3

I am struggling to get my bluetooth adapter work on my Linux desktop.

I see it when I plug it in, but basically, nothing else works correctly:

$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 006: ID 0a12:0002 Cambridge Silicon Radio, Ltd Fontline     
Test Equipment Bluetooth Device

I can't put it up:

$ sudo hciconfig hci0 up
Can't init device hci0: Cannot assign requested address (99)

Bluetooth service is not working properly and can't be started:

$ sudo service bluetooth status
bluetooth stop/waiting
$ sudo service bluetooth start
start: Job failed to start

The logs say : "init: Failed to spawn bluetooth main process: unable to execute: No such file or directory". There are also plenty of :

[ 5485.753603] init: bluetooth main process ended, respawning
[ 5485.776272] init: bluetooth main process (24531) terminated with status 1

I tried to re-install bluetooth, blueman etc. They depends on the bluez package, and one of the issues(?) seems to be that I fail to install bluez.

$ sudo apt-get install blueman
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
   bluez
Suggested packages:
   bluez-hcidump
The following NEW packages will be installed:
   blueman bluez
...
Setting up bluez (4.101-0ubuntu13.1) ...
reload: Job is not running: dbus
invoke-rc.d: initscript dbus, action "force-reload" failed.
start: Job failed to start
invoke-rc.d: initscript bluetooth, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing package bluez (--configure):
subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of blueman:
blueman depends on bluez (>= 4.61); however:
Package bluez is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing package blueman (--configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
No apport report written because the error message indicates its a followup error from a previous failure.
Errors were encountered while processing:
 bluez
 blueman

Bluetooth is not blocked:

$ sudo rfkill list
 0: hci0: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no

Bluetooth kernel modules are present:

$ lsmod | grep -E "blue|bt|rfco"
rfcomm                 69160  0 
btusb                  32412  0 
bluetooth             391136  4 btusb,rfcomm

Those are the packages I have related to bluetooth:

$ dpkg -l | grep -i blue
iU  blueman                                           1.23-git201403102151-1ubuntu1                amd64        Graphical    bluetooth manager
iF  bluez                                             4.101-0ubuntu13.1                            amd64        Bluetooth tools and daemons
ii  bluez-compat                                      4.101-0ubuntu13.1                            amd64        BlueZ 3.x compatibility binaries
ii  gir1.2-gnomebluetooth-1.0                         3.8.2.1-0ubuntu4.2                           amd64        Introspection data for GnomeBluetooth
rc  gnome-bluetooth                                   3.8.2.1-0ubuntu4.1                           amd64        GNOME Bluetooth tools
rc  indicator-bluetooth                               0.0.6+14.04.20140207-0ubuntu2                amd64        System bluetooth indicator.
ii  libbluetooth-dev                                  4.101-0ubuntu13.1                            amd64        Development files for using the BlueZ Linux Bluetooth library
ii  libbluetooth3:amd64                               4.101-0ubuntu13.1                            amd64        Library to use the BlueZ Linux Bluetooth stack
ii  libgnome-bluetooth11                              3.8.2.1-0ubuntu4.2                           amd64        GNOME Bluetooth tools - support library
ii  libgnome-bluetooth8                               3.2.2-0ubuntu5.1                             amd64        GNOME Bluetooth tools - support library
ii  libmatebluetooth                                  1.2.1-2+precise                              amd64        MATE Bluetooth tools (library)
rc  mate-bluetooth                                    1.2.1-2+precise                              amd64        MATE Bluetooth tools

In this question, I saw mention of bluez-firmware, but couldn't find that yet.

$ sudo apt-get install bluez-firmware
...
E: Unable to locate package bluez-firmware

In attempts to solve the issue, I upgraded my system to the latest Linux Mate 17.3 Rosa + upgraded the kernel to 4.4, however this does not solve the issue.

I have been reading tons of more or less similar issue, but could not find the answer :( Thanks for your help!

1 Answer 1

0

I guess you could try a few things:

1) Try to reboot your PC to see whether it could be due to a hotplug / coldplug problem

2) A bug on the kernel Linux affecting similar dongles has been identified, and patched, see bugzilla, so updating your kernel might be the best option for you.

3
  • I rebooted, and unfortunately confirm it's not a hotplug / coldplug issue as it's still not seen if I reboot with it attached. I'll try upgrading my kernel.
    – user369353
    Jan 21, 2016 at 8:39
  • I upgraded to kernel 4.4. That didn't solve the issue. I still can't use hcitool etc. And bluez still won't install. So, consequently, bluetooth, blueman etc don't install.
    – user369353
    Jan 21, 2016 at 9:19
  • Same problem with the same bluetooth dongle (exact same model, including the USB vendor-id and product-id), but on Fedora, exact same problem, can't get it to work with hciconfig hci0 up, etc.
    – polemon
    Dec 5, 2019 at 20:22

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .