54

UPDATE Aug 2017: The solution marked as accepted by me apppears to have worked until Ubuntu 15.10. For 16.04+ choose one of the more recent solutions.

For 16.04+ the config file is /etc/bluetooth/main.conf NOT /etc/bluetooth/audio.conf .

I have a bluetooth speaker, Sony SRS-BTX300, which works in linux/ubuntu 13.04, but only after some fiddling. (Update Dec 2013: same problems remain in 13.10)

I have to set the preferred bandwidth mode to "High fidelity playback" (A2DP) each time after switching on the computer and reconnecting the speaker.

The mode resets itself to "telephony/duplex" (=low bandwidth) every time. It takes about 20 clicks to reset the speaker, (click through menu, disconnect, reconnects, select mode, test), and these are definitely too many clicks.

How can I make "A2DP" mode the default mode, an do so in a persistent manner?

A few screen shots will illustrate.

After choosing this menu by clicking on the bluetooth icon in the top panel in Unity...

Bluetooth Icon on panel

After setting up this...

A2DP

... the preferred mode will be reset to this after restarting/suspending the computer

Telephony Duplex

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2
  • You may try playing with the settings in the /etc/bluetooth/audio.conf file. E.g. if you don't use any headset, change the MaxConnected=1 setting to 0.
    – falconer
    Dec 17, 2013 at 11:39
  • @falconer This worked on 15.04. Thanks.
    – black
    Oct 28, 2015 at 17:02

6 Answers 6

Reset to default
31

There's an option in /etc/bluetooth/audio.conf called aAutoConnect=truewhich is hashed out. 

sudo nano /etc/bluetooth/audio.conf

Delete the "#" at the start of the AutoConnect=true line

I found enabling this option by removing the # and got things connecting properly with my bluetooth headset

Restart the bluetooth service for the change to take effect:

sudo service bluetooth restart
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12
  • Thanks! - in that config file, the comment text above that option was quite verbose, and a bit misleading ("so the default setting of true is usually a good idea." and it's commented out: #AutoConnect=true. --- Removal of the "#" now also seems to work for me, although I haven't rebooted yes (just switched speaker on and off)
    – knb
    Dec 21, 2014 at 16:11
  • 1
    First it worked, but now it doesn't anymore. More ideas?
    – TIIUNDER
    Jan 6, 2016 at 20:03
  • 9
    No such file in Ubuntu 15.10?
    – timr
    Mar 27, 2016 at 22:21
  • 8
    no such file in 16.04 either...
    – knocte
    Jun 16, 2016 at 18:34
  • 8
    As of Ubuntu 17.04, no such file either. I tried to modify main.conf instead, adding AutoConnect=true someplace in the file, but it didn't solve my problem...
    – Johannes Lemonde
    Jul 16, 2017 at 18:42
29

Add the following line to /etc/bluetooth/audio.conf: 

[General]
Disable=Headset

and then run this command:

sudo service bluetooth restart

Thread: (Natty) Connect only A2DP profile for bluetooth headset.

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11
  • Unbelievably enough, this worked. Thank you very much!
    – Avio
    Jun 12, 2014 at 20:22
  • 1
    Uh, don't forget to sudo restart bluetooth for the setting to take effect.
    – Avio
    Jun 12, 2014 at 20:24
  • For Ubuntu 14.04 with Upstart: sudo restart --system bluetooth
    – DmitrySandalov
    Jun 22, 2015 at 11:01
  • 7
    Works for ubuntu 16.04, but the file is /etc/bluetooth/main.conf
    – noe
    Nov 3, 2016 at 13:32
  • 2
    Yes! works for ubuntu 16.04 --> /etc/bluetooth/main.conf.
    – user584583
    Jan 7, 2017 at 19:13
12

For those wondering, I found in Ubuntu 16.04 there is a slight difference to the answer: 

sudo gedit /etc/bluetooth/main.conf

And update the following line

#AutoEnable=false

to

AutoEnable=true

Followed by

sudo service bluetooth restart

For me, this defaulted the audio profile to A2DP Sink when connecting a bluetooth audio device.

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4
  • 1
    works, but I also added Disable=Headset and restarted my computer
    – wordsforthewise
    Jan 4, 2018 at 1:28
  • Dunno what you mean @cipricus. I added Disable=Headset to my /etc/bluetooth/main.conf file I think.
    – wordsforthewise
    Jun 11, 2019 at 22:29
  • @wordsforthewise - I wanted to find if both lines are needed or, if only one is enough, whether both work. - Trying to test, I find that in fact I had both. Commenting Disable=Headset & restarting bluetooth, all is fine. Commenting also AutoEnable=true & restarting bluetooth: cannot connect the headset. But after restarting the system I can connect it, and all is fine although both lines are commented now. Odd.
    – cipricus
    Jun 13, 2019 at 18:38
  • Just because this worked for you by coincidence, doesn't mean it is a solution. AutoEnable does nothing else but enable the adapter on boot.
    – Bachsau
    May 25, 2021 at 10:04
5

I'm using Gnome3 and after some time my headset no longer connected at A2DP again. I had to stop Gnome creating a pulseaudio daemon by creating the file /var/lib/gdm3/.config/pulse/client.conf (as root) and adding the following lines to it:

autospawn = no
daemon-binary = /bin/true

Then set the owner to gdm:

sudo chown gdm:gdm /var/lib/gdm3/.config/pulse/client.conf

Then log off/on or look for the pulseaudio process running as the gdm user with ps aux | grep pulse

(Trimmed) output looks like:

gdm       2943  10616 ?        S<l  Sep01   0:00 /usr/bin/pulseaudio..

Then kill the process with kill <pid> which for me was 2943

Running bluetoothctl and connecting again, I could then run pacmd list-cards and find my device index: 2 and change to the a2dp_sink with pacmd set-card-profile 2 a2dp_sink.

Finally working again!

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2

In order to auto switch audio into A2DP bluetooth device when connected in Ubuntu 14.04 I followed the instructions from https://sandalov.org/blog/2146/ and it worked perfectly.

Modify /etc/pulse/default.pa to automatically switch pulseaudio sink to Bluez:

.ifexists module-bluetooth-discover.so
load-module module-bluetooth-discover
load-module module-switch-on-connect  # Add this
.endif

Modify /etc/bluetooth/audio.conf to auto select A2DP profile (instead of HSP/HFP):

[General]
Disable=Headset # Add this

Apply changes:

pulseaudio -k # Restarts pulseaudio
sudo service bluetooth restart # Restarts BT

More info at: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Bluetooth_headset

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3
  • 2
    Not working for 16.04. This answer disables all audio output sources (creates a fault in PulseAudio).
    – stevenmc
    Jan 12, 2018 at 16:26
  • This worked for me on Ubuntu 19.10 with my Sony Headset WH-1000XM3. (Except that I put the changes for audio.conf in main.conf under [Policy])
    – Vegard
    Mar 20, 2020 at 15:30
  • Btw, it did look like it disabled the audio at first, but then it came back after a bit. Restarting could probably help.
    – Vegard
    Mar 20, 2020 at 15:47
0

The real problem here is, that the default configuration allows only one profile per device. This can be changed by setting MultiProfile to single or multiple in /etc/bluetooth/main.conf. Restart the bluetooth daemon afterwards. You will then be able to change the profile on the fly.

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