Windows 10 suddenly refuses to connect to my bluetooth airpod pros

Question

Have had these airpods for 4 months now, and they haven't had much issue.

Starting from yesterday, they started refusing to connect to my windows 10 PC.

Different symptoms encountered:

1. It refuses to connect despite trying dozens of times
2. Sometimes it would eventually connect, but would have 0 sound come out
3. Other times it would connect but have extremely choppy sound
4. Other times it would connect but have sound in one ear be delayed from the other.
5. I tried removing the device and rediscovering it, and the computer couldn't even detect the device for 30 minutes.
6. One time I couldn't even disconnect it since it said "cannot disconnect device"
7. Other times it would be very choppy for a few minutes and then disconnect by itself.
8. I've seen it continue saying "connected" even long after I put the airpods back into the case and had them turn themselves off.
9. Sometimes it would say connected voice, other times connected music, other times connected music and voice. Well it doesn't matter, either way it doesn't do anything

All the things I've tried:

1. Restarted machine (numerous times)
2. Put airpods into case and back
3. Cleaned airpod contact points and made sure they were both at 100%
4. Pulled out my bluetooth chip from desktop and put it back in 30 minutes later. Tried this numerous times
5. Restarted bluetooth support service
6. Removed bluetooth device and rediscovered dozens of times.

Tried connecting the airpods to my phone and laptop, neither had any issues.

Edit:

Tried another pair of earphones and they also couldn't connect to my windows.

I've always hated bluetooth since it never works, but this is the worst I've ever seen.

I've spent 35 minutes trying to resolve this issue yesterday(not to mention the many hours spent letting it "sit for a bit and trying again in 30 mins") and it finally worked. I woke up this morning and it is happening again.

Edit 2: I discovered something important. This seems to only happen after waking my computer up from sleep. If I restart the computer after sleep it gets better until it goes back to sleep again.

Solution

Some fixes for wireless problems upon wake from sleep:

• Disable hybrid sleep
• When the problem happens, in the Services applet, restart the WLAN AutoConfig service
• When the problem happens, run the following command in PowerShell as Admin:
  restart-netadapter * -Confirm:$false
• See also this unconfirmed method of disabling device radios control by apps.

Comments

[harrymc]

Do they work when connecting to another device?

[Razor Storm]

"Tried connecting the airpods to my phone and laptop, neither had any issues." Yeah they do. Also I tried connecting another pair of earphones to my windows computer and it failed too. I think this should be a strong evidence that the issue is in the windows not the airpods.

[harrymc]

Perhaps a driver problem. (1) In Device Manager, under Network adapters, right-click the Bluetooth adapter, Properties, tab Driver. Does "Driver Date" correspond to when the troubles started? (2) What is the exact model of this adapter?

[Razor Storm]

Thanks for the info. So driver date is 6/21/2006. Driver version: 10.0.18362.693. No info here about model number

[harrymc]

What is the name of the device?

[Razor Storm]

It just says (My name)'s Airpod Pros. Bluetooth Device

[harrymc]

Have a look at this post.

[Razor Storm]

Unfortunately that driver doesn't recognize my bluetooth adapter, and it said no bluetooth device pluggined

[harrymc]

Airpod is the paired device. What is your device that is called something like "Wireless Network Adapter"? This is perhaps the device you call "bluetooth chip".

[Razor Storm]

So that's actually literally what shows up in the device list. It's under the "bluetooth" folder in device manager. Underneath it just shows a list of my bluetooth devices (airpod pros, razer mouse, magic trackpad 2, living room speaker, etc" Under the network adapters folder in device manager: Bluetooth Device (Personal Area Network) #3. But I don't think this is the same as the bluetooth connector since it says disabled currently.

[Razor Storm]

I have found more information. This seems to always happen if I put the computer to sleep and wake it back up. If I restart, the problem goes away until I put it to sleep again

[harrymc]

Waking from sleep problems are almost always problems with the driver. To better analyze the problem, run powercfg -energy to a file and post it somewhere for us.

[Razor Storm]

raw.githubusercontent.com/razorstorm/junk/master/…

[harrymc]

Two missing or misconfigured drivers: VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter, Bluetooth Device. The Bluetooth device is Realtek RTL8812AU that has a driver here. Try this driver. If unsuccessful, use Device Manager to delete this device (with its driver) and reboot for Windows to install its own driver. Ensure you can reinstall the current driver.

[Razor Storm]

Ahh nice find. I'm pretty sure my virtualbox is misconfigured, and I don't even use it anymore I might just uninstall it all. I'll fiddle with it and see how it goes. Thanks!

[harrymc]

When uninstalling VirtualBox, ensure afterwards that all its network adapters were deleted. If not, do so manually.

[Razor Storm]

OK got rid of virtualbox and also anything that says virtualbox in the device manager. Let's see how this connects

[Razor Storm]

Hmm seems like it is still happening after awake from sleep. Here's a new report: raw.githubusercontent.com/razorstorm/junk/master/…

[Razor Storm]

So I tried it again and now it doesn't work even with a full restart anymore. It just keeps saying "Check the PIN and try connecting again." But it never even asked me for a pin, and the airpods dont even have a pin.

[Razor Storm]

So I tried it again after this and it didn't work. I actually found that it doesn't work even with a full restart anymore. It just keeps saying "Check the PIN and try connecting again." But it never even asked me for a pin, and the airpods dont even have a pin.

[harrymc]

For Bluetooth devices that don't have a pin, enter an empty pin, meaning just type Enter when asked. If it doesn't work, see this answer.

[Razor Storm]

It doesn't actually ever ask me for a pin, it just loads for a while and then says check the pin and try connecting again.

[harrymc]

Try the alternative method in the link.

[Razor Storm]

So now it just keeps saying it can't connect to the device. No issues about PIN this time though. i.imgur.com/ijRBw7P.png. Thanks so much for all your help so far btw

[harrymc]

So none of the above listed methods works?

[Razor Storm]

Unfortunately not. I tried all of these and restarted a few times. Interestingly enough, after some of these my other pair of earphones started connecting now. Airpods still no luck. Stuck on the "try pin and conenct again" issue despite it never popping up a window to ask me to put in a pin.

[harrymc]

Airpods are very problematic on non-IOS systems. Although I don't have Airpods, some advice I have found: (1) In Device Manager > Sound, video, and game controllers, if you have Airpods two devices, then disable "Airpods Stereo only". (2) In Devices and Printers, right-click the Airpods > properties > services > uncheck Hardware telephony. I can't check if this advice works or can be adapted to Windows 10.

[Razor Storm]

Hmm none of that worked, and now my other earphones (not airpods, some senso air buds) cannot connect either now with the exact same symptoms... Tried all the steps here and none of it has helped at all. :(

[harrymc]

I fear that's all I can think of, except for ditching the Airpods.

[Razor Storm]

Yeah I just ended up using my old earphones for a while, but now they don't work either... Thanks for all your help though!

[harrymc]

You should then undo all that you did. Using System Restore to rollback to before you changed anything is the safest way (if you have not installed anything in the meantime).

[Razor Storm]

Ah I haven't actually touched it for about a week. it just randomly stopped working when I woke up today. :/

[harrymc]

I meant undoing all that you did while trying to fix the problem.

[Razor Storm]

Ah sure. I'll try to undo the steps. Most of it is just restarting things and reinstalling things.