PulseAudio can not load bluetooth module

Question

I am having trouble connecting my Bluetooth speakers with a fresh 15.10 install (EDIT: applies to 16.04 as well). The speakers are connected however they are not listed as an available audio device.

I tried to load the Bluetooth module using:

sudo pactl load-module module-bluetooth-discover
Failure: Module initialization failed

The same speakers have worked perfectly on 14.04. Any ideas how I could properly load the module so I can use my speakers?

I’ve extracted the solution you posted as a [part of the question](https://askubuntu.com/revisions/689281/3) into a [separate answer](https://askubuntu.com/a/1121417/250300). Feel free to repost this answer using your account (to gain the respective reputation) or integrate it with your [current answer](https://askubuntu.com/a/689297/250300). Then please ping me, so I can remove my answer. See also [What do we do with this question that is really an answer?](https://meta.askubuntu.com/questions/17983/what-do-we-do-with-this-question-that-is-really-an-answer/) — Melebius, Feb 28 '19 at 07:41

score 73 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 12 '20 at 14:37

73

Solved by using SimFox3 answer in this thread.

Bug and possible solution: actually I found a bug in that make the headset unusable, it seems that the pulse audio module: module-bluetooth-discover works only if started after the X11 session is up. So I have a workaround.

Edit the file:
/etc/pulse/default.pa
and comment out (with an # at the beginning of the line) the following line:
#load-module module-bluetooth-discover
now edit the file:
/usr/bin/start-pulseaudio-x11
and after the lines:
   if [ x”$SESSION_MANAGER” != x ] ; then
        /usr/bin/pactl load-module module-x11-xsmp “display=$DISPLAY session_manager=$SESSION_MANAGER” > /dev/null
    fi
add the following line:
    /usr/bin/pactl load-module module-bluetooth-discover
This way the Pulse audio’s Bluetooth modules will not be downloaded at boot time but after x11 is started.

edited Jun 12 '20 at 14:37

Community

1

answered Oct 24 '15 at 10:31

Georgi Georgiev

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You are my hero! Did you submit this as a bug report somewhere? This fixed it for me. – select Nov 25 '15 at 23:48
Worked for me too - this on the cheap & cheerful Lidl bluetooth SBL 4.1 which has previously failed to appear on googling it with Linux. Well done +1! – Mark Williams Feb 22 '16 at 14:33
3

it works for 16.04 as well, believe or not this bug still exists and seems no one is going to fix this – Zippp Apr 23 '16 at 18:54
I had the same problem on Debian Testing (stretch) and this fixed it. Thank you! – Black-Pixel Jul 21 '16 at 07:39
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Great! The same problem in Debian 9 and the same solution... – Marlord Jun 29 '17 at 23:35
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Is there an upstream or distro bug report for this? I can't seem to find it neither in Ubuntu nor Debian nor upstream... – bk138 Oct 18 '17 at 14:42
cool. works like a charm – Viacheslav Dobromyslov Dec 31 '18 at 03:47
It didn't work for me I am still getting error Connection Failed: blueman.bluez.errors.DBusFailedError: Protocol not available – Aniket Tiwari Jan 27 '19 at 07:36
Tried so many things and that was the trick! Using Debian. How comes this is not solved on Debian and Ubuntu distros with everyone using bluetooth sound devices daily?! – L. G. Mar 18 '20 at 08:32
Thank you man for real, i can confirm this worked on debian 9 stretch as well :) – Amir El-Bashary Jun 28 '20 at 11:09
umm.... what about people using wayland? – Joshua Robison Dec 28 '21 at 07:27

score 18 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 14 '19 at 18:36

18

The solution in 16.10 is:

$ sudo apt install bluetooth pulseaudio-module-bluetooth

This answer was originally posted as an edit to the question.

edited Jul 14 '19 at 18:36

Gustavo Morais

101
3

answered Feb 26 '19 at 14:10

Melebius

11,121
8
50
77

Thanks, reinstalling was actually indeed needed. – Alex Botev Mar 06 '20 at 10:03

score 14 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 14 '20 at 09:31

14

Sometimes, it works after reboot, and such error appears later. In this case you can try the following, which works for me:

pactl unload-module  module-bluetooth-discover
pactl   load-module  module-bluetooth-discover

edited Jun 14 '20 at 09:31

kynan

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answered Mar 23 '19 at 08:31

jmary

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The unload seems to be the key here. Just loading (as suggested elsewhere) causes an error where it fails to load it. I couldn't get it to run with sudo though - but it worked fine without it – Zoe Feb 25 '20 at 11:59
1

Had to do this in 19.10 also – Rqomey Mar 02 '20 at 22:31
This worked under 18.04 as well! – parsethis Mar 31 '20 at 18:36
This totally fixed my problem. Linux Mint 18.3 (Sylvia). Half a connection to bluetooth. – brad Apr 11 '20 at 21:16

PulseAudio can not load bluetooth module

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