Hi everyone,
I'm experiencing persistent Bluetooth connection issues with my NVIDIA Shield TV Remote (2019) on LibreELEC x86_64.
The remote pairs successfully and all buttons work correctly, but the Bluetooth connection keeps dropping and reconnecting repeatedly. Sometimes it stays connected for around 10 seconds before disconnecting, then reconnects after a few seconds, repeating this cycle indefinitely.
I've also tested two different Bluetooth adapters and two different Shield remotes, with identical results:
Bluetooth adapters:
- Onboard Bluetooth: Intel Wireless-AC 3168 (ASRock B660 ITX/ac motherboard).
- USB Bluetooth dongle: ASUS USB-BT500 (Realtek RTL8761B).
Troubleshooting already performed:
- Tested both onboard Intel Bluetooth and the ASUS USB-BT500 dongle.
- Tested the ASUS dongle on a USB 2.0 port instead of USB 3.0 to rule out potential USB 3.0 interference.
- Performed a full cold boot to ensure no residual Bluetooth configuration or state from Windows was affecting the onboard Intel adapter.
- Disabled the Wi-Fi functionality of the onboard wireless card.
- Tried manually pairing, trusting and connecting the remote through bluetoothctl over SSH, bypassing LibreELEC's graphical interface.
- Tested both remotes and both LibreELEC builds.
None of these attempts made any difference.
Additional diagnostic information from the onboard Intel Bluetooth adapter:
- USB ID: 8087:0aa7.
- Bluetooth handled by btusb over xhci_hcd.
- rfkill showed Bluetooth as neither soft-blocked nor hard-blocked.
- Intel firmware patch was successfully loaded (patch num: 3c), with no obvious firmware or controller errors in the logs.
- Kernel logs showed repeated HID device initialisations for NVIDIA SHIELD Remote (0955:7217).
- During the connection failures, bluetoothctl reported Connected: no.
System:
- ASRock B660 ITX/ac motherboard.
- Intel Wireless-AC 3168 onboard Bluetooth.
- ASUS USB-BT500 (Realtek RTL8761B).
For reference, the remote works perfectly without any interruptions under both Windows and OSMC Vero V. The problem only occurs under LibreELEC.
At this point, I'm wondering whether this could be related to BlueZ, the Linux Bluetooth stack, HID handling, or a compatibility issue with the Shield Remote itself.
Since the exact same behaviour occurs with two different remotes, two different Bluetooth chipsets and two different LibreELEC builds, I suspect this might be a software compatibility issue rather than a hardware fault.
Why I'm particularly interested in getting this remote working is the Shield Remote 2019 has both Bluetooth and IR capabilities. This combination is particularly useful in my home theatre setup. I use Bluetooth for Kodi navigation and other remote functions, while IR is used to control the volume of my audio decoder.
This makes it an ideal remote for setups where HDMI-CEC isn't available or cannot be used. It allows me to control both Kodi and my audio equipment with a single remote, without relying on CEC.
I'd be happy to provide additional diagnostic logs or run specific tests if that helps identify the cause.
Thanks!
