Bluetooth controller suddenly stops being powered on

harrouet · August 21, 2018 at 9:55 AM

Hi there,

I am using the official Libreelec 8.2.5 on a Raspberry Pi 3B+ and admiring the work that devs put on this marvel.

However, I am having trouble with the bluetooth connection to my audio setup (an SMSL AD18, if that's of any help). The device is seen as a headset, and has been working flawlessly with my phone and computer before.

I am able to pair the device. It works for some time, sometimes with a choppy sound (buffer issue?) but then the bluetooth connection drops. It usually takes 10 min or so before dropping.

Actually, I found that the bluetooth controller stops being powered on altogether. FYI, I am using a 3A power adapter, and there is nothing else running other than playing mp3 from my NAS, so it should be enough power for the Pi.

Here is what I get in bluetoothclt when this happens:

diagnose:

Code

[bluetooth]# show
Controller B8:27:EB:DC:7A:75
    Name: BlueZ 5.43
    Alias: HopMedia
    Class: 0x000000
    Powered: no
    Discoverable: no
    Pairable: yes
    UUID: Audio Sink                (0000110b-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
    UUID: Generic Attribute Profile (00001801-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
    UUID: Audio Source              (0000110a-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
    UUID: A/V Remote Control        (0000110e-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
    UUID: PnP Information           (00001200-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
    UUID: Generic Access Profile    (00001800-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
    UUID: A/V Remote Control Target (0000110c-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
    Modalias: usb:v1D6Bp0246d052B
    Discovering: no

Display More

trying to power back on:

Code

[bluetooth]# power on
Failed to set power on: org.bluez.Error.Failed

Trying to power off, then on:

Code

[bluetooth]# power off
Changing power off succeeded
[bluetooth]# power on
Failed to set power on: org.bluez.Error.Failed

Only a reboot seems to be able to restore the controller in a good state.

Before you ask, WiFi is disabled, so this is really a Bluetooth issue (I read about issues on BT with sharing frequencies).

Any idea about what is happening?

**Iridium** · August 21, 2018 at 5:51 PM Official Post

The internal BT on the RPi3 is not the brightest cookie in the world and really, IMO, shouldn't be used for audio. If you want audio over BT get a decent BT USB dongle.

You could try 8.90.003 Here which will have newer fixes and see if that improves things

**chewitt** · August 21, 2018 at 9:11 PM Official Post

3B+ is considerably better than B3 for radio things. The next alpha release will have some BT firmware improvements for the RPi3B+ that reduce interference with wireless (which is usually active at the same time even if you're using Ethernet) which might help.