InitiallyPowered and RememberPowered options from main.conf file are not honored

[Piotr Morgwai Kotarbiński]

1) The release of Ubuntu:
morgwai@darkstorm:~$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 9.04
Release: 9.04

2) The version of the package:
morgwai@darkstorm:~$ apt-cache policy bluez
bluez:
  Installed: 4.32-0ubuntu4.1
  Candidate: 4.32-0ubuntu4.1
  Version table:
 *** 4.32-0ubuntu4.1 0
        500 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     4.32-0ubuntu4 0
        500 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/main Packages

Looking at Question #51440 it seems however that the problem was introduced in Intrepid.

3) What I expected to happen:
- Setting InitallyPowered to false and RememberPowered to false in /etc/bluetooth/main.conf should result in bluetooth chip powered off after the boot
- Setting RememberPowered to true in /etc/bluetooth/main.conf should preserve bluetooth chip power state between the machine restarts

4) What happened instead
The chip is always on after the boot regardless of the above mentioned settings.

Cheers

  Morg

[Mario Limonciello (superm1)]

So this is dependent upon whether your machine properly implements a bluetooth RF killswitch. Does it? Can you elaborate on the hardware platform you're operating on (eg Dell XPS 1330) and the chip you are using?

Can you also provide lshal output so we can see what hardware kill switches exist?

If there is no killswitch for your hardware, then there is no way to solve this in bluez.

[Piotr Morgwai Kotarbiński (morgwai)]

Hi,
Sorry for not clarifying this, I wasn't aware there are chips that don't have killswitch ;)
My machine is Thinkpad X200 and as far as I understand it has killswitch as I can turn bluetooth on and off by issuing
`echo "disable" >/proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth` and `echo "enable" >/proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth` commands. I can achieve the same also by (un)checking checkbox called 'tpacpi_bluetooth_sw bluetooth Killswitch' in Bluetooth Preferences window.
I'm attaching the output of `lshal`.
Please let me know if you need any further assistance from my side.

Cheers

  Morg

[Piotr Morgwai Kotarbiński (morgwai)]

Provided requested info.

[Piotr Morgwai Kotarbiński (morgwai)]

PING ;)

it's been over 2 months since the last activity...

[awe (webmaster-santander-mediterraneo)]

I am very interested in having this solved too. I use an IBM T30 with Jaunty. Here is the output of lshal|grep blue:
eduard@portatiledu:~$ lshal|grep blue
udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/platform_thinkpad_acpi_rfkill_tpacpi_bluetooth_sw_bluetooth'
  info.product = 'tpacpi_bluetooth_sw bluetooth Killswitch' (string)
  info.udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/platform_thinkpad_acpi_rfkill_tpacpi_bluetooth_sw_bluetooth' (string)
  killswitch.name = 'tpacpi_bluetooth_sw' (string)
  killswitch.type = 'bluetooth' (string)
udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_4bf_310_noserial_if0_bluetooth_hci_0'
  bluetooth_hci.address = 0 (0x0) (uint64)
  bluetooth_hci.originating_device = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_4bf_310_noserial_if0' (string)
  info.capabilities = {'bluetooth_hci'} (string list)
  info.category = 'bluetooth_hci' (string)
  info.subsystem = 'bluetooth' (string)
  info.udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_4bf_310_noserial_if0_bluetooth_hci_0' (string)
  linux.subsystem = 'bluetooth' (string)
  linux.sysfs_path = '/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.2/usb3/3-1/3-1:1.0/bluetooth/hci0' (string)
I do not want Bluetooth on as a general rule, and I am fed up of pushing the button every time I use the laptop.

By the way, it's a shame that the best Ubuntu for the T30 is 7.10, where everything works. After that, no software modem, no desktop effects, and Bluetooth comes on undesireably.

[Piotr Morgwai Kotarbiński (morgwai)]

Karmic makes things even worse: both settings still don't work and setting InitiallyPowered to true disables possibility of controlling bluetooth at all: see screenshot (but this is probably bluetooth-properties's fault.

[Piotr Morgwai Kotarbiński (morgwai)]

Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Package: bluez 4.51-0ubuntu2
PackageArchitecture: amd64
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.48-generic
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic x86_64
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout lpadmin plugdev sambashare
XsessionErrors:
 (gnome-settings-daemon:2339): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
 (polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:2394): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `initialization_value != 0' failed
 (nautilus:2376): Eel-CRITICAL **: eel_preferences_get_boolean: assertion `preferences_is_initialized ()' failed
 (gnome-panel:2372): Gdk-WARNING **: /build/buildd/gtk+2.0-2.18.3/gdk/x11/gdkdrawable-x11.c:952 drawable is not a pixmap or window

[cosmix (cosm7x)]

This bug persists on Lucid Alpha 3.

[Florian Stoll (flostoll)]

On Maverick it does not remember bluetooth state via rememberpowered. I have a thinkpad t500 with killswitch (hw+sw).

[Florian Stoll (flostoll)]

I think thinkpad_acpi module overrides/hides the settings of last bluetooth power state (always on) since on my asus eeepc it works fine (turn off bluetooth via applet -> reboot -> it stays turned off and vice versa it also works fine).
In Ubuntu 11.04 Natty there is the same problem (bluetooth always on) with thinkpad t500!

[Sven K. (wagalaweia)]

Same problem on a Samsung Q35. Both flags (InitallyPowered and RememberPowered) within /etc/bluetooth/main.conf seem to be ignored. So, I have to manually disable bluetooth on every startup! In my eyes, this (two years old!) bug deserves a high priority, since the system-up-time of any bluetooth-capable laptop is affected.

Does anybody know a workaround, e.g., disabling bluetooth by some commandline call on startup?

[elleP (pelle-quicknet)]

Sven K.: I use the following workaround:
add the line
rfkill block bluetooth
to the .profile in your home dir

[Rogutės (rogutes)]

Installed 11.04 on HP 4530s and searched for a way to disable bluetooth on startup. Since there is no UI for this, I ended up here. Wanted to add that even if everything would work after editing "/etc/bluetooth/main.conf", there should be a friendlier way to do this, no?

For now, I added this to /etc/rc.local:
rfkill block bluetooth

[Felix Vollmer (felixvollmer)]

I'm on a Samsung N220 and can confirm this bug. I think I don't have a hardware kill switch, unsure for sw

[papukaija (papukaija)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This particular bug has already been reported and is a duplicate of bug 446657, so it is being marked as such. Please look at the other bug report to see if there is any missing information that you can provide, or to see if there is a workaround for the bug. Additionally, any further discussion regarding the bug should occur in the other report. Feel free to continue to report any other bugs you may find.