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I have a bluetooth headset (WH-CH700N). I'm having trouble setting it up on Ubuntu 20.04. It appears as connected in the bluetooth settings, but the headset doesn't play the "Bluetooth connected" sound when that happens, so I'm not sure if the connection is correct. If I open the device in bluetooth settings, it shows Type: Unknown.

This is what I see if I do 'info ' on bluetoothctl:

Device 38:18:4C:94:2A:50 (public)
    Name: LE_WH-CH700N
    Alias: LE_WH-CH700N
    Paired: yes
    Trusted: yes
    Blocked: no
    Connected: yes
    LegacyPairing: no
    ### UUID list
    Modalias: usb:v054Cp0C7Fd0452
    ServiceData Key: 0000fe26-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb
    ServiceData Value:
  33 c9 5c                                         3.\             
    RSSI: -64
    AdvertisingFlags:
  02                                               .   

All the other similar questions I found recommended looking at PulseAudio for following issues since the connection "appears" correct, so I looked at that a bit.

I don't see it in PulseAudio in the dropdown list of output devices. I found questions with similar issues (like this), and a lot of them recommend checking/updating the loaded modules. I tried following the advice, but none of it worked. The relevant modules appear in the list if I run pactl list short:

module-bluetooth-policy
module-bluetooth-discover
module-bluez5-discover

What can I do?

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  • As mentioned in the comment of the answer, enabling turning on pairing mode helped me too. Even though the headphones were visible in the devices list, unless pairing mode is, it doesn't get connected as headset.
    – ezvine
    Sep 28, 2022 at 19:58

1 Answer 1

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I have the exact same model (WH-CH700N) and had a lot of trouble as well. After a lot of failed attempts I somehow got it to work. However, I tried so many things that I don't know what exactly was the solution. I created this small writeup for my own future reference. Hope it helps.

Intro & Utils

Don’t forget to set the headset in pairing mode when you’re trying to pair (press power 7s) https://helpguide.sony.net/mdr/whch700n/v1/en/contents/TP0001613466.html

Pulseaudio Control

The goal is for the headset to show up in pulsaudiocontrol (install it like this)

sudo apt-get install pavucontrol

You can monitor btmon with the following command

sudo btmon -w ./btsnoop_bluez.log

Blueman

Blueman is a more advanced bluetooth manager. It lists the bluetooth devices. Here your headset should be listed as a headset

sudo apt install blueman

Manual Bluetooth trust, pair, and connect commands

use bluetoothctl to trust, pair, and connect the device manually (from the command line). The id is the mac address of your device like xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx

> sudo bluetoothctl
[bluetooth]# trust <ID
[bluetooth]# pair <ID>
[bluetooth]# connect <ID>

Checking bluetoothd service

This could show relevant errors

sudo systemctl status bluetooth.service

Setup

Since pairing succesfully, this now works for me

  1. Turn headset on
  2. In Blueman right-click headset > connect
  3. in sudo bluetoothctl do connect <id>

Note that I first have to connect in Blueman and then also manually in bluetoothctl.

Some solutions I tried

Since I don’t know what exactly fixed it for me I’ll just list most of what I tried (I lost some sources)


compile bluez

https bluez download source: https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/cvs/general/bluez.html (bluez.com is http)

Sony Noise-Cancelling Headphones (WH-1000XM2/3) and bluetooth initial autoconnect


https://askubuntu.com/a/1002081/1327882


load-module module-bluetooth-policy
load-module module-bluetooth-discover

https://askubuntu.com/a/1228816/1327882

sudo apt-get install pulseaudio-module-bluetooth
sudo killall pulseaudio
pulseaudio --start
sudo systemctl restart bluetooth

In /etc/bluetooth/main.conf add under [General]

Enable=Source,Sink,Media,Socket
ControllerMode = bredr

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=270465 & another source I lost


sudo apt-get install -y pulseaudio-module-bluetooth

https://zoomadmin.com/HowToInstall/UbuntuPackage/pulseaudio-module-bluetooth


pactl unload-module module-bluetooth-discover
pactl load-module module-bluetooth-discover

https://askubuntu.com/a/1171274/1327882

Related but not useful for me

https://gist.github.com/egelev/2e6b57d5a8ba62cf6df6fff2878c3fd4#file-connect_bluetooth_headphones-sh

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  • 1
    It was pairing mode indeed that I needed to turn on. I remember it worked automatically before and I never had to do that, I must have turned it off by accident somehow.
    – devil0150
    Jun 11, 2022 at 8:39
  • After upgrading to 22.04 the pulseaudio module was not installed. Bluetooth was broken since a kernel upgrade in 18.04. Did not find an adequate solution till now. Implemented the start of pulseaudio after X11 https://gist.github.com/freyes/dfc3f5232526a62bbc09adc816e0477d I implemented the main.conf edit (re)Installed pulseaudio and now it seems to work. Thanks.a.lot. !
    – SergeDr
    Jan 3, 2023 at 13:38

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