Bluetooth not working on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

Question

I want to send files from my phone to my Laptop and vice versa through Bluetooth. But the Bluetooth on my system doesn't work. When I turn on the Bluetooth switch in System Settings > Bluetooth, nothing happens and also the visibility switch on the right hand side is always disabled.

Output of rfkill list is as follows:

0: phy0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
1: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
2: hp-bluetooth: Bluetooth
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no

Output of dmesg | grep Blue is as follows:

[   29.519992] Bluetooth: Core ver 2.21
[   29.520012] Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized
[   29.520016] Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized
[   29.520019] Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized
[   29.520025] Bluetooth: SCO socket layer initialized
[   54.305795] Bluetooth: BNEP (Ethernet Emulation) ver 1.3
[   54.305799] Bluetooth: BNEP filters: protocol multicast
[   54.305804] Bluetooth: BNEP socket layer initialized

I don't know if the drivers were installed or not and I don't know how to check it either.

Any idea what the issue is?

Update:

Output of lspci -knn | grep Net -A2; lsusb is as follows:

09:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Ralink corp. RT3290 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe [1814:3290]
    DeviceName:  
    Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Ralink RT3290LE 802.11bgn 1x1 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 Combo Adapter [103c:18ec]
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 064e:c342 Suyin Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:8000 Intel Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Please [edit] your question and add output of `lspci -knn | grep Net -A2; lsusb` terminal command. — Pilot6, Jun 14 '16 at 18:54
To check if bluetooth packages are installed, I suggest you to install Synaptic Package Manager and look for bluetooth on it. BTW we could file a bug report, as I'm suffering this too, in my case I have two bluetooth icons in the system panel, and making my PC visible from both doesn't makes it really visible. It also fails to find other bluetooth devices. — Nano, Jun 15 '16 at 03:09
Search the bug reports for bluetooth RT3290 and you will find some. I really doubt it is fixed even now — Jeremy31, Jun 15 '16 at 22:02
@Jeremy31 You are right Jeremy. It seems it was an issue even with the older versions. — UrsinusTheStrong, Jun 16 '16 at 14:51
I think some arch Linux users had it working up until kernel 4.0 — Jeremy31, Jun 16 '16 at 17:16
this worked for me https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1387211 — Ferroao, Aug 29 '17 at 23:28
Try this https://askubuntu.com/questions/919542/how-can-i-make-my-bluetooth-works-on-ubuntu-16-04/959060#959060 The bluetooth pile is largely outdated on 16.04 — jmary, Sep 27 '17 at 07:47
Might sound cliche but I found turning my computer on and off again as a fix. I am using 18.04 — Anshuman Kumar, Jun 10 '20 at 06:26

score 44 · Answer 1 · edited Nov 03 '19 at 15:39

44

My ubuntu 16.04 couldn't find the Bluetooth devices, even though the devices's pairing switch was on.

Ubuntu 16.04 Bluetooth Speakers

In short, I tried following process.

sudo nano /etc/bluetooth/main.conf
Change #AutoEnable=false to AutoEnable=true (at the bottom of the file, by default)
systemctl restart bluetooth.service

Then, my Ubuntu machine was able to find the Bluetooth devices!

edited Nov 03 '19 at 15:39

Harun-Ur-Rashid

133
4

answered Aug 04 '16 at 15:04

rkoyama1623

541
3
4

12

apos thats not correct , it should be systemctl restart bluetooth.service – Amias Nov 01 '16 at 11:18
2

This worked for me with the change that @Amias mentioned. Thanks. – Erdnase Nov 06 '16 at 11:19
10

The best way is actually `sudo service bluetooth restart` – smac89 Feb 09 '17 at 03:29
working even if still not perfect, thx! I think there may have conflict with other bluetooth manager here.., this may help too https://askubuntu.com/a/680192/46437 – Aquarius Power Jun 07 '17 at 03:35
I am getting an error for the third command. Failed to restart etc-init.d-bluetooth.service.mount: Unit etc-init.d-bluetooth.service.mount not found. – Reyansh Kharga Sep 08 '18 at 05:11

score 35 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 10 '18 at 14:43

35

After so many attempts to solve this issue the following commands did it for me.

rfkill block bluetooth

Then I do the following

rfkill unblock bluetooth

answered Mar 10 '18 at 14:43

Fthi.a.Abadi

719
7
6

Amazing, this worked for me too. – gopher May 07 '19 at 15:52
I really need to remember this... – musicformellons Jun 18 '19 at 15:31
3

Worked on 18.04!! – bluetoothfx Jun 22 '19 at 11:56
Worked on 19.10 – Dejan Toteff Mar 23 '20 at 12:48
3

Didn't work on 20.04. I even tried `sudo systemctl restart bluetooth` & `sudo bluetoothctl` – Rajesh Chaudhary May 27 '20 at 17:31
Good heavens Ubuntu is an absolute joke when it comes to Bluetooth. This worked for me (temporarily) until it breaks itself again. – Damien Roche Jan 09 '23 at 12:44

assayag.org · Answer 3 · 2020-09-30T14:50:22.803

24

I tried all the above but it didn't work for me, as the bt is not blocked but disabled and can't be turned on.

but i found this

sudo modprobe -r btusb
sudo modprobe btusb

and i got my disabled bluetooth come to life and pair with my headphones!

edited Sep 30 '20 at 14:50

answered Sep 24 '20 at 01:27

assayag.org

386
2
7

1

Thanks it worked on latest version – d1fficult Nov 27 '20 at 23:57
4

Thanks! This is the only thing that helped (didn't try reboot though). – Denis Pisarev Dec 26 '20 at 10:17
1

yes! also worked for ubuntu 18 – zheyuanWang May 08 '21 at 11:43
1

Worked on Ubuntu 20.04.4 – sbharti Mar 28 '22 at 17:11
1

Best solution so far, works. – Shakti Phartiyal Aug 27 '22 at 18:11
1

Worked on Ubuntu 22.04 – Iman Kermani Sep 18 '22 at 19:44
Worked on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS – burglarhobbit Jun 14 '23 at 18:01

score 8 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 16 '17 at 16:12

8

My Bluetooth tended to "fall out", and I had to to do a reebot. But this solved it:

sudo service bluetooth restart

(easier than a reboot!)

answered Feb 16 '17 at 16:12

Lars Risan

81
1
2

1

Wouldn't [this answer](http://askubuntu.com/a/808114/225694) be a more permanent solution? Restarting the service every time while likely functional seems to me a less attractive choice. – Elder Geek Feb 16 '17 at 16:53

score 4 · Answer 5 · answered Aug 28 '16 at 11:12

4

I had the same problem. In my case I think it was a bug of my old installed version of unity control center, or some missing dependencies. Resolved easily updating unity-control-center:

sudo apt-get install unity-control-center

Hope it may help.

answered Aug 28 '16 at 11:12

Lorenzo Franco Ranucci

39
1

Ah no, it only says "headphone connected" but no sound came out of it. – jaycode Sep 18 '17 at 13:36

Ahmed Sabry · Answer 6 · 2017-06-25T14:10:51.910

4

For me after two days of searching without any luck. I burned an image of Ubuntu on a USB stick, entered Try mode. Tested Bluetooth and it works and could find devices and pair.

Then I installed a new image of ubuntu on my HardDisk tried to install all of programs installed on old installation till that point when I found that Bluetooth stop working

I figured that I installed a tool called TLP for power management, When I removed it via apt remove tlp and reboot, Bluetooth worked and could find other devices!

Maybe TLP needs to be configured someway to work good with Bluetooth

I hope this may help you

Update:

I've installed the latest version of TLP and now Bluetooth working without any problems.

~~TLP releases on Gihub: here~~

Download the latest release uncompress

cd TLP-1.0
# use checkinstall so that you can remove it anytime
sudo checkinstall

Use PPA to get latest release

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linrunner/tlp
sudo apt update
sudo apt install tlp

And reboot.

edited Jun 25 '17 at 14:10

answered Jun 22 '17 at 08:05

Ahmed Sabry

161
7

1

Your answer is inappropriate in several ways: 1. You don't know if TLP is installed (not default for most Ubuntu flavours). 2. Instead of uninstalling completely, use the [solution from the FAQ](http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-faq.html#btusb). 3. Please don't suggest installing from source, use the [PPA](https://launchpad.net/~linrunner/+archive/ubuntu/tlp). 4. There is no difference between TLP 0.8 ... 1.0 with respect to your problem. I reckon checkinstall didn't work as expected and TLP is disfunctional now. Good luck with removing the wreckage --- Please edit your answer accordingly. – linrunner Jun 23 '17 at 10:25
This is brilliant, thanks so much! I completely forgot I installed TLP and it caused me a lot of issues. – Gerrit May 09 '18 at 10:17
it worked thanks – an4s911 Apr 03 '21 at 19:06

score 3 · Answer 7 · edited Jan 10 '19 at 19:31

Try this,

$ rfkill list
0: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
1: hp-bluetooth: Bluetooth
    Soft blocked: yes
    Hard blocked: no
2: phy0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no

So from the list Bluetooth is blocked by rfkill, no wonder I cannot connect in the GUI.

$ rfkill unblock bluetooth
$ rfkill list
0: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
1: hp-bluetooth: Bluetooth
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
2: phy0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
3: hci0: Bluetooth
    Soft blocked: yes
    Hard blocked: no

After the unblock command I get a new device hci0 that is Soft blocked, but the hp-bluetooth device is unblocked and it doesn’t work from the GUI still.

$ hciconfig hci0 up
Can't init device hci0: Operation not permitted (1)
$ sudo hciconfig hci0 up
[sudo] password for karibe: 
Can't init device hci0: Operation not possible due to RF-kill (132)
rfkill unblock bluetooth hci0
rfkill list
0: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
1: hp-bluetooth: Bluetooth
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
2: phy0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
3: hci0: Bluetooth
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no

After this everything is working as expected. I do not know why rfkill is from time to time blocking bluetooth, but now I know how to unblock when I need to use it, and block when I don’t need to use it.

score 2 · Answer 8 · edited Feb 21 '17 at 16:03

2

I always use this this to restart everything:

:~# rfkill block bluetooth; rfkill list; /etc/init.d/bluetooth restart;\
/etc/init.d/bluetooth status;\
modprobe -r btusb; modprobe btusb;\
/etc/init.d/bluetooth restart; /etc/init.d/bluetooth status

edited Feb 21 '17 at 16:03

MadMike

4,234
8
28
50

answered Feb 21 '17 at 14:26

Alexander Schmitz Peter

21
1

What do I do after that? Do I restart the computer? Also, I seem to be getting error messages from it: http://imgur.com/a/h5hO8 (the output scrolled past the window end, so I took two screenshots.) – yaakov May 02 '17 at 20:21

jdpipe · Answer 9 · 2017-05-30T02:44:45.850

After some time with Bluetooth upload from phone not working on my laptop, I found that installing blueman-applet (sudo apt install blueman) and adding 'trust' for the device and then specifying to accept uploaded files fixed my problem. I don't really know why there are two Bluetooth icons in my taskbar now -- but the blueman-applet seems to provide a lot more options than the standard Gnome/Ubuntu applet.

The extra applet menu:

Context menu of the Devices list allows 'trust' of device:

Local Services dialog allows Bluetooth to accept uploaded files:

EDIT: further digging shows that there is a 'Personal File Sharing' dialog recommended by Ubuntu that is supposed to support this functionality directly without blueman-applet. But it didn't work for me.

wedesoft · Answer 10 · 2017-08-30T08:40:26.163

1

Note: this answer is for Debian only!

In my case the Bluetooth device was not detected. In my case it was part of the Qualcomm Atheros hardware:

$ lspci -knn | grep Net -A2
03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network Adapter [168c:0036] (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network Adapter [103c:217f]
        Kernel driver in use: ath9k
        Kernel modules: ath9k

Installing the proprietary/non-free firmware and rebooting helped.

sudo apt-get install aptitude
sudo aptitude install firmware-atheros

edited Aug 30 '17 at 08:40

answered Jun 23 '17 at 16:52

wedesoft

148
6

1

This is a Debian answer. There is no `firmware-atheros` package in Ubuntu. – Pilot6 Aug 26 '17 at 19:19
1

I got "Couldn't find any package whose name or description matched "firmware-atheros" " – Ferroao Aug 27 '17 at 15:09
Yes, sorry. I didn't realise that Ubuntu does not have that package. – wedesoft Aug 30 '17 at 08:43

Bluetooth not working on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

10 Answers10

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