11mo ago

Is Bluetooth getting worse on Linux?

I'm noticing a lot of issues with bluetooth popping up, and they only seem to be getting worse.

First it was my PS3 controller. Randomly stopped working with bluetooth after an update.

Then I noticed bluetooth sometimes just... crashes and doesn't recover. There's probably some weird/sketchy command I can use to reset it, but I've just resorted to rebooting whenever it happened.

Now my bluetooth speaker just straight up fails to connect. I was using it, the connection 'failed', and now it won't connect. Lol.

Meanwhile on my phone it works just fine.

Is anyone else having issues? Does it feels like the quality of bluetooth support has diminished in recent months?

To me, this feels like some new contributors are doing things they shouldn't be doing or some other cultural shift among them.

28 comments

Hi, I can answer about the PS3 controller issue. I thought about making a public announcement about this, but I forgot. I'll work on that now and then link to it here, but to sum up the situation: Support for insecure legacy devices is now disabled due to CVE-2023-45866, and that includes the PS3 controller. You can re-enable support, but that will make your PC vulnerable when Bluetooth is in discoverable mode — that's when you're pairing a device; in GNOME that's when you just have the Bluetooth settings open; easy to have on by accident.
I'll explain how to re-enable support in the PSA post. It's a one-liner, but I won't put it here because I think people should be well-informed of the risks before considering it.
Edit: PSA posted at https://lemmy.world/post/11498269

for me it's been a lot better, I currently run arch without any issues (other then wine but thats because I never bothered to config it right when I setup bottles)

Lol!! Perfect timing
https://lemmy.world/post/11498269
This is a patch for a security vulnerability probably

I would have to say that it is not getting worse, its just never been very good.

What kind of bluetooth adapter do you have? There are some knock off USB adapters around that sorta work, but then crash and die sporadically. I havent had much luck with them in linux.
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1205962/bluetooth-dongle-problem - some more info here
- It's just the one that's in my laptop, a Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3.
  
  Probably not counterfeit then, i would hope anyway
  
  FWIW, I've had no issues here with my Lenovo ThinkPad Z13 and Fedora 39 (Bazzite).I use my 8BitDo Ultimate Bluetooth controller almost daily as well as my Sony WH1000-XM5 headphones, both work just fine.
  I'm on BlueZ v5.72 and kernel v6.6.14
  What distro / kernel / BlueZ are you on? If you're not on the latest BlueZ and/or a recent kernel, you should update them.

What exactly has updated? Kernel? Have you tried booting the old kernel?

If you are dual booting, windows messes up yoyr bluetooth chip
- you sure about that? how would that work?
  
  it's the problem that this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BprSnu6KWTA, and this post https://libreddit.northboot.xyz/r/pop_os/comments/lf8kvu/guide_pair_and_use_the_same_bluetooth_device_on/ are talking about also one that I have personally experienced the way bluetooth codes are stored in the bluetooth adapter is different or something. meaning they get corrupted each boot to the otherside
- Source?
  
  it's the problem that this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BprSnu6KWTA, and this post https://libreddit.northboot.xyz/r/pop_os/comments/lf8kvu/guide_pair_and_use_the_same_bluetooth_device_on/ are talking about also one that I have personally experienced the way bluetooth codes are stored in the bluetooth chip is different or something. meaning they get corrupted each boot to the otherside

...no ? years ago I couln't even dream of using bluetooth in linux; few weeks ago I found an old bluetooth dongle and now my usb speakers work just fine - even better than connecting via smartphone because plasma has sbc-xq codec easily selectable. It auto connects everytime I boot the pc, I just had to add btusb.enable_autosuspend=0 to kernel cmdline parameters
make sure you follow these guides, whicever distro you use
if it crashes, try sudo systemctl stop bluetooth.service and sudo systemctl start bluetooth.service
remember, bluetooth is a very cursed embrace-it-all protocol and may randomly crash/refuse to pair/connect unless you reset the devices manually, and this may happen with any hardware/software

I’ve had issues since kernel 6.4. Since early December, one pair of Bluetooth headphones works again (mostly, with occasional connection issues), but the AirPods still fail to pair at all.
- I had issues with AirPods connecting to Debian 12. It turned out to be codecs (from memory - I just remember some proprietary Apple shit) that were needed. Once they were installed it connected first time.
  If yours were working and stopped connecting after an update this is unlikely to be the issue. But I thought I'd point out out just in case.

I was trying to use a Bluetooth USB dongle on my home server with Home Assistant to integrate Bluetooth devices like Switchbot Locks into it. It worked sometimes, but it was so unreliable that I ended up getting an ESP32-based device and making it into an ESPHome Bluetooth proxy. Not an option for everything (it's only really designed for use with Home Assistant) but works well for my use case.
- Homeassistant is super fussy about bluetooth. Its how i found out my bluetooth adapters were counterfeit. I bought some genuine Asus BT500 adapters and they have worked fine (i think)
  
  It wasn't a Home Assistant issue though. All the errors were coming from Bluez.

Have you seen the recently posted PSA on the linux page here? Seems a security hole was patched in bluez and it has affected some devices.

Been having similar issues here, on Zorin OS. DS4 controller(s) sometimes disconnect, sometimes one of them gets noticeable input delay. Then, after some time or some update, the controllers stopped connecting automatically to the dongle I am using, even though they were already paired to it. Actually, I think they stop connecting automatically only after I reboot the computer, so that means it's an OS / software issue. It's a cheap bluetooth dongle, so at first I thought that chinesium was to blame, but seeing as others have these problems...

Did you install powertop recently? I had issues with Bluetooth with it.

I ended up using 3rd party controllers with 2,4Ghz dongles like 8bitdo. I even blacklisted the Bluetooth kernel module because it is so borked.

28 comments