Why is my bluetooth connection always failing?

Question

I have a bluetooth headset that has been working fine for about a year. Recently it has been failing, and I believe the time it has been problematic coincides with upgrading to 12.04.

The device pairs just fine. However, every time I try to connect, I get an error that says "Connection failed: Connect failed".

I ran blueman-manager from the command line, and got this output (edited down to just the tail end when the connection failed):

_________
Generate (/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/blueman/gui/manager/ManagerDeviceMenu.py:230)
BSHSBE04 
_________
unset_op (/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/blueman/gui/manager/ManagerDeviceMenu.py:103)
op: regenerating instance <ManagerDeviceMenu object at 0x2d16b90 (GtkMenu at 0x2e5b750)> 
_________
fail (/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/blueman/gui/manager/ManagerDeviceMenu.py:134)
fail (DBusException(dbus.String(u'Connect failed'),),) 

Also, based on suggestions, I tried disabling SSP with the following command: sudo hciconfig hci0 sspmode 0, but it does not seem to have helped.

Lastly, I have tried unpairing and repairing, and sometimes that gets me some connectivity, but not always, and in any case it's a hassle to have to repair every single time.

What do I need to do to fix this error and restore my bluetooth device to its former level of reliability?

Solution 1

My workaround for this issue is to remove the headset from the list of known devices (from Bluetooth setup) and repeat the pairing.

The headset will then continue to work as expected until it was connected to another machine (which could also be a virtual machine on the same computer). Then we again have to remove the device and repeat the pairing.

There may be an issue with secure sinmple pairing that occured from 11.10 but is supposed to be fixed in kernel 3.2.15 (see bug #931860). Try if disabling SSP resolves your issue too.

Solution 2

I hope this is not too late or out of topic.

I have namely 12.10 and had the same problem. I solved it opening "Local Services" in Blueman and selecting "Advanced Audio Receiver" and "Headset Emulation" under the Audio tag in the window that pops up.

I accepted the fact that these services are "Experimental" and "Very Experimental". It worked for me.

Comments

[Admin]

Closed as non-reproduceable, but this is the exact problem I've always had too.