Pulse Audio Bluetooth card profile not displaying on Ubuntu 12.10

Question

I am running Ubuntu 12.10 and don't see a bluez_card profile on my system:

$ pactl list cards short
0   alsa_card.pci-0000_00_1b.0  module-alsa-card.c   

I tried to load the module as suggested here 12.04 - Bluetooth headset disappeared

$ pactl load-module module-alsa-sink device=bluetooth
Failure: Timeout 

I am trying to get the Bluetooth card profile to display so that I can set it up like it is done here : Why did my Bluetooth headset disappear from Sound Settings and how can I get it back?

$ pactl list cards short
0   alsa_card.pci-0000_01_00.1  module-alsa-card.c
1   alsa_card.usb-Generic_Turtle_Beach_USB_Headset_0000000001-00-Headset    module-alsa-card.c
2   alsa_card.pci-0000_00_14.2  module-alsa-card.c
8   bluez_card.C8_84_47_04_21_6F    module-bluetooth-device.c

$ pactl set-card-profile bluez_card.C8_84_47_04_21_6F a2dp

Update

I have the pulseaudio-module-bluetooth package installed. I tried loading the module module-bluetooth-discover but nothing happens. How can I set this up in /etc/pulse/default.pa?

Now in the sound settings the Ouput tab is selected but under where it says Play sound through there are no items showing anymore.

When i try listing all of the profile cards it says Connection failure

$ pactl list cards short
Connection failure: Connection refused

Update #2

The answer to this post : Sound settings panel empty on 12.04 helped me solve the no sound options problem.

However, I am now back to:

$ pactl list cards short
0   alsa_card.pci-0000_00_1b.0  module-alsa-card.c

Update #3

After uninstalling and reinstalling the pulseaudio package, I tried loading the bluetooth module module-bluetooth-discover. The first time I ran it, it output Welcome to PulseAudio! Use "help" for usage information. Then I checked the profile cards but no bluetooth card displays:

$ pactl list cards short 
0 alsa_card.pci-0000_00_1b.0    module-alsa-card.c 

I loaded the bluetooth module again and this time it output: Welcome to PulseAudio! Use "help" for usage information. >>> Module load failed.

I checked and now the bluetooth card displays. Strange behavior, but it works now. Thanks @Takkat.

Update #4

This just went out again. I tried removing and reinstalling the pulseaudio-module-bluetooth package, and loading the module module-bluetooth-discover but i am back to where I started.

$ pactl list cards short 
0 alsa_card.pci-0000_00_1b.0 module-alsa-card.c

Update #5

After installing recent updates from the Update Manager and restarting my machine it is back to working:

$ pactl list cards short
0   alsa_card.pci-0000_00_1b.0  module-alsa-card.c 
1   bluez_card.00_0C_8A_53_70_D0    module-bluetooth-device.c

This whole Bluetooth setup in 12.10 is very unpredictable. Hopefully this gets shored up in 13.04.

Answer 1

To enable bluetooth from pulseaudio we need to make sure we have the follwing package installed:

• pulseaudio-module-bluetooth

Then we also need to load the module-bluetooth-discover to make use of a Bluetooth audio device from pulseaudio.

pacmd load-module module-bluetooth-discover

This can also be done from our default.pa to be loaded on starting the pulseaudio sound server.