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I am trying to connect my Bose Quiet Comfort to my laptop via bluetooth.

I am able to connect and pair these headphones to my phone without issues as I would any other wireless Bluetooth device.

Command-line Connection attempt:

Using bluetoothctl I seem to be able to connect, but not to pair:

[bluetooth]# devices
Device 04:52:C7:32:68:16 Bose QuietComfort 35
[bluetooth]# connect 04:52:C7:32:68:16
Attempting to connect to 04:52:C7:32:68:16
Connection successful
[Bose QuietComfort 35]# devices
[Bose QuietComfort 35]#ch)`pair ': pair 04:52:C7:32:68:16
Attempting to pair with 04:52:C7:32:68:16
Failed to pair: org.bluez.Error.AuthenticationFailed
[CHG] Device 04:52:C7:32:68:16 Connected: no
[CHG] Device 04:52:C7:32:68:16 Connected: yes

However, in the bluetooth GUI menu, it seems to think I'm paired with the device:

enter image description here

The headphones themselves never seem to recognise that the laptop is connected, and in my sound settings I don't see anything that I can output to, so the "pairing" is bogus I think.

enter image description here

So this is clearly an issue in ubuntu.

I've tried deleting the device and starting again, but every time I can connect but not pair. I also tried deactivating bluetooth LE as per this answer:

Pair Bose QuietComfort 35 with Ubuntu 16.04 over Bluetooth

but the behaviour did not change.

Here's what happens when I type info <MAC Address>:

Device 04:52:C7:32:68:16
    Name: Bose QuietComfort 35
    Alias: Bose QuietComfort 35
    Paired: no
    Trusted: no
    Blocked: no
    Connected: yes
    LegacyPairing: no
    UUID: Generic Access Profile    (00001800-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
    UUID: Generic Attribute Profile (00001801-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
    UUID: Device Information        (0000180a-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
    UUID: Bose Corporation          (0000febe-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
    Modalias: bluetooth:v009Ep400Cd0106

Not sure that's helpful.

GUI / Blueman Connection attempt:

I found this page, which seems relevant:

Ubuntu 16.04 won't output sound to Bluetooth headphones

I tried using blueman as suggested, which crashes whenever I try to pair my device.

enter image description here

I tried upgrading the suggested packages by running

sudo apt-get install libpam-systemd libsystemd0 libudev1 systemd ubuntu-mono udev

This stopped the error from appearing but I was still not able to pair with blueman (no error, it just doesn't do anything when I try to pair).

I tried running tail -f /var/syslog while I turned on my headphones, and saw this message:

Dec  7 20:18:15 elitebook bluetoothd[860]: Unable to register GATT service with handle 0x0001 for device 04:52:C7:32:68:16
Dec  7 20:18:15 elitebook bluetoothd[860]: Unable to register GATT service with handle 0x0013 for device 04:52:C7:32:68:16

I think this might be a clue...

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quant
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  • i have noticed similar regressions using 16.04 with range of bluetooth devices from audiophile hifi's , portable speakers and headphones. There appears to be something going on with trying to make connections before being logged in and this seems to be conflicting with connections made when logged in. – Amias Nov 10 '16 at 11:52
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    This might very well resolve your problem: http://askubuntu.com/questions/764273/ubuntu-16-04-wont-output-sound-to-bluetooth-headphones?noredirect=1&lq=1 – Elder Geek Nov 12 '16 at 14:54
  • What does pactl list short | grep bluetooth show? If module-bluetooth-discover is not shown see http://askubuntu.com/a/689297/300665 It may not help as there are a couple bluetooth audio bugs present in Ubuntu 16.04 and 16.10 – Jeremy31 Nov 25 '16 at 13:24
  • What error messages show up in /var/log/syslog when blueman crashes on pairing? This could provide some much needed clues. – Elder Geek Nov 29 '16 at 21:02
  • @ElderGeek well blueman doesn't crash anymore since I installed those missing packages, but I do get a message saying Unable to register GATT service in the syslog. I've added the full message to the bottom of my post. – quant Dec 07 '16 at 09:20
  • Is pairing successful now? Your current error seems a bit different. Be that as it may, You have to activate the experimental features for your bluetooth set in order to get GATT services enabled. – Elder Geek Dec 07 '16 at 19:01
  • https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=195886&p=2 hope this link help u to fix the issue – BDRSuite Dec 08 '16 at 17:32
  • @ElderGeek following the instructions in the comment of the top answer worked for me. I'm not sure what the etiquette is here but I'm going to go ahead and write the solution as the answer. If you want to do to the same I'll mark yours as the answer. Thanks for the help! – quant Dec 12 '16 at 05:23
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    I'm glad you got it sorted! – Elder Geek Dec 12 '16 at 16:56

1 Answers1

3

It looks like the underlying problem was similar to the one for this question:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31380594/linux-bluez-dbus-communication

Except that I'm running a systemd linux setup so I had to do as the comment on that answer suggested:

With newer Systemd-based systems, copy /lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service to /etc/systemd/system/bluetooth.service and change the ExecStart line to ExecStart=/usr/lib/bluetooth/bluetoothd -E.

– Arto Bendiken

So I did that, restarted, and then started bluetoothctl, and connected manually:

[Bose QuietComfort 35]# connect 04:52:C7:32:68:16 
Attempting to connect to 04:52:C7:32:68:16
[CHG] Device 04:52:C7:32:68:16 Paired: yes
Connection successful

This time when I paired, my headphones recognised the connection (they didn't previously, even though GNOME seemed to think the pairing had worked) and the output device appeared in my devices list.

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