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.

Pantherina,

Lol!! Perfect timing

lemmy.world/post/11498269

This is a patch for a security vulnerability probably

shadowintheday2, (edited )

…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

ArcaneSlime,

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.

vojel,
@vojel@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

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.

noisypine,

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

NOOBMASTER,

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…

jntesteves, (edited )
@jntesteves@lemmy.world avatar

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 lemmy.world/post/11498269

administrator,
@administrator@lemmy.sambands.net avatar

I’ve had some new type of BT issues in recent years and when I search for solutions there’s a wave of users complaining about Linux BT support have regressed “lately” so there’s that.

Spiracle,
@Spiracle@kbin.social avatar

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.

WeLoveCastingSpellz,

If you are dual booting, windows messes up yoyr bluetooth chip

ben_dover,

you sure about that? how would that work?

WeLoveCastingSpellz,

it’s the problem that this video www.youtube.com/watch?v=BprSnu6KWTA, and this post …northboot.xyz/…/guide_pair_and_use_the_same_blue… 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

memphis,
@memphis@sopuli.xyz avatar

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

bizdelnick,

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

dan,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

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.

CameronDev,

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)

dan,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

It wasn’t a Home Assistant issue though. All the errors were coming from Bluez.

drwankingstein,

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)

CameronDev,

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.

askubuntu.com/…/bluetooth-dongle-problem - some more info here

maness300,

It’s just the one that’s in my laptop, a Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3.

CameronDev,

Probably not counterfeit then, i would hope anyway

maness300,

No, and it worked (mostly) fine until recently.

CameronDev,

These adapters worked fine for a while for me as well, i had one work fine for a few years, but only recently did the driver support break for it. It was some new feature added to the driver that the hardware didnt support (from memory, i could be wrong)

d3Xt3r,

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.

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