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I'm trying to use an LG HBS700 Bluetooth headset with my laptop (Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon running Xubuntu 12.10). I'm able to successfully connect the headset using the Blueman program, but when I go to pavucontrol, all I see under the "Output Devices" tab is "Speakers" and "Headphones", neither of which work with the headset.

I've tried setting the headset to both "Audio Sink" and "Headset service", but neither worked.

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  • OK, sound worked after installing pulseaudio-module-bluetooth and restarting pulseaudio. There's one issue though - I can't control volume using the laptop's multimedia keys. When I hit up or down, the volume OSD changes but the actual sound level doesn't. In pavucontrol, I don't see any volume settings changing, for the Bluetooth headset, for the speakers/headphone jack, or for an individual program.
    – Samir Unni
    Nov 28, 2012 at 21:16

2 Answers 2

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To enable a Bluetooth audio sink in pulseaudio we need to make sure that pulseaudio-module-bluetooth Install pulseaudio-module-bluetooth is installed.

Then we also have to load the pulseaudio module module-bluetooth-discover to enable creating an output sink for pulseaudio. This can be done by adding the following line to our /etc/pulse/default.pa:

load-module module-bluetooth-discover

To switch the output sink to the headset whenever it is present we can also add the following module here:

load-module module-switch-on-connect

Settings take effect after a restart of the pulseaudio server either by log out and log in or with

pulseaudio -k

Switching to the Bluetooth audio sink can also be done with pavucontrol Install pavucontrol.

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  • Shouldn't it be module-bluetooth-discovery (y on the end), from what I see in Google search results? Also, do other packages have to be installed in order to load those modules, and if so, which? When I run modprobe module-bluetooth-discovery or modprobe module-switch-on-connect (as root), it doesn't find the modules in question. Are these "modules" different from kernel modules? And should the existing line load-module module-switch-on-port-available in /etc/pulse/default.pa be removed/commented out?
    – Samir Unni
    Nov 28, 2012 at 22:32
  • @srunni: we're not talking of kernel modules here. It is Pulse Audio Modules. These are listed with pacmd list-modules. In case you like to switch to another port of your sound device the module-switch-on-port-available may be used.
    – Takkat
    Nov 29, 2012 at 7:39
  • OK, pacmd list-modules isn't showing module-bluetooth-discovery or module-switch-on-connect. Perhaps another package is needed?
    – Samir Unni
    Nov 29, 2012 at 17:33
  • @srunni: there is no y. Try loading the modules with pacmd load-module module-bluetooth-discover and pacmd load-module module-switch-on-connect. In case you get an error post it here. Else they should be listed with pacmd list-modules. Then you may edit the default.pa as said in my answer to always load them.
    – Takkat
    Nov 29, 2012 at 18:15
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    @Zzzach... still not all flavors or releases of Ubuntu load this module by default. Of course once your already had this line in your default.pa you should not add it again. Your issue may be a different one then.
    – Takkat
    Feb 22, 2015 at 7:05
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I know this is a bit of an old post. But as I recently had the same problem I came across a rather simple solution: just install pulseaudio-module-bluetooth

sudo apt-get install pulseaudio-module-bluetooth

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1909957

good luck with that :)

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  • It works in current Xubuntu version, because the module load of bluetooth is already included in the configuration.
    – keiki
    Jul 9, 2015 at 20:08

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