private address.
Possible values: "off", "device", "network"
"network" option not supported currently
Defaults to "off"
Privacy = off
[GATT]
GATT attribute cache.
Possible values:
always: Always cache attributes even for devices not paired, this is
recommended as it is best for interoperability, with more consistent
reconnection times and enables proper tracking of notifications for all
devices.
yes: Only cache attributes of paired devices.
no: Never cache attributes
Default: always
Cache = always
Minimum required Encryption Key Size for accessing secured characteristics.
Possible values: 0 and 7-16. 0 means don't care.
Defaults to 0
KeySize = 0
Exchange MTU size.
Possible values: 23-517
Defaults to 517
ExchangeMTU = 517
[Policy]

The ReconnectUUIDs defines the set of remote services that should try
to be reconnected to in case of a link loss (link supervision
timeout). The policy plugin should contain a sane set of values by
default, but this list can be overridden here. By setting the list to
empty the reconnection feature gets disabled.
ReconnectUUIDs=00001112-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb,0000111f-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb,0000110a-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb
ReconnectAttempts define the number of attempts to reconnect after a link
lost. Setting the value to 0 disables reconnecting feature.
ReconnectAttempts=7
ReconnectIntervals define the set of intervals in seconds to use in between
attempts.
If the number of attempts defined in ReconnectAttempts is bigger than the
set of intervals the last interval is repeated until the last attempt.
ReconnectIntervals=1,2,4,8,16,32,64
AutoEnable defines option to enable all controllers when they are found.
This includes adapters present on start as well as adapters that are plugged
in later on. Defaults to 'false'.
AutoEnable=false

It works fine for me.