PulseAudio can not load bluetooth module 15.10/16.04/16.10

Question

EDIT: Works for 16:04 as well

I am having trouble connecting my bluetooth speakers with a fresh 15.10 install. The speakers are connected however they are not listed as available audio device.

I tried to load the bluetooth module using:

sudo pactl load-module module-bluetooth-discover
Failure: Module initialization failed

The same speakers have worked perfectly on 14.04. Any ideas how I could properly load the module so I can use my speakers?

Solution in 16.10 is:

$ sudo aptitude install bluetooth pulseaudio-module-bluetooth

Answer 1

Solved by using SimFox3 answer in this thread.

Bug and possible solution: actually I found a bug in that make the headset unusable, it seems that the pulse audio module: module-bluetooth-discover works only if started after the X11 session is up. So I have a workaround.

Edit the file:

/etc/pulse/default.pa

and comment out (with an # at the beginning of the line) the following line:

#load-module module-bluetooth-discover

now edit the file:

/usr/bin/start-pulseaudio-x11

and after the lines:

   if [ x”$SESSION_MANAGER” != x ] ; then
        /usr/bin/pactl load-module module-x11-xsmp “display=$DISPLAY session_manager=$SESSION_MANAGER” > /dev/null
    fi

add the following line:

    /usr/bin/pactl load-module module-bluetooth-discover

This way the Pulse audio’s Bluetooth modules will not be downloaded at boot time but after x11 is started.

Answer 2

In the file /usr/bin/start-pulseaudio-x11 I have

/usr/bin/pactl load-module module-x11-xsmp "display=$DISPLAY session_manager=$SESSION_MANAGER" > /dev/null

That > /dev/null is in several spots of that file.

Entering pactl load-module module-bluetooth-discover in terminal has worked after I made the changes suggested above, but sometimes not. The speaker is listed in the PAVU, is on and it shows as a choice under the sound icon in the menu bar, but no sound at all. The computers speakers work fine.