Support for UB500 Bluetooth Dongle

  • Hello,

    I would like to use the UB500 TP-link USB bluetooth dongle. I saw that some more recent linux kernels supported it.

    Bash
    uname -a
    Linux LibreELEC 5.10.76 #1 SMP Sat Mar 5 19:12:54 CET 2022 x86_64 GNU/Linux



    dmesg | grep -i bluetooth

    Bash
    [ 10.278420] Bluetooth: Core ver 2.22[ 10.278502] Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized[ 10.278514] Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized[ 10.278520] Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized[ 10.278534] Bluetooth: SCO socket layer initialized[ 12.011623] Bluetooth: BNEP (Ethernet Emulation) ver 1.3[ 12.011632] Bluetooth: BNEP filters: protocol multicast[ 12.011646] Bluetooth: BNEP socket layer initialized[ 12.304496] Bluetooth: RFCOMM TTY layer initialized[ 12.304515] Bluetooth: RFCOMM socket layer initialized[ 12.304533] Bluetooth: RFCOMM ver 1.11


    lsusb; dmesg | egrep -i 'blue|firm'

    Bash
    Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hubBus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hubBus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hubBus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hubBus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hubBus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hubBus 004 Device 003: ID 1997:2433 Shenzhen Riitek Technology Co., Ltd wireless mini keyboard with touchpadBus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hubBus 009 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hubBus 008 Device 003: ID 2357:0604 TP-Link TP-Link UB500 AdapterBus 008 Device 002: ID 07ca:3835 AVerMedia Technologies, Inc. AVerTV Volar Green HD (A835B)Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub[ 5.520598] kernel-overlays-setup: added firmware from /usr/lib/kernel-overlays/base/lib/firmware[ 10.669644] af9033 14-001c: firmware version: LINK 3.39.1.0 - OFDM 3.9.1.0

    Saw an answer here on Linux forums : https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=368114

    Anyway we can apply this on LibreElec ?

    Thanks in advance for your help

    Edited 2 times, last by FergFerg (June 20, 2022 at 7:35 PM).

  • Clean boot an LE11 image and run "dmesg | paste" and share the URL so we can see the full log. From this we can see if there's any evidence of missing firmware or missing driver. The snippets you've shared are not showing much.

  • I too have this (UB500 TP-link) dongle and am running Generic.x86_64-9.1.002 (Leia), which I don't want to change from, for various reasons (namely running Chrome)

    I looked at the link above to add firmware and even tho I'm reasonably computer-savvy, the first method looks too hard for me.

    The second method (shown in video) I could do - I've accessed folders on my Kodi installation from my Win10 machine (over the network) before.
    but how do I identify the firmware for the USB stick?
    I have a folder that I unzipped to install it on Windows 10 (screenshots attached). Is any of that firmware?

    Can someone please tell me how to find the firmware for my dongle or perhaps even ELI5 me the process to use this dongle on my Kodi install?

    (A number of reviewers on Amazon did say the dongle was compatible with Linux)

  • Hey Chewitt,
    Thanks!
    1) I am running 9.2.6 (and 9.1.002 on another stick) - I presume you mean to just run whatever I'm on, rather than 11...?
    2) I don't know what clean boot means

    3) I don't know how to 'run' dmesg | paste'? Is this something to do with SSHing in? (which I've never done)


    4) If its not too hard I'm pretty tech savvy and willing to learn how to do it.

    NOTE: The dongle IS working on a version of LE11 that I created (but didn't use because it didn't support Chrome, from memory). So there is some hope! (I even thought of copying the firmware files from that somehow, via the Windows network as shown in the video here, but I couldn't find /usr/lib/firmware.)

    Clean boot an LE11 image and run "dmesg | paste" and share the URL so we can see the full log. From this we can see if there's any evidence of missing firmware or missing driver. The snippets you've shared are not showing much.


    Actually Im asking ChatGPT...

    Edited once, last by TimbOz: Merged a post created by TimbOz into this post. (January 12, 2024 at 9:39 AM).

  • Can't SSH into Kodi

    1. What am I doing wrong? So frustrating!
    a) Note: when I type the password into PuTTY, the cursor doesn't advance
    b) I did at first encounter the warning in the third shot. First I did 'connect once'. Then 'accept'.

    c) The ip address, user ('root') and pw are all definitely correct.

    2. What is a 'clean boot' into Kodi precisely?

    3. Is there another way I can get you the log?

  • Thanks PE! That saved some time but still access denied.

    I know its the right password.

    (Note: cursor doesn't move when I type password - blindly!)


    Far better results using Windows CMD prompt than PuTTY

    1. Wow, I just managed to log in on the first attempt using CMD (run as admin).
    a) OpenSSH Client was already installed.

    2. I'll be uninstalling PuTTY. I didn't find it very useful.


    Ran dmesg | paste and got this.
    No url given.
    Is some site just busy?

  • dmesg output: SUCCESS...of a kind

    1. I managed to output to a text, which I've attached

    2. I couldn't send to a url because:

    a) 'paste' command wasn't recognised

    b) When I used curl (command below), it had a problem because of lack of a log in

    dmesg | curl -F 'file=@-' https://paste.ubuntu.com


    Anyway, hopefully Chewitt or another may be able to help me get my TP-link UB500 BT dongle recognised by Leia (9.1.002 or 9.2.6) now that you have this ! :)

    NOTE: Build 12 worked but had troubling errors loading movies.

    I did successfully get Legacy 12 working and detecting the dongle, and even successfully loading my crucial add-ons (after encouragement and instructions in this thread). But unfortunately there is a major problem with playing video files over the network. It has frequent errors I never had on Leia ('One of more items failed to play') and is very slow to load a movie compared to Leia.
    So at this point I'd be just as happy to get my trusty Leia/9 to simply recognise the dongle - because I'm happy with everything else.


    (i.e LibreELEC-Generic-legacy.x86_64-12.0-nightly-20231129-ffe1b62.img.gz (sha256))

  • If LE 11/12 work and LE 9 does not the issue is simply kernel version and lack of driver support for the hardware. Fixing that in LE 9 will either need patching the kernel to add new device IDs, or patching the kernel to backport actual drivers. In both cases this will need building a custom image and I don't see value in that when newer releases work.

    LE 11/12 have no general issues playing media over an Ethernet network. If you previously added hacks for cache tweaking, remove them. If you are using WiFi, try using Ethernet. If you are using NFS, try using SMB (or vice versa). Or start with a better description of the problem than "troubling issues" and provide debug logs.

  • Great news: I 'fixed' the problem.

    I don't know which one did it, but:

    1. I stopped scanning for new movies before I tried to load a movie.

    2. I scraped the movies with TMDB Python instead of Universal Movie Scraper

    The movies then loaded quite quickly - feels faster than LN 9.

    Very happy ! :)