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I am using Ubuntu 11.04 and want to use my new Nokia BH-503 Bluetooth headsets with Ubuntu to watch movies and listen songs. I can pair my headsets using a Bluetooth dongle, and even see it in sound preferences and by setting it as default, I can use them with movie player and rythmbox player.

However, after some random time, the audio just stops. It doesn't come up until I switch to different default device in sound preferences or disconnect my Bluetooth dongle and reconnect all again.

Please help me fix this Issue. I tried with totem movie player and VLC. Same issue persists.

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Are there any messages from pulseaudio in your messages log. – Allan Aug 10 '11 at 19:22
How can I attach my log file for review here.. – Kunal Aug 17 '11 at 16:17
From my research in log files, it shows that there are buffer underrun while streaming audio on BT using pulseaudio. How can I overcome this?? – Kunal Aug 17 '11 at 17:02
Hi Kunal you can paste your log here paste.ubuntu.com and post the link here – Allan Aug 18 '11 at 13:03
I have added my pulseaudio detailed log file in the URL. Please help me solve the problem. paste.ubuntu.com/669362 – Kunal Aug 18 '11 at 16:02

closed as too localized by Marco Ceppi♦ Feb 27 '12 at 13:38

This question is unlikely to help any future visitors; it is only relevant to a small geographic area, a specific moment in time, or an extraordinarily narrow situation that is not generally applicable to the worldwide audience of the internet. For help making this question more broadly applicable, see the FAQ.

2 Answers

up vote 0 down vote

It sounds like you maybe being affected by this bug #455998 I'm not 100% sure but the fix proposed isn't dangerous

the fix is to remove the ./pulse folder from your Home folder this folder is generated by pulse audio each time you login to your system to add any new hardware or removal of etc.

you can do this in two ways open your home folder press ctrl+H to show hidden files and folders then select and delete the ./pulse folder alternatively you can use this command in terminal

rm -r ~/.pulse* then reboot and after logging in open a terminal and run alsamixer and make sure none of the audio outputs are muted as its a bluetooth device you should have the device connected while running alsamixer.

Hope this solves your problem.

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well before deleting the pulseaudio folder, I could choose from among the multiple sound cards that I have on my system(internal in-built and usb audio sound card) after deleting, I it plays sound default on my in-built card and my bluetooth headsets are not even seen in alsamixer – Kunal Aug 19 '11 at 15:21
is your headset connected when you open alsamixer? – Allan Aug 19 '11 at 15:38
up vote 0 down vote

Your answer may be addressed in this post below. Looks like pulseaudio has a switch which attempts to suspend sinks that are inactive for periods of time, and perhaps it doesn't do such a good job of "unsuspending" when the sink is a bluetooth device. I've tested it and it's fixed the problem with my P311's in Natty.

http://robert.orzanna.de/2011/08/10/prevent-idle-suspend-with-a-bluetooth-headset-and-a2dp/

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Thanks Daniel, however I am having little different kind of issue, my audio stops even when I am playing it, after some random time. I will still try your solution to see if that helps and update here. – Kunal Aug 24 '11 at 4:30

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