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TL;DR: Bluetooth was working perfectly fine on Kubuntu, until I booted into Windows. Now, Bluetooth only works on Windows, and Kubuntu's Bluetooth icon says "No adapters found".

My Machine

I have a desktop with Kubuntu 14.04.5 (with HWE, kernel 4.4.0), and Windows 10. They're both UEFI installations, and I use GRUB for dual-boot. I have an X99 motherboard, and I recently brought a Wifi + Bluetooth PCI Express card from Gigabyte, that's powered by the Intel 8260 chip -- a chip with excellent Linux support. (The Intel 8260's Wi-Fi interfaces through a PCI Express x1 slot, while the Bluetooth connects through an internal motherboard USB 2.0 slot.)

The Good

Intel 8260 worked perfectly out of the box. Kubuntu immediately picked it up, and I was able to set up my Bluetooth speakers as an audio sink and play audio with little hassle.

The Bad

I rarely use Windows, but I booted into it yesterday. I connected to my Bluetooth speaker fine from Windows. After that I booted back into Kubuntu, and my Bluetooth adapter had disappeared.

Details

I know my Intel 8260 chip is fine and this is not a hardware issue because Bluetooth continues to works fine on Windows. It's just no longer working on Linux. Intel 8260's Wi-Fi also continues to work with no problems on both Kubuntu and Windows.

In addition, lspci still lists the Wi-Fi device:

08:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless 8260 (rev 3a)

But remember, the Bluetooth chip isn't interfacing through PCIE, rather, it's interfacing through an internal USB 2.0 header on the motherboard.

I also ran lsusb, and there were 3 devices that just said Intel Corp. I don't know how identify if any of them is the Intel 8260 Bluetooth. This is the full output of lsusb:

Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:8002 Intel Corp. 
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:800a Intel Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 045b:0210 Hitachi, Ltd 
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 005: ID 045b:0209 Hitachi, Ltd 
Bus 003 Device 004: ID 04f2:0833 Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd 
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 046d:c24d Logitech, Inc. G710 Gaming Keyboard
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 8087:0a2b Intel Corp. 
Bus 003 Device 006: ID 046d:c52b Logitech, Inc. Unifying Receiver
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Maybe Windows messed with the chip, and re-configured it or something? Or maybe something affected the UEFI XHCI/EHCI hand-off of a USB device? I really don't know.

This is the output of dmesg | grep -i blue:

[   11.371872] Bluetooth: Core ver 2.21
[   11.371884] Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized
[   11.371887] Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized
[   11.371889] Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized
[   11.371897] Bluetooth: SCO socket layer initialized
[   12.795087] Bluetooth: BNEP (Ethernet Emulation) ver 1.3
[   12.795089] Bluetooth: BNEP filters: protocol multicast
[   12.795093] Bluetooth: BNEP socket layer initialized
[   12.797933] Bluetooth: RFCOMM TTY layer initialized
[   12.797939] Bluetooth: RFCOMM socket layer initialized
[   12.797943] Bluetooth: RFCOMM ver 1.11
[   13.380033] Bluetooth: hci0 command 0xfc05 tx timeout
[   21.376079] Bluetooth: hci0: Reading Intel version information failed (-110)

And, this is the output of rfkill list all:

0: hci0: Bluetooth
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no

Recent Developments

When I wrote this question, I could use the Intel 8260's Bluetooth with no problems whatsoever, if I booted into Windows.

But today, Bluetooth has stopped working on Windows as well. The Windows Device Manager indicates that the device has a power failure.

I did leave my desktop powerd on for two days straight, with Ubuntu running. Maybe that might have damanged this device -- the prolonged period of not being detected, and not being managed properly by the kernel/OS?

Intel 8260 Power Failure

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Arjun Menon
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    Thank you for taking the time to write a high-quality post! It is very refreshing to see a nice post that doesn't need a ton of editing to actually be semi-readable. Now as for getting your problem resolved, I'll ping the networking & wireless expert, chili555, and maybe he'll be able to help you. – You'reAGitForNotUsingGit Nov 29 '16 at 21:52
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    Does it show up in the output of `lsusb`? – You'reAGitForNotUsingGit Nov 29 '16 at 21:56
  • There were 3 *Intel Corp.* devices listed by **lsusb**, but I don't know how to identify if any of them is Intel 8260 Bluetooth. – Arjun Menon Nov 29 '16 at 22:02
  • Sorry I somehow kept overwriting your edits. Thanks for the edits! – Arjun Menon Nov 29 '16 at 22:14
  • Are there any clues in: `dmesg | grep -i blue` ? Or else: `rfkill list all` I suspect this is your bluetooth: `8087:0a2b` – chili555 Nov 29 '16 at 22:15
  • I got a lot of output for `dmesg | grep -i blue`. I'll edit the question, and add it there. – Arjun Menon Nov 29 '16 at 22:18
  • I've added the output of `rfkill list all` to the question as well. There's an error in the `dmesg` output that says: `hci0: Reading Intel version information failed (-110)` – Arjun Menon Nov 29 '16 at 22:22
  • @ArjunMenon - I was *just about* to ask why you kept reverting them :) – You'reAGitForNotUsingGit Nov 29 '16 at 22:22
  • @AndroidDev Yea, it seems like Stack Exchange doesn't pull down edits made by others unless you refresh/reload the page. The browser just hangs on to the most recent local version, and edits just overwrites/replace the remote version. They could use a WebSocket to listen for changes to the post, and actively refresh the page with the latest changes for new/recent posts that are likely to be frequently edited. – Arjun Menon Nov 29 '16 at 22:30
  • @ArjunMenon - Well actually, a little bar comes up at the top of the post saying that it's been changed, and it has a refresh button. – You'reAGitForNotUsingGit Nov 29 '16 at 23:08
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    I'm studying this which seems identical with no solution: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=218895 If you shut all the way down abd then cold-boot to Ubuntu, is there any improvement? – chili555 Nov 29 '16 at 23:40
  • @chili555 I did try shutting down all the way, and rebooting, but it made no difference. Thank you for sharing the the arch thread, I'll keep an eye on it. – Arjun Menon Nov 30 '16 at 23:11
  • Are there any relevant or suspicious settings in Windows 10 related to bluetooth? – chili555 Nov 30 '16 at 23:50
  • @chili555 It used to work fine on Windows, until today. Right now, Windows is indicating a power failure, and so Bluetooth isn't working on either OS. I wonder if the prolonged period of non-detection on Linux might have somehow damaged it. I've left my desktop powered on for pretty much all of the last 2 days. (I've added a section on this recent development in the question.) – Arjun Menon Dec 03 '16 at 03:29
  • I highly doubt it. Many Linux computers run for months and years without a reboot. One of my laptops that dual-boots Win10 usually runs a couple of weeks without reboot and I have owned it for about ten years. The CPU fan is noisy but the remaining hardware, including bluetooth, is fine. – chili555 Dec 03 '16 at 03:57

2 Answers2

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The issue has been resolved by Intel recently !
Windows drivers where somehow interfering with the device firmware.
Just follow those instructions, from Windows :

  1. Download Intel latest drivers for Windows
  2. Disconnect your computer from Internet to prevent drivers getting installed via Windows update
  3. Uninstall your current driver on Windows through device manager and check "delete local driver"
  4. Shutdown Windows
  5. Boot Windows (don't forget, must have no internet access)
  6. You should see “Unknown device” in device manager on reboot
  7. Install the latest driver previously downloaded
  8. Boot to Linux
  9. Boot to Windows
  10. [optional, if anything wrong happen] Dump the content of HKLM\System\Software\Intel\Bluetooth key contents to a text file immediately after any issue occurred
Jules Sam. Randolph
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Resetting the BIOS CMOS seems to be the only fix for this problem for now. This solution was described in this Arch Linux thread, which chili555 pointed me to.

Linux picked up the device again after I reset my motherboard's CMOS (by taking out the battery for a couple of minutes). I did not boot back into Windows after that.

P.S. The power failure screenshot above is unrelated, and was caused by a lose internal USB connection going into the Wifi+Bluetooth PCI-E chip.

Arjun Menon
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