Bluetooth stutters since update, reproducible after dnf update

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1

I am experiencing Bluetooth stuttering when playing audio over video, the web, local MP3s, etc. This only happens with Bluetooth — not with wired headphones or any other audio output. Bluetooth audio cuts out to silence, then plays perfectly for about 5 seconds, cuts out again, and repeats. I have seen this both with AirPods and with a Bluetooth desk speaker.

I first experienced this on Fedora 42, I think after an update. After switching back to the Fedora 43 Live CD, the issue was gone there. So I reinstalled Fedora 43, and the issue was fixed — but only until updating again.

This time, I enabled etckeeper and kept track of installed packages. One of the packages that differs between the Fedora 43 Live CD and the current upstream system must be the culprit. I selectively downgraded Bluetooth, BlueZ, and kernel packages, but without success.

Do you have any hints for me? Is this a known or already tracked bug? I see a spike in Bluetooth-related bugs recently.

2

Hey, I’ve been experiencing the same issue on two computers.

This started happening after upgrading plasma-workspace (and dependencies) from 6.4.5-4.fc43 to 6.5.5-1.fc43.

I’ve tracked it down to the upgrade of kdeconnectd from 25.08.2-1.fc43 to 25.12.1-1.fc43.

Temporary solution that seems to work is to remove KDE Connect:

# dnf remove kde-connect
Package                                                                              Arch             Version                                                                              Repository                                                 Size
Removing:
 kde-connect                                                                         x86_64           25.12.1-1.fc43                                                                       <unknown>                                               4.2 MiB
Removing unused dependencies:
 fuse-sshfs                                                                          x86_64           3.7.5-1.fc43                                                                         <unknown>                                             125.4 KiB
 kde-connect-libs                                                                    x86_64           25.12.1-1.fc43                                                                       <unknown>                                               2.4 MiB
 kdeconnectd                                                                         x86_64           25.12.1-1.fc43                                                                       <unknown>                                              67.5 KiB
 kf6-kpeople                                                                         x86_64           6.22.0-1.fc43                                                                        <unknown>                                             671.2 KiB
 libfakekey                                                                          x86_64           0.3-25.fc43                                                                          d15e557246b143e68b4d7cf7c8078e9c                       45.5 KiB
 openssh-askpass                                                                     x86_64           10.0p1-6.fc43                                                                        <unknown>                                              19.7 KiB
 qt6-qtconnectivity                                                                  x86_64           6.10.1-1.fc43                                                                        <unknown>                                               1.5 MiB

Transaction Summary:
 Removing:           8 packages

After this operation, 9 MiB will be freed (install 0 B, remove 9 MiB).
Is this ok [y/N]:

After logging out and logging back in, stutters were gone.

3

Looks good! I removed kde-connect just like you said, restarted and my Bluetooth is now stutter free again.

These are the packages that I removed:

    Package changes:
    -0:fuse-sshfs-3.7.5-1.fc43.x86_64
    -0:kde-connect-25.12.1-1.fc43.x86_64
    -0:kde-connect-libs-25.12.1-1.fc43.x86_64
    -0:kdeconnectd-25.12.1-1.fc43.x86_64
    -0:kf6-kpeople-6.22.0-1.fc43.x86_64
    -0:libfakekey-0.3-25.fc43.x86_64
    -0:openssh-askpass-10.0p1-6.fc43.x86_64

I will report back if it stays this way.

Edit: I think the issue is solved now. Playing Bluetooth audio for 2h straight without any issues. This is most likely the matching bug report: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=513536

4

Holy shit dude, this worked. Wtf is wrong with KDE Connect?!

5

Could you update me when this isseu has been resolved?

6

You better watch the KDE bug report directly

7

Has anyone noticed what I can best describe as high-pitched faint digital noise from their headphones’ right channel after using this fix? I don’t have this issue on other devices. Tried switching to the different available codecs to no avail. Sounds like a communication signal aliasing into the audible range? It only appears during and for a few seconds after playback.