Unpair/remove Bluetooth devices in 16.04.1? (And other problems.)

Question

I'm on a fresh install of Ubuntu 16.04.1, but are fighting with many Bluetooth problems. -- I was surprised that the Internet is not plastered with bug reports. Is it only me? Bluetooth worked fine for years with my last 14.04 install.

• Bluetooth indicator shows Bluetooth "off", settings show "on" (see screenshot)
  • to reproduce: this happens quite often, just toggle the switches couple of times
• indicator shows three paired devices, settings shows only one (see screenshot)
  • happened after a bunch of unsuccessful pairing trials
  • How can I unpair/remove those devices?
• indicator disappears, even though "Show Bluetooth status in the menu bar" is enabled
  • to reproduce: switch off Bluetooth in the settings window

Solution

The GUI from the screenshot seems hosed at least to some degree, so use the command line tool bluetoothctl. It is interactive and has a help command.

$ bluetoothctl 
[NEW] Controller 3C:77:E6:F0:01:EA x200 [default]
[NEW] Device A0:E4:53:A3:AD:6A Xperia Z1 Compact
[NEW] Device 20:15:04:10:D3:AE LT1282
[NEW] Device F2:06:91:3F:EE:9A UniversalFoldableKb

[bluetooth]# list
Controller 3C:77:E6:F0:01:EA x200 [default]

[bluetooth]# devices
Device A0:E4:53:A3:AD:6A Xperia Z1 Compact
Device 20:15:04:10:D3:AE LT1282
Device F2:06:91:3F:EE:9A UniversalFoldableKb

[bluetooth]# info A0:E4:53:A3:AD:6A
Device A0:E4:53:A3:AD:6A
    Name: Xperia Z1 Compact
    Alias: Xperia Z1 Compact
    Class: 0x5a020c
    Icon: phone
    Paired: no
    Trusted: no
    Blocked: no
    Connected: no
    LegacyPairing: no
    UUID: [output shortened here]
    Modalias: usb:v0FCEp01A7d0010

[bluetooth]# remove A0:E4:53:A3:AD:6A
Failed to remove device: org.bluez.Error.NotReady

[bluetooth]# power on
Changing power on succeeded
[CHG] Controller 3C:77:E6:F0:01:EA Powered: yes

[bluetooth]# remove A0:E4:53:A3:AD:6A
[DEL] Device A0:E4:53:A3:AD:6A Xperia Z1 Compact
Device has been removed

As can be seen, visibility of a devices in the indicator does not mean that they are all paired or trusted (...so I have no idea what it means to see a device there).

It is also surprising that remove did not work while the Bluetooth controller is off...

Regarding the issue with the icon disappearing: to my surprise the Bluetooth controller can be in two off-states (at least on the system shown).

• "Powered: no" as shown by bluetoothctl
  • the controller will be visible to Bluetooth tools
  • the indicator icon will be there, in gray, and show that Bluetooth is off
• totally off, as if the Bluetooth controller would be unplugged
  • icon disappears, like as if no Bluetooth hardware is present
  • Bluetooth tools see no controller

How to control off-states?

The command line tool rfkill controls the rfkill-subsystem which handles software switches for radio devices. rfkill list bluetooth will reveal two Bluetooth relevant devices: the "main switch" and the controller itself (only visible if the Bluetooth main switch is "on").

$ rfkill list bluetooth
0: tpacpi_bluetooth_sw: Bluetooth
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
11: hci0: Bluetooth
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no

Comments

[Byte Commander]

Maybe you should file a bug report on Launchpad about this?