Bluetooth keyboard paired but not responding 16.04

Question

I'm running ubuntu 16.04 and I'm trying to pair my Microsoft Designer Keyboard to my computer. When I try to pair it, the GUI ask me to enter the pin code on my bluetooth keyboard and press enter.

Ubuntu says that my keyboard is paired but it doesn't seems to work. My keyboard led continues to blink like it was searching to pair.

The strange thing is that Ubuntu detect if submitted pin is correct or not. I tried many things like doing pairing with bluetoothctl command but nothing change. I also had issues to connect my "Microsoft designer mouse" but I managed to solve the problem.

Here is my /var/lib/bluetooth/@pcbtmac/@keyboardsmac/info file:

[General]
Name=Designer Keyboard
Appearance=0x03c1
AddressType=static
SupportedTechnologies=LE;
Trusted=true
Blocked=false
Services=00001800-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb;00001801-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb;0000180a-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb;0000180f-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb;00001812-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb;

[ConnectionParameters]
MinInterval=12
MaxInterval=12
Latency=30
Timeout=300

[IdentityResolvingKey]
Key=2F0F0EC777D70A3B7C545C677431060F

[LocalSignatureKey]
Key=08050DDCC91BE74D48194350810D5158
Counter=0
Authenticated=true                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

[LongTermKey]                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
Key=79AECD16673070C09237923C045A70F4                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
Authenticated=1                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
EncSize=16                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
EDiv=51284                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
Rand=2607687599915093354

Solution 1

Updating to 16.10 fixed this problem for me. I did have to reboot after pairing for some reason, but it's been working fine since then.

I know that's not a solution for 16.04, but it does confirm again that this keyboard can work under Linux.

Solution 2

I have struggled a lot with my bluetooth Microsoft designer keyboard and mouse for the last two days. I managed to write off a 14.04 laptop, but had more success with my 16.04 installation.

To get the mouse working, I followed this blog to do the following:

Step 1:

sudo apt-get install bluez blueman

Step 2:

sudo nano /etc/bluetooth/main.conf
Change line 67, uncomment #[Policy] so that it reads [Policy]
Change line 89, uncomment and change #AutoEnable=false so that it reads
AutoEnable=true

Step 3:

sudo nano /lib/udev/rules.d/50-bluetooth-hci-auto-poweron.rules
Change line 1 to comment out:
#ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="bluetooth", KERNEL=="hci[0-9]*", RUN+="/bin/hciconfig %k up"

Step 4:

Save and reboot.

My system hung on the shutdown, so I was nervous after killing my previous laptop, but the 16.04 laptop started up fine

Step 5:

From the second (blueman) bluetooth icon on the top menu bar, choose "Local Services" then under "Pan support" choose "blueman (dhclient)". Click Apply or don't worry if it isn't enabled, you can just close the window.

Step 6:

Choose "Setup New Device" from the same window. Press the pairing button on the mouse, so the blue lights start flashing (it's a really small button that I missed at first). Complete the wizard, and your mouse should be paired.

To get the keyboard working, I did the following:

Step 1:

Installed the bluez-utils replacement

sudo apt-get install bluez:i386

Step 2:

Ran through the "Setup New Device" option from the blueman, and remembered to press the small pairing button, which you can find underneath on the left of the keyboard, near the battery compartment.

Success

I now have a working keyboard and mouse that work on startup (and will even wake my laptop). I am a very happy beaver, except for my broken 14.04 laptop which was a very faithful servant for so many years.

Final Step:

After another reboot, you can uninstall blueman to remove the 2nd bluetooth menu.

sudo apt-get remove blueman

Comments

[Off]

The thing is that this keyboard was working out of the box on Solus ( solus-project.com ) so I'm really confident that it's possible to make it work on ubuntu as well :) And yes I'm able to use my "Microsoft designer mouse" which also use bluetooth 4.0 LE

[Prahlad Yeri]

Did you try doing the steps mentioned here (though its a mouse and not a keyboard, those steps could work in this case too)?

[Off]

Yes this how I made my mouse working, unfortunately it doesn't seems to work for the keyboard, even if before this "fix", the keyboard didn't wanted to pair at all.

[Prahlad Yeri]

Did it used to work in 15.10 or any earlier ubuntu version? Can you maybe boot up a live USB and see whether the live version detects the keyboard?

[Off]

I don't know this is the first time I'm using this keyboard with an Ubuntu based distro, and yes I can check with a live version On forums I saw that since linux kernel 4.6 this problem was solved, so I managed to update my kernel to 4.8 but not changes at all :( So I get back to the original 4.4

[neworld]

I have pretty the same symptoms. I solve the problem by removing and inserting wireless mouse dongle. Looks like X stucks somewhere with more input devices.

[Off]

Appreciate your answer, I have not my computer right now but I will try and accept your answer if it's working for me, thanks :)

[Volker Siegel]

It is not a comment, it is a useful answer - good that you made it an answer. I removed the first answer apologizing you could not made it a comment!

[Dagmar]

Also to note, initially I thought the pairing hadn't worked, but the devices started responding after about 5 seconds or so

[Dagmar]

This is exactly why I take the time to write answers after I've struggled with something ... I just switched over to to the windows installation on my machine and couldn't get the keyboard and mouse to repair with Ubuntu until I ran through all the steps above! And I see the blog post is behind a paywall now, but all the necessary steps are included in my answer. Score!