How to diagnose Bluetooth trouble?

How to diagnose Bluetooth trouble?

[Daniel Hatton]

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I've previously mentioned on here that I couldn't get 
(USB-dongle-provided) Bluetooth to start on boot, always had to start it 
manually from the Gnome settings app.  Well, for the last week or so, I 
can't even start it manually - when I click the little switch at the top 
of the Gnome settings window, it refuses to switch on.  How do I go 
about diagnosing what's wrong, please?  Instructions I find on the WWW 
seem to assume systemd, and I'm on shepherd.

-- 

Kind regards,

Dan Hatton

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Re: How to diagnose Bluetooth trouble?

[Ignas Lapėnas]

Hi,

I'm guessing that you're using bluez under the hood. Try using
bluetoothctl in the terminal and check if you can power on the bluetooth
device through there. 

https://man.archlinux.org/man/extra/bluez-utils/bluetoothctl.1.en

-- 
Hope that helps,
Ignas

Re: How to diagnose Bluetooth trouble?

[Daniel Hatton]

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On 18/11/2024 07:57, Ignas Lapėnas wrote:

> I'm guessing that you're using bluez under the hood. Try using
> bluetoothctl in the terminal and check if you can power on the bluetooth
> device through there.

bluetoothctl power on

produces the error message "No default controller available"

and

bluetoothctl list

comes up blank.

I've checked with lsmod, and the bluetooth kernel module is loaded.

What's the next move, please?

-- 

Kind regards,

Dan Hatton


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Re: How to diagnose Bluetooth trouble?

[Ignas Lapėnas]

> bluetoothctl power on
>
> produces the error message "No default controller available"
>
> and
>
> bluetoothctl list
>
> comes up blank.
>
> I've checked with lsmod, and the bluetooth kernel module is loaded.
>
> What's the next move, please?

Most information I could find is summarized here:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Bluetooth#bluetoothctl:_No_default_controller_available

Since you're with guix, journalctl command should be replaced with
something like this.

sudo cat /var/log/messages | grep hci

to check if you're blocked by rfkill the command should simply be rfkill

-- 
Hope that helps,
Ignas

Re: How to diagnose Bluetooth trouble?

[Daniel Hatton]

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On 18/11/2024 11:35, Ignas Lapėnas wrote:


> https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Bluetooth#bluetoothctl:_No_default_controller_available
> Since you're with guix, journalctl command should be replaced with
> something like this.
> sudo cat /var/log/messages | grep hci
> to check if you're blocked by rfkill the command should simply be rfkill

Well, the good news is that /var/log/messages contains an error message 
that the ALW page you cite suggests a solution for.  The bad news is 
that the solution is "remove all power sources to force the device to 
reload the firmware".  This box is a laptop, and it doesn't look like 
disconnecting the battery is going to be any straightforward operation. 
Unless: the Bluetooth controller I'm trying to use is a USB dongle, can 
I achieve the same effect by just pulling it out of the USB port?

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Re: How to diagnose Bluetooth trouble?

[Ignas Lapėnas]

> Well, the good news is that /var/log/messages contains an error
> message that the ALW page you cite suggests a solution for.  The bad
> news is that the solution is "remove all power sources to force the
> device to reload the firmware".  This box is a laptop, and it doesn't
> look like disconnecting the battery is going to be any straightforward
> operation. Unless: the Bluetooth controller I'm trying to use is a USB
> dongle, can I achieve the same effect by just pulling it out of the
> USB port?

It's difficult to say for certain. But somehow I think you did try
replugging the usb dongle as a troubleshooting step? If not, that would
be a one thing to try to fix the issue.

The thing is, It's not exactly clear to me if the firmware is loaded or
not and I'm a bit out of scope at this point. One interesting thing I've
read some time ago and it might be of use here, was that you can force a
cold-boot (Should have the same effect as with waiting a bit without
power completely) by editing kernel parameters.

https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v6.11/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.html

```
 reboot=         [KNL]
                        Format (x86 or x86_64):
                                [w[arm] | c[old] | h[ard] | s[oft] | g[pio]] | d[efault] \
                                [[,]s[mp]#### \
                                [[,]b[ios] | a[cpi] | k[bd] | t[riple] | e[fi] | p[ci]] \
                                [[,]f[orce]
                        Where reboot_mode is one of warm (soft) or cold (hard) or gpio
                                        (prefix with 'panic_' to set mode for panic
                                        reboot only),
                              reboot_type is one of bios, acpi, kbd, triple, efi, or pci,
                              reboot_force is either force or not specified,
                              reboot_cpu is s[mp]#### with #### being the processor
                                        to be used for rebooting.

```

And if I'm not wrong (would love some input from others who edited their
kernel command-line arguments) it should be possible to do with:

(kernel-arguments) 

Example for how kernel-arguments is used:

https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Using-the-Configuration-System.html

Also it might be possible that during startup of pc, there is a way to
also for the time being use one or another parameter.

-- 
Hope that helps,
Ignas

Re: How to diagnose Bluetooth trouble?

[Daniel Hatton]

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On 18/11/2024 14:15, Ignas Lapėnas wrote:
> somehow I think you did try
> replugging the usb dongle as a troubleshooting step? If not, that would
> be a one thing to try to fix the issue.

I had tried it, but only very briefly, and not together with a reboot. 
I've now tried unplugging the dongle and shutting down the machine 
overnight, and it made no difference.

However, today I have an unexpected popup window with the error message

   g-dbus-error-quark:
   GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name
   org.blueman.Mechanism was not provided by any .service files (2)

which may or may not be useful further diagnostic information.


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Re: How to diagnose Bluetooth trouble?

[Daniel Hatton]

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Oh - something I should probably have mentioned before is that I have 
two Bluetooth controllers on this machine - an internal one (hci0) which 
I don't expect to work on Guix because it needs proprietary firmware, 
and the USB dongle (hci1) that I'm trying to use.


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Re: How to diagnose Bluetooth trouble?

[Ignas Lapėnas]

From what I understand, even if hci0 could not be registered for some
reason, hci1 should still be seen and registered. If so it should have
been shown in `bluetoothctl list` command as an entry.

The error you had before is for some reason not generated blueman
packages service file. When package is installed it should register it
self in /gnu/store/xxxxxxxxxxxx-etc then it's symlinked to /etc/static
and then it is linked to /etc/dbus-1

I'm not sure why it's missing, there might be a bug with the package.

It might be a stupid question, but I'm still somewhat new on Guix...
Do you use guix system? Or are you using guix on a foreign distro?

Also if you're using guix system, can you send me your system
configuration. I could try to reproduce the issue on my machine on the
weekend and see
if my bluetooth is discovered.

Another question what bluetooth dongle are you using?

Daniel Hatton <dan.hatton@btinternet.com> writes:

> Oh - something I should probably have mentioned before is that I have
> two Bluetooth controllers on this machine - an internal one (hci0)
> which I don't expect to work on Guix because it needs proprietary
> firmware, and the USB dongle (hci1) that I'm trying to use.

-- 
Best Regards,
Ignas

Re: How to diagnose Bluetooth trouble?

[Daniel Hatton]

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On 21/11/2024 12:37, Ignas Lapėnas wrote:

> It might be a stupid question, but I'm still somewhat new on Guix...
> Do you use guix system? Or are you using guix on a foreign distro?
> Also if you're using guix system, can you send me your system
> configuration. I could try to reproduce the issue on my machine on the
> weekend and see
> if my bluetooth is discovered.

It's a Guix system.  I've appended config.scm below.

> Another question what bluetooth dongle are you using?

0a12:0001 Cambridge Silicon Radio, Ltd Bluetooth Dongle (HCI mode)

(it was working well until about 10 days ago)

Here's my config.scm:

;; This is an operating system configuration generated
;; by the graphical installer.
;;
;; Once installation is complete, you can learn and modify
;; this file to tweak the system configuration, and pass it
;; to the 'guix system reconfigure' command to effect your
;; changes.


;; Indicate which modules to import to access the variables
;; used in this configuration.
(use-modules (gnu))
(use-service-modules cups desktop networking ssh xorg)

(operating-system
   (locale "en_GB.utf8")
   (timezone "Europe/London")
   (keyboard-layout (keyboard-layout "gb" "extd"))
   (host-name "verderer")

   ;; Custom groups
   (groups (cons* (user-group (name "docker"))
		 (user-group (name "dan"))
		 (user-group (name "girton"))
		 (user-group (name "pcs"))
		 (user-group (name "mirp"))
		 (user-group (name "cpom"))
		 (user-group (name "bpi"))
		 (user-group (name "itg"))
		 (user-group (name "mmm"))
		 (user-group (name "midas"))
		 %base-groups))

   ;; The list of user accounts ('root' is implicit).
   (users (cons* (user-account
                   (name "dan")
                   (comment "Daniel Christopher Hatton")
                   (group "dan")
                   (home-directory "/home/dan")
                   (supplementary-groups '("users" "wheel" "netdev" 
"audio" "video" "docker" "girton" "pcs" "mirp" "cpom" "bpi" "itg" "mmm" 
"midas")))
                 %base-user-accounts))

   ;; Packages installed system-wide.  Users can also install packages
   ;; under their own account: use 'guix search KEYWORD' to search
   ;; for packages and 'guix install PACKAGE' to install a package.
   (packages (append (list (specification->package "perl"))
                     %base-packages))

   ;; Below is the list of system services.  To search for available
   ;; services, run 'guix system search KEYWORD' in a terminal.
   (services
    (append (list (service gnome-desktop-service-type)

                  ;; To configure OpenSSH, pass an 'openssh-configuration'
                  ;; record as a second argument to 'service' below.
		 (bluetooth-service #:auto-enable? #t)
                  (service openssh-service-type)
                  (service cups-service-type)
		 (service pulseaudio-service-type)
                  (set-xorg-configuration
                   (xorg-configuration (keyboard-layout keyboard-layout))))

            ;; This is the default list of services we
            ;; are appending to.
            %desktop-services))
   (bootloader (bootloader-configuration
                 (bootloader grub-bootloader)
                 (targets (list "/dev/sda"))
                 (keyboard-layout keyboard-layout)))
   (mapped-devices (list (mapped-device
                           (source (uuid
                                    "55c736e6-1434-4f41-8821-0015bc2f2295"))
                           (target "cryptroot")
                           (type luks-device-mapping))))

   ;; The list of file systems that get "mounted".  The unique
   ;; file system identifiers there ("UUIDs") can be obtained
   ;; by running 'blkid' in a terminal.
   (file-systems (cons* (file-system
                          (mount-point "/boot/efi")
                          (device (uuid "8A5B-8552"
                                        'fat32))
                          (type "vfat"))
                        (file-system
                          (mount-point "/")
                          (device "/dev/mapper/cryptroot")
                          (type "ext4")
                          (dependencies mapped-devices)) 
%base-file-systems)))





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Re: How to diagnose Bluetooth trouble?

[Ignas Lapėnas]

Hi,

Tried trying to get your config running with guix system reconfigure.
Noticed that you're using bluetooth-service instead of
bluetooth-service-type in services:

/home/ignaslapenas/develop/packages/oses/test.os:47:17: warning: 'bluetooth-service' is deprecated, use 'bluetooth-service-type' instead

Also got something new, that I had no idea it could happen.

guix system: error: duplicate 'pulse' entry for /etc

This one should be because %desktop-services already contain the
definition for pulseaudio. You can find what services are enabled by
default in desktop.scm (gnu/services/desktop.scm)

Both are a possiblity for broken bluetooth by the looks of it.

-- 
Pagarbiai,
Ignas Lapėnas

Re: How to diagnose Bluetooth trouble? SOLVED

[Daniel Hatton]

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On 24/11/2024 10:53, Ignas Lapėnas wrote:

> Noticed that you're using bluetooth-service instead of
> bluetooth-service-type in services:
> This one should be because %desktop-services already contain the
> definition for pulseaudio. You can find what services are enabled by
> default in desktop.scm (gnu/services/desktop.scm)
> Both are a possiblity for broken bluetooth by the looks of it.

Wahay!  Edited config.scm as shown below, and now not only does 
Bluetooth work, it actually starts at boot time.  Thanks very much.

$ rcsdiff -r1.3.1.2.2.7 config.scm
===================================================================
RCS file: RCS/config.scm,v
retrieving revision 1.3.1.2.2.7
diff -r1.3.1.2.2.7 config.scm
56c56
< 		 (bluetooth-service #:auto-enable? #t)
---
 > 		 (service bluetooth-service-type)
59d58
< 		 (service pulseaudio-service-type)


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Re: How to diagnose Bluetooth trouble? SOLVED

[Ignas Lapėnas]

> Wahay!  Edited config.scm as shown below, and now not only does
> Bluetooth work, it actually starts at boot time.  Thanks very much.

Really glad to see it worked out!

-- 
Best Regards,
Ignas