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I have a bluetooth headset which works perfectly on Ubuntu 13.04. Now I update to 13.10, and here is what's happing:

After installing blueman, bluetooth-suport, pulseaudio-module-bluetooth and so on, I can find my device, pair it and connect to the headset service. But the device does not appear on the Sound Settings, so I just can't select it as input/output device. In other words, it's connected but "useless".

So, searching around for solutions, I found a software called stream2ip. With this I can connect the device and it appears on the Sound Settings, the sound plays on the device as well, but my microphone does not work, even when selected on the settings, also the A2DP option still not working.

Stream2ip isn't a solution at all, I mean everything was working without it in the previous Ubuntu version.

Maybe I'm missing something, and I hope someone could give me any hint.

How can I get the A2DP output option and the input working again, on the Ubuntu 13.10? How to make the device to appear on the Sound Settings without have to use Stream2ip?

Thanks!

Edit 1
What I tried so far:

  • Install bazaar fork related below.
  • Reinstall pulseaudio
  • Reinstall bluez
  • Change settings on /etc/bluetooth/audio.conf (Enable=Socket, Disable=Socket...)
  • Install all sort of packages like bluez-utils, bluez-audio, gstreamer0.10
  • Install pulseaudio volume control
  • Install blueman, bluetooth-suport, pulseaudio-module-bluetooth

Edit 2

Now the microphone and a2dp are working (separately of course).
To do this, I have to connect the headset, start some music, pause it using the playback options of the headset, then change the output mode in the sound settings to A2DP (sometimes it does not work in the first try)
It's far from working like it was working on 13.04. But it's working, and I probably will have to deal with the stream2ip for while.

By the way, here is how I installed the strem2ip:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:takkat-nebuk/takkat
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade 
sudo apt-get install stream2ip-gtk3

Edit 3

Instead of using the stream2ip to make the headset appear on the sound settings, you can just use this command: pulseaudio -k

Now the question is: How to make it automatically when I pair my device?

What I got so far:

  • All the headset stuff working.
  • A way to avoid using the stream2ip, but not the optimal way yet.

Edit 4

When I disconnect my bluetooth device, the overall sound just crash, all the devices disappear from the sound settings (including the speakers). If open, the Rhythmbox also crashes and I don't have any other system sound as well.

Any guess on how to solve this?

And I'm still looking for ways to avoid using the pulseaudio -k command every time I connect my headset.

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  • 1
    by design microphone input will not work in a2dp mode. Stream2ip does not support HSP. See also askubuntu.com/questions/354383/…
    – Takkat
    Nov 3, 2013 at 10:19
  • Thanks for your comment. I'm sorry if my questions weren't clear. I don't want to use the Stream2ip because the bluetooth should work without it anyway.
    – Eduardo
    Nov 3, 2013 at 12:19
  • AD2P does not support a microphone. Nothing we can do about this, it is from Bluetooth design. For A2DP issues see Bug #1199059 - its not really stable at the moment
    – Takkat
    Nov 3, 2013 at 12:27
  • Yep, I'm sorry again if expressed myself poorly. I know that a2dp does not work with microphones. I have the "Telephony Duplex (HSP/HFP) mode", and this works with the microphone. At least it used to work on 13.04. Thanks for all your help anyway ;)
    – Eduardo
    Nov 3, 2013 at 18:26

5 Answers 5

6

I tried all the suggestions here to get my a2dp-mode with my bluetooth headphones to work in Ubuntu 13.10. After installation of Ubuntu 13.10 with kernel 3.12.rc4, the headphones were shown in sound-settings after pairing them and applying the command pulseaudio -k, which kills the pulseaudio-service. However, I still could not choose them and the sound kept playing over the internal speakers of the laptop.

This worked for me:

1) open configuration file

gksudo gedit /etc/bluetooth/audio.conf

and add under [General]:

Disable=Socket

I also uncommented the line (removing the #) that reads:

AutoConnect=true

2) reinstall pulseaudio and bluez, do NOT omit to install pulseaudio-module-bluetooth

sudo apt-get install --reinstall pulseaudio pulseaudio-utils pulseaudio-module-bluetooth
sudo apt-get install --reinstall bluez bluez-alsa bluez-audio bluez-gstreamer bluez-hcidump bluez-tools bluez-utils

Once I had done so, I restarted and connected by headphones using the bluetooth-settings, which worked fine. Still I did not see the headphones listed in sound-settings* in Unity. However, once I opened **pulseaudio-volume-control and selected the configuration-tab, I saw the headphones, but the associated profile was set to off. I changed that to A2DP and the headphones were listed in sound-settings. Since I done that, the headphones are shown in sound-settings immediately after connecting.

NOTE: I had the bazaar fork installed as described above, but removing it once the headphones connected did work.

3
  • Thanks for you answer! Unfortunately it didn't work for me.
    – Eduardo
    Nov 30, 2013 at 0:02
  • This made things worse for me on Trusty (14.04). Now I can't get A2DP at all. I guess I'm in fresh reinstall territory now :( Sep 18, 2014 at 13:01
  • I had to do the first step and @flx's answer to get mine to work.
    – Cerin
    May 2, 2015 at 16:48
5

Loading the bluetooth discovery module manually fixes the problem by now:

sudo pactl load-module module-bluetooth-discover

After loading the module everything works as expected.

3
  • Thanks for your answer! Yep, it works better by doing that, but after all, it is the same thing, I have to type a command to make it works.
    – Eduardo
    Nov 30, 2013 at 0:03
  • 2
    Failure: Module initialization failed May 19, 2016 at 0:53
  • In Trusty it worked, but witout sudo.
    – jarno
    Nov 20, 2016 at 13:56
3

I've got exactly the same problem as you with my another a2dp compatible audio device for my car (it is a FM-transmitter that connects with the notebook/smartphone via bluetooth's a2dp).

What finally worked for me is simple forcing the device into the A2DP profile. You should do the following (the commands should not be executed as root):

  1. Find the paired card with pactl list cards short. Each line of the output represents another possible audio device available to the PulseAudio. The first column represents the ID of the device as seen by the PulseAudio. You have to identify your device in this list and remember its ID.
  2. pactl set-card-profile 1 a2dp where "1" is the ID of the device as found in the step 1. Immediately after issuing this command, you should have your bluetooth device available in the sound control panel.

The critical part is the have the device listed in step 1. If you don't, this answer doesn't apply to you.


For a convenience, you can get all this in one:

pactl set-card-profile $(pactl list cards short | awk '/bluez/{print $1}') a2dp
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  • this doesn't work in ubuntu 16.04, result is Failure: No such entity
    – knocte
    Jun 16, 2016 at 18:39
  • @knocte I haven't moved to Ubuntu 16.04 yet, so I can't help you now. If you do find a solution, publish it, or at least please let me know, so I can update my answer. Jun 17, 2016 at 7:56
  • no solution found so far, seems like 16.04 has very ugly rough edges :(
    – knocte
    Jun 17, 2016 at 8:51
  • 1
    This worked for me: pactl set-card-profile `pactl list cards short|grep bluez|awk '{print $1;}'` a2dp_sink
    – turboHz
    Oct 27, 2016 at 14:34
  • @turboHz that seems to work in 16.10, but gives Failure: Input/Output Error in my case.
    – csvan
    Dec 6, 2016 at 19:56
2

Something to note about bluetooth, it has limited bandwidth and only operates according to specific schemas:

a2dp is stereo high quality audio playback only

hsp/hfp is mono audio in full duplex which allows both a play and record.

a bluetooth audio device can do one connection at once so will be one or the other at a given time.

I get round this by using A2DP for best quality listening (and less glitches on video confrencing) and an external usb condenser mic like the bheringer c1.

FWIW bluetooth in 16.04 ubuntu is fully integrated and very easy to use so the only problems you will have with it these days is badly implemented chipsets or drivers.

0

Maybe this helps

I suspect your bluetooth not working on 13.10 can be attributed to a bug in the latest kernel.

It can be fixed by installing a bazaar fork below:

https://code.launchpad.net/~robert-ancell/indicator-bluetooth/dont-hide-on-rfkill

Installation instructions are at:

How do I install a bazaar fork in 13.10?

The summary of commands to use:

sudo apt-get install bzr build-essential 
sudo apt-get build-dep indicator-bluetooth  
bzr branch lp:~robert-ancell/indicator-bluetooth/dont-hide-on-rfkill  
cd dont-hide-on-rfkill  
dpkg-buildpackage  
cd  
sudo dpkg -i indicator-bluetooth_0.0.6daily13.02.19-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb

Restart the system.

Details are at Missing Bluetooth indicator

1
  • Thanks for replying! But unfortunately it doesn't work. I mean, I ran the commands without problems, but after reboot my issues still the same.
    – Eduardo
    Nov 3, 2013 at 11:56

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