Bluetooth dbus error, can't send or receive files from computer / or share internet connection

Question

My computer (Lenovo, Intel dual core, 64 bit, 1.9 GB Mmemory) did not come with a bluetooth card installed. So I spent the $3 and bought a bluetooth USB connector. I plugged it in to my Ubuntu 14.04 machine and I was able to share the internet connection with my phone.

However, I was not able to share files between my phone and computer even after configuring the Personal File Sharing.

I figured it might be a driver problem so, installed

sudo apt-get install bluez bluez-alsa bluez-audio bluez-btsco bluez-compat bluez-cups bluez-dbg bluez-gstreamer bluez-hcidump bluez-pcmcia-support bluez-tools bluez-utils python-bluez bluewho indicator-bluetooth libbluetooth-dev  libgnome-bluetooth11 libbluetooth3

This installed blueman. Blueman changed the PAN settings from Network Manager to Blueman (dhclient) by default. Under Transfer Settings > Object Push I selected Enabled & Accept files from trusted devices and for Transfer Settings > File Sharing FTP I selected Enabled & Allow devices to write/delete.

STATUS QUO:

Now when I try to share the internet connection between my phone, it connects for several seconds then disconnects. Under the internet connections listings I literally see 3 duplicates of my phone network listed, where I previously saw only one.

When I select "Browse Files on Device" I get an error stating

Failed to launch default file browser..... The specified location is not mounted .... You can enter an alternate browser in service settings

When I select Send Files to Device via Bluetooth Manager I get

Error Occurred
Method "CreateSession" with signature "va{sv}" on interface org.bluez.obex.Client1" doesn't exist

When I select Send Files via the Ubuntu Bluetooth panel indicator I get this error:

GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.openobex.client was not provided by any .service files

FYI on my phone I am using Android 4.4.4 kikat Bluetooth File Transfer app. My phone connects to the computer, quite stably.

Here's the "curveball", I CAN send files from my phone to my computer. The files land in my downloads folder as set by Personal File Sharing. I created a separate folder called Bluetooth Transfers after installing Blueman. Files never go there.

CORRECTION: can't send files from my phone to the computer any longer. "object push" not found.

I think that the blueman drivers are not playing nicely with dbus, but I don't know how to fix it.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

When in doubt, purge it out... to solve the problem above I did the following:

sudo apt-get remove --purge bluez bluez-alsa bluez-audio bluez-btsco
bluez-compat bluez-cups bluez-dbg bluez-gstreamer bluez-hcidump
bluez-pcmcia-support bluez-tools bluez-utils python-bluez bluewho
indicator-bluetooth libbluetooth-dev  libgnome-bluetooth11
libbluetooth3

sudo apt-get remove --purge blueman

sudo reboot

sudo apt-get install bluez bluez-alsa bluez-audio bluez-btsco
bluez-compat bluez-cups bluez-dbg bluez-gstreamer bluez-hcidump
bluez-pcmcia-support bluez-tools bluez-utils python-bluez bluewho
indicator-bluetooth libbluetooth-dev  libgnome-bluetooth11
libbluetooth3

sudo reboot

sudo apt-get install network-manager network-manager-openvpn

sudo start network-manager

sudo apt-get install network-manager-gnome

sudo reboot

sudo apt-get install gnome-user-share

I believe that blueman had a bug causing the issue. So without blueman at all I can send and receive files between my phone and computer and share my phone wifi connection (it's stronger than my netcard).

Answer 2

Adding a note here, as I encountered the same cryptic error message (albeit on openSUSE, not Ubuntu). To enable Bluetooth file transfers, the bluetooth obex ("Object Exchange") daemon needs to be installed (the package was called bluez-obexd on openSUSE). The package provides a DBus-activated systemd service, which needs to be enabled:

systemctl --user enable obex.service

After that, transferring files via BT to a mobile device worked for me.