Audio streaming over bluetooth to Bose QC35 is highly unreliable on a MacBookPro12,1

[Wolf Rogner]

Streaming of audio files over bluetooth is not possible in Ubuntu 17.10.

Connecting a headphone requires several attempts.
Then the sound settings have to be selected manually
Even then, the sound offered is mono
I tested with a Bose QC35.
There is a sound profile that requires manual selection and offers stereo speakers.
However, while testing left speaker gives reasonable results, testing the right speaker only produces cracking noise.
Playback of music is virtually impossible (the stream is repeatedly interupted by voice anouncements of incoming calls ??? and reconnection attemts)

To eliminate hardware issues I tested under macOS and the sound quality is excellent (even during working in a spread sheet and a word processor in parallel).
=> issues caused by the software stack

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 17.10
Package: bluez 5.46-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.12.0-13.14-generic 4.12.10
Uname: Linux 4.12.0-13-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.7-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Sat Sep 9 15:12:02 2017
InstallationDate: Installed on 2017-09-05 (4 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark" - Alpha amd64 (20170902)
InterestingModules: rfcomm bnep btusb bluetooth
Lsusb:
 Bus 002 Device 002: ID 05ac:8406 Apple, Inc.
 Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
 Bus 001 Device 004: ID 05ac:0273 Apple, Inc.
 Bus 001 Device 003: ID 05ac:8290 Apple, Inc.
 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
MachineType: Apple Inc. MacBookPro12,1
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-4.12.0-13-generic.efi.signed root=/dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: bluez
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 06/18/2017
dmi.bios.vendor: Apple Inc.
dmi.bios.version: MBP121.88Z.0167.B33.1706181928
dmi.board.name: Mac-E43C1C25D4880AD6
dmi.board.vendor: Apple Inc.
dmi.board.version: MacBookPro12,1
dmi.chassis.type: 9
dmi.chassis.vendor: Apple Inc.
dmi.chassis.version: Mac-E43C1C25D4880AD6
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAppleInc.:bvrMBP121.88Z.0167.B33.1706181928:bd06/18/2017:svnAppleInc.:pnMacBookPro12,1:pvr1.0:rvnAppleInc.:rnMac-E43C1C25D4880AD6:rvrMacBookPro12,1:cvnAppleInc.:ct9:cvrMac-E43C1C25D4880AD6:
dmi.product.family: MacBook Pro
dmi.product.name: MacBookPro12,1
dmi.product.version: 1.0
dmi.sys.vendor: Apple Inc.
hciconfig:
 hci0: Type: Primary Bus: USB
  BD Address: 4C:32:75:9F:91:1E ACL MTU: 1021:8 SCO MTU: 64:1
  UP RUNNING PSCAN ISCAN
  RX bytes:1558111 acl:54896 sco:0 events:1375 errors:0
  TX bytes:1129512 acl:1895 sco:5 commands:247 errors:0

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Bug 1553669 also mentions the voice announcements problem.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu 17.10 (artful) reached end-of-life on July 19, 2018.

See this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

We appreciate that this bug may be old and you might not be interested in discussing it any more. But if you are then please upgrade to the latest Ubuntu version and re-test. If you then find the bug is still present in the newer Ubuntu version, please add a comment here telling us which new version it is in and change the bug status to Confirmed.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for pulseaudio (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for bluez (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]