thinkpad bluetooth hotkey fn+F5 regression: not saved across reboot

[Elias K Gardner]

In intrepid on a thinkpad x61 the only way have found to turn off the bluetooth led is by pressing fn+F5 (rf kill i think). This key combination switches both wifi and bluetooth radios on and off allowing both to be on independently of the other as well. In 8.04 this setting is saved across restarts of the system. In intrepid it is not saving the setting on each restart. This requires me to turn off my bluetooth every time I start up the computer.

[ccc1 (cllccl-deactivatedaccount)]

same problem here on a thinkpad x200 (also using intrepid).

[ccc1 (cllccl-deactivatedaccount)]

forgot something to add: on the x200 Fn+F5 only toggles bluetooth on/off.

[Elias K Gardner (zorkerz)]

I can confirm that as well ccc1 in 8.04 fn+F5 cycled through these
combinations BT and wifi on,neither on, wifi on BT off, and BT on wifi off.

The x61 also has a hardware switch that disables/enables both bluetooth and
wifi. There is a bit of overlap in functionality here but maybe that is
desirable for consistency between thinkpads.

[Elias K Gardner (zorkerz)]

Sorry that may not have been clear. As ccc1 reported currently in intrepid
fn+F5 only disables and enables bluetooth but this setting is not saved
after a system restart.

[Adi Roiban (adiroiban)]

same here for Thinkpad z61m.

In 8.04 the state was saved between restarts but in intrepid when starting the computer the bluetooth is always on.

[Elias K Gardner (zorkerz)]

update: the focus of this bug is unchanged at every startup bluetooth and wireless are enabled regardless of previous settings

-pressing fn+F5 now cycles through the four combinations of wifi and BT being on and off as it did with 8.04

[Lele83x (lele83x)]

Same identical problem here on a X60s with Intrepid installed (upgraded from hardy)

[ldac (ldac)]

Hi all.

The same happens to me running ubuntu 2.6.24-21 on a laptop ASUS X20S. With Fn key plus F2 I can switch on/off the BT and the wifi. Even if I switch both off, after a reboot, the BT is again activated. It does not happen the same in windows. The laptop has also a small hardware switch with two positions on/off. It is supposed that having the button on the off position, it should not be able to be the BT on!

Thanks.
LD.

[André Wendt (drew-tanned)]

Same here on a T41p. This is very annoying because BT is not only a security issue but also a matter of battery life.

[Fabio (fbern)]

Hello. I've the same problem on my T60.

[Fabio (fbern)]

One simple workaround is to add the following line to '/etc/rc.local':

echo disable > /proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth

This does exactly the same as if you Fn+F5 until Bluethooth is off.

[Drioz (merlodario)]

Same for me on an Asus F3Tc.

I can switch the bluetooh off with the switch in front of the computer, but when the computer restart it's on again and I have to turn it on and then off again to shut down the led..

Even worse, the combination Fn+F2, which should disable the wireless is not working at all..

[Chris Banes (chris-senab)]

Confirmed on T41p

[danomatika (danomatika)]

Confirmed on a T42p. Hardy remembers setting on reboot, Intrepid does not.

[Simon Maris (simonmaris)]

Same problem on T43!!

[brian mcgee (justinisnt)]

confirmed on thinkpad x61s

[amn (armencho)]

Confirmed on Thinkpad T61, model 7658CTO.

Running "echo disable > /proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth" appears to have exactly the same effect as toggling Fn+F5 until bluetooth HARDWARE is off (as opposed to the Ubuntu software talking to that hardware).

Still, toggling it with Fn+F5 is not persistent.

[paulgreg (paul-gregory)]

Confirmed since 8.10 on a Thinkpad X40 (it worked before on 8.04)

[Simon Maris (simonmaris)]

It's ok. Don't worry. I highly appreciate the time you spend to correct
this mistake caused by a poorly programmed website. I'm a webdeveloper
myself and that's something I take care of especially, so that no one
can have such a problem accidently;)

[coldrol (hidegrol)]

Confirmed since 8.10 on a Thinkpad T42 (it worked before on 8.04)

[Forlong (forlong)]

Workaround: add the following line to /etc/modprobe.d/thinkpad_acpi.modprobe

options thinkpad_acpi experimental=1 hotkey=enable,0xffff8f bluetooth=disable

Now Bluetooth will be disabled by default on boot but can be enabled by hitting [Fn]+[F5]
Tested to work on my T42.

[Elias K Gardner (zorkerz)]

This workaround has not worked for me on an x61.

[allen huang (my-allen)]

Nick's workaround works on my R61 (ubuntu 8.10). Thanks for this tip!

[Elias K Gardner (zorkerz)]

Nick's work around does work on my x61 with ubuntu 8.10

Two posts above I reported that it did not work. Turns out I entered the line in incorrectly. Oops

[m4lte (malte-koester)]

confirmed on ThinkPad R400

[brian mcgee (justinisnt)]

Nick's workaround works for me as well. (Thinkpad X61s)

Thanks Nick!

[coldrol (hidegrol)]

Nick's workaround works for me as well on Thinkpad T42, but I have no /etc/modprobe.d/thinkpad_acpi.modprobe file. I have only thoshiba_acpi.modprobe, so I added the line to this file?

Thanks Nick!

[lumitoro (lumitoro)]

confirmed on Asus F3SC-AP214C

[ccc1 (cllccl-deactivatedaccount)]

still waitung for a proper fix.
did some developer take a look at this bug? will it be fixed in jaunty?

[Chris Bainbridge (chris-bainbridge)]

I just tested Jaunty Kubuntu alpha 3 live CD and disk install with updates to 20080130.

fn-f5 turns bluetooth on and off. Should it not also turn off the wifi? Otherwise there is no way to turn the wifi off.

[Chris Bainbridge (chris-bainbridge)]

Also: Jaunty does not save bluetooth device state on shutdown.

[Tom D. (dickmant)]

I also tried this on the newest testing version of ubuntu jaunty, and the issue is still there.

[Elias K Gardner (zorkerz)]

I have seen no change in the status of this so far in jaunty. I did just notice that the bluetooth controls in system->preferences->bluetooth has changed. If you go to the general tab under power switches I have a checkbox labled tpacpi_bluetooth_sw bluetooth killswitch. When this is unchecked my bluetooth light turns off. There has never been a way to do this by gui to my knowledge. This box is checked every time the computer starts up regardless of its state at shutdown.

[lophiomys (lophiomys)]

Confirmed on a T42p 2374-KYG with Kubuntu Jaunty Jackalope 9.04 Beta, all updates

 ibmuser@T42pUXGA:~$ uname -a
Linux T42pUXGA 2.6.28-11-generic #41-Ubuntu SMP Wed Apr 8 04:38:53 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux

[weidongche (weidongche)]

Elias, does your method work on Jaunty?
Here is what I did, serves the same purpose, but I don't know if this is efficient.

go to /etc/init.d/rc.local and add:

echo disable > /proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth

Please tell me what you think.

[Elias K Gardner (zorkerz)]

@ weidongche
Nick's method above has worked for me in Jaunty. I have not tried yours yet. I do not know enough to judge whether one is more efficient than the other. Is there any particular place in the file to add the line or does it not matter?

[weidongche (weidongche)]

@Elias K Gardner
I just throw them at the end of the file.

With my method, the bluetooth led would be lit for a while at bootup and at some point when the splash screen is running the bluetooth led would then be turned off.

[rCX (rcx)]

I had the same problem on my T43p with Ubuntu 9.04

@Elias K Gardner
Since I didn't have a *.modprobe file I used your workaround. It worked perfectly. Thanks!

[weidongche (weidongche)]

do you mean you used weidongche's method of adding to /etc/init.d/rc.local? I don't have a modprobe either. And I don't see what you referring to when you said workaround.

[rCX (rcx)]

Oops, I meant I used weidongche's method of adding "echo disable > /proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth" to the end of "/etc/init.d/rc.local".

[Andreas Ntaflos (daff)]

You know, it is really no problem to simply create the necessary file in /etc/modprobe.d and put the options line in there like Nick suggested. I find this workaround cleaner than letting the bluetooth module load and then explicitly unload it later.

The following will create the file /etc/modprobe.d/thinkpad-acpi.conf (the .conf suffix is common in /etc/modprobe.d), put the options line in it and redirect the output of the tee command to /dev/null:

$ echo "options thinkpad_acpi experimental=1 hotkey=enable,0xffff8f bluetooth=disable" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/thinkpad-acpi.conf > /dev/null

[pv (pvicc-yahoo)]

Ever since I installed 9.04 on my thinkpad from xp, everytime i boot, the wifi and blue tooth will be switched on. Using Fn+F5, instead of switching off BT, I switched of wifi numerous times. (when i was downloading important files...:().

 I dont know if it is correct or not, i did as follows

sudo edit /etc/bluetooth/main.conf

# What value should be assumed for the adapter Powered property when
# SetProperty(Powered, ...) hasn't been called yet. Defaults to true
InitiallyPowered = false

# Remember the previously stored Powered state when initializing adapters
RememberPowered = true

I changed the "InitiallyPowered" from true to false.

Now everytime i bootup, BT does not appear. So whenever i want, i simply go to system/preference/bluetooth/general, just click the tpacpi......kill switch... BT switches on..

To swith off, i dont use Fn+F5 (fearing to loose wifi again, so i right click the icon and remove the check mark in kill switch..

It works ok so for.
cheers

[StarShock (sshock3)]

So I want bluetooth disabled on startup for power saving, and Nick's fix works!

pv's idea didn't help nor did adding "echo disable > /proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth" to rc.local (although that does work from a command-line).

[Martijn de Nerd (martijn-de-nerd)]

Same problem with a Thinkpad T410 in Lucid

[Orest (orestta)]

Temporary workaround for making BT disabled on boot: add "rfkill block bluetooth" to /etc/rc.local .

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

This is fixed for the 12.04 LTS release with the inclusion of a save/restore upstart job in the rfkill package.

[Indie (alanlitster)]

This still doesn't appear to be working correctly. I've got a T61 running 12.04.1 and on every boot it still has bluetooth enabled all the time.

It's saving the state to /var/lib/rfkill/saved-state correctly but on startup it never gets restored. If I manually run "sudo start rfkill-restore" it works fine. So I would guess that it's either being run too early in the boot process before it's initialised correctly or the desktop is overriding the setting at some point.

[Xenomorph (xenomorph)]

I found this page after getting fed up with this and doing some Google searches on the issue. I have a ThinkPad T43 and a Toshiba netbook (NB205-N310/BN), and neither save the Bluetooth setting on 12.04 or 12.10. I can turn it off a dozen times and it always turns back on the next time I reboot. I don't use Bluetooth and don't like it coming on all the time.

I'll try one of the startup script options.

[Elijah Lynn (elijah-lynn)]

This is either a duplicate of https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/446657 or very closely linked.

It appears this is an upsteam bug in gnome-bluetooth and is still open https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=638117#c9

The bug is currently present on Ubuntu 14.04 on a Thinkpad W510, that has a hardware killswitch for all wireless.

[Waldemar Szostak (wszostak)]

I have Thinkpad W530 and I noticed the following things after applying the solution from the comment #38 (https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=638117#c38) from the upstream bug report in gnome-bluetooth:
1. BT settings is remembered across reboots (ok); wifi - is not (not ok)
2. F5 + Fn enables/disables wifi (ok)
3. if BT was off prior to the last reboot, the BT indicator will be missing in the panel. If I click the toogle button to enable BT from the BT settings window, BT will stay off (the button will toogle back - not ok) but the icon will be displayed (ok..). If I click the toogle button again to enable BT, it will just switch back to off state (not ok), but I can switch BT on using the just displayed indicator (ok)...

Summary (not working things after applying the fix):
1. BT indicator is missing if BT was off before the reboot
2. BT cannot be enabled in the BT settings window if BT was off before the reboot
3. wifi is always on regardless of the state before the reboot