Bluetooth only starts working after initiating a scan

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1

Hi guys,

I just recently started using Fedora 32 as a first-timer and aside from wifi (RTL8821CE) everything worked fine out-of-the-box including Bluetooth. Circa one week later into using F32 and at least two rounds of updates via DNF bluetooth suddenly stopped working reliantly.

I am using a Logitech M585/M590 wireless mouse and so far it worked just fine. In between I once connected my Sony WF-1000XM3 and that’s it. Now when rebooting, starting or waking from hibernate BT doesn’t work anymore.

Only after I open the BT settings in the GNOME control panel or if I manually do a scan via bluetoothctl in the terminal the system eventually reconnects to my mouse. I’ve already tried un-/pairing, un-/trusting and restarting the device as well as bluetoothctl but so far to no avail.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

hciconfig

Zusammenfassung
hci0: Type: Primary Bus: USB
BD Address: 40:5B:D8:30:82:74 ACL MTU: 1021:8 SCO MTU: 255:12
UP RUNNING PSCAN ISCAN
RX bytes:1526 acl:0 sco:0 events:161 errors:0
TX bytes:27231 acl:0 sco:0 commands:160 errors:0

lsusb -v | grep Bluetooth

Zusammenfassung

Couldn’t open device, some information will be missing
Couldn’t open device, some information will be missing
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0bda:b00a Realtek Semiconductor Corp. Bluetooth Radio
bDeviceProtocol 1 Bluetooth
bInterfaceProtocol 1 Bluetooth
bInterfaceProtocol 1 Bluetooth
bInterfaceProtocol 1 Bluetooth
bInterfaceProtocol 1 Bluetooth
bInterfaceProtocol 1 Bluetooth
Couldn’t open device, some information will be missing
Couldn’t open device, some information will be missing
bInterfaceProtocol 1 Bluetooth
bInterfaceProtocol 1 Bluetooth
Couldn’t open device, some information will be missing
Couldn’t open device, some information will be missing

2

I think the correct work would have been reliably.

I think to list the devices you should use: bt-device -lv. -l for list, -v for verbose.

I suggest you read:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_debug_Bluetooth_problems

there is also:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Documentation/Bluetooth but it seems outdated.

you might want to begin with: systemctl status bluetooth to see if the service is running…

I don’t know much about the subject, since my computer does not support bluetooth.

1 Like
3

Thanks @pauld
While those links were a very useful learning source to me they unfortunately couldn’t help me fix the issue.

In the meanwhile I’ve tried to boot with an older kernel and looking if a recent package update may be the culprit, but to no avail. Anyway I managed to fix it. At least that’s my initial impression since my bluetooth mouse successfully reconnects automatically to my laptop after rebooting, cold booting or returning from hibernation.

Steps to achieve the fix:

  1. Note the MAC address of the BT device
  2. Remove the BT device from Bluetooth panel in GNOME settings
  3. Delete the folder named after the MAC address from step 1 from /var/lib/bluetooth/
  4. Reboot (maybe this isn’t necessary, but I did it just in case)
  5. Open Terminal
  6. Enter bluetoothctl
  7. Turn on your BT device and start put in pairing mode
  8. Enter scan on
  9. pair <MAC address>
  10. trust <MAC address>
  11. connect <MAC address>

This did the trick for me. So it seemed to be some caching and/or GNOME issue? Anyway now it works as intended after rebooting, cold booting or returning from hibernation. I hope this might help if someone else runs into this issue :v:t2: :sweat_smile:

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