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Accepted
Nicolas Cordova
Asked: 2020-08-06 19:15:44 +0800 CST

Bluetooth not working often in 20.04

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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.

bluetooth tp-link 20.04

6 Answers

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

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  2. Best Answer

    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.

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  3. 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)

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  4. Unfortunately, TP-Link UB400 does not support Linux.

    TP-Link website

    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.

    Ubuntu documentation

    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.

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  5. 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
    • 1

  6. 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.

    1. Fear not that there are no any USB BT drivers for this device within Ubuntu. It is very well present.
    2. There is just not a mechanism to change your inbuilt onboard BT to TP-Link UB400 USB BT dongle.
    3. Hence, installed "blueman" with these commands: $ sudo apt-get install blueman $ blueman-manager
    4. 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.
    5. 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.

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