Bluetooth headphones default to low quality headset mode and fail to switch to A2DP when selected

[Nicholas Owens]

[Impact]

Whenever I turn on my headphones they'll connect to my computer but I'm able to hear the input audio from my microphone and low quality output audio. I have to disconnect the headphones in the bluetooth devices and reconnect for it to fix the problem.

[Test Case]

0. Set up your Bluetooth headphones with Ubuntu.
1. Turn off the headphones.
2. Turn on the headphones.
3. In Settings>Sound verify they have reconnected in A2DP mode (stereo, high quality, no microphone support).

[Regression Potential]

Low. Only the headset code path is affected and the fix has already been released for some time in BlueZ 5.51 onward.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

It sounds like the main problem here is that it's defaulting to low quality audio mode (which is headset mode with microphone support). And you were expecting high quality audio mode by default.

You can select that manually in:

  Settings > Sound > Output > Profile ...

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Please try that to confirm that profile selection is the problem here.

[Nicholas Owens (litleck)]

Whenever I first connect its set to Headset Head Unit but then I switch to High Fidelity Playback and have to disconnect and reconnect in the Bluetooth settings for it to change.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Ignore the above "Fix Released". That's just a Launchpad issue where it can't tell the reason for an upstream bug being closed. In fact that user just gave up and closed their own bug.

I've confirmed the problem exists in both 18.04 and 19.10 today.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Daniel, could you maybe reopen/provide the info upstream if you are able to trigger the issue?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

(also gnome-control-center shouldn't be involved when disconnecting/reconnecting, it has no service or anything listening to even, it is just an UI to apply changes, the issue is more likely on the pulseaudio side (unless g-c-c does the wrong thing when apply configs)

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

I wonder if there's something special about Sony...

* This bug was reported against Sony WH-1000XM3
* A duplicate bug was reported against Sony MDR-1000x
* I also encountered the bug once using Sony SRS-XB2 speakers

[Rob Frohne (frohro)]

I spent 45 minutes playing with this problem this morning. I restarted my computer this morning, but nothing helped. Now, after work, where the computer was in suspended, but not restarted, and used periodically, and it works just fine. I did connect another headset to see if it was a Sony problem, and now both headsets work as expected. I do know that A2DP is deactivated if you select the microphone on the headset, but this morning I switched that back and forth several times with no effect. Fortunately, or unfortunately as it may be, I cannot now duplicate the results I had this morning, and I can't figure out why. It may have happened when I connected the headset to bluetooth again to test this evening. I cannot remember if I disconnected the headset and reconnected it this morning.

Rob

[Ronni (ronni-jensen)]

I'm affected by this as well, with a Sony MDR-XB950BT - but it behaves as intended in both Fedora and openSUSE.

[Daniel Boros (trinimac)]

I have the same issue with PL BackBeat PRO in 19.10

[jurosh (jurosh)]

I sometimes trying to fix this for minutes, without any luck. But also realized that when reconnecting there should be connected another headphones, even if usb c one. Will be watching bwhaviour. Having issues with Sone 1000xm3.

[Yorick (yorickvanpelt)]

This is likely a bluez bug, not a pulseaudio one, since it only affects some headsets.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Regardless of whether bluez or pulseaudio are at fault, this feels like a recent regression since it's now affecting my Bluetooth speaker hardware which has been unchanged for several years. And it looks like 18.04 and later received updates to both packages this year.

I guess the most useful thing to do would be to try a fresh 18.04 installation with the oldest packages, verify the bug does not exist and then figure out which update introduced the bug.

[Balazs Gyurak (ba32107)]

I have the same problem with Sony wh-1000xm3 and Ubuntu 19.10.

[Stefano Dafarra (sdafarra)]

I have the same problem with Sony WF-1000XM3 and Ubuntu 16.04. I realized that when the headphones connect automatically, they don't appear when running ``pacmd list-sinks``. If I disconnect and reconnect them manually, they do and a2dp is used.

I wrote a couple of scripts to automatize this and temporarily circumvent the issue.

[Alistair Cunningham (acunningham)]

Is anything happening with solving this?

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Sorry, I have been on a long vacation and nobody else has taken this bug up in the meantime. I plan to do the testing described in comment #16 before the end of the year.

[Norberto (nagno)]

Same issue here with Sony WH-1000XM3 and Ubuntu 19.10.
When it connects automatically it connects with HSP and I'm not able to select A2DP in Bluez.
However when I disconnect the headset using bluez and reconnect it as Audio Sink, it works properly.

[s.illes79 (s-illes79-gmail)]

Same problem with Sony WH-1000XM2

My workaround is

1. Turn on headphone, wait to connect with low quality sink
2. Turn off bluetooth, wait couple of seconds and turn on
3. Reconnect headphones.

Works all the time.

Ubuntu: 18.04
Sony WH-1000XM2

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

I built a new 18.04 machine just to test this bug. So far no luck reproducing it with the Sony speaker I mentioned. I'll have to try some Sony headphones, and possibly rebuild the machine again.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Progress, and some bad news... Testing with Sony WH-1000XM3 I can reproduce the bug easily. But it's not a recent regression if at all. The same bug occurs in an original Ubuntu 18.04 install without any updates.

I'm tempted to clarify that Sony WH-1000XM3 is our main test case here. Any future fix might benefit multiple different models, but it seems the WH-1000XM3 is presently very popular and is what the original reporter(s) of three quarters of these bug reports are using.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Tracking upstream: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pulseaudio/pulseaudio/issues/525

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Also confirmed the bug does NOT exist in Ubuntu 20.04. But more testing would be required to identify which package has fixed it.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Verified fixed in BlueZ 5.52 (or 5.51), so the fix is in Ubuntu 20.04.

I'm not sure what commit(s) in BlueZ did the trick but if you are using Ubuntu 19.10 and want the fix then please just download these packages:

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bluez/5.52-0ubuntu2/+build/18277594/+files/bluez_5.52-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bluez/5.52-0ubuntu2/+build/18277594/+files/libbluetooth3_5.52-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bluez/5.52-0ubuntu2/+build/18277594/+files/bluez-cups_5.52-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bluez/5.52-0ubuntu2/+build/18277594/+files/bluez-obexd_5.52-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb

and install them together:

  dpkg -i *.deb

[Alistair Cunningham (acunningham)]

I can confirm that installing these packages onto Ubuntu 19.10 fixes the problem for my Sony WH-1000XM3. Thank you very much Daniel!

[Yura Pakhuchiy (yura-p)]

May we have this backported to 18.04?

[Yura Pakhuchiy (yura-p)]

BTW, just applying this patch[1] to bluez package from 18.04 fixes the a2dp problem for me with Sony WH-CH700N headphones. Patch applies cleanly to 5.48.

1. https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/bluetooth/bluez.git/patch/?id=477ecca127c529611adbc53f08039cefaf86305d

[Samu Nuutamo (carbon)]

I can confirm that applying the patch from #30 in 18.04 does seem to fix the problem when using WH-1000XM3.

[Jason Bodnar (jason-shakabuku)]

Applying the patch fixed my problem with my Sony WH-H900N headphones.

Probably a different bug but if I open Sound Settings -> Input and change the input from "Internal Microphone Built-in Audio" to "Headset WH-H900N (h.ear)" the quality degrades and the Output profile changes to "Headset Head Unit (HSP/HFP)". If I change the Output profile back to "High Fidelity Playback (A2DP Sink)" I get high quality audio again but the Input changes back to "Internal Microphone Built-in Audio".

Or is it that you can't use the headset microphone and get high quality audio at the same time?

[Magne H (magnenetwork)]

The following did the job for me. Remember to change the headset to AD2P under SOUNDS in Ubuntu on your headset.

---

Ref. from source:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1139404/sony-noise-cancelling-headphones-wh-1000xm2-3-and-bluetooth-initial-autoconnec

---

The "ambient noise" you're hearing is a loopback from your computer's mic coming out through your headphones.

This is apparently due to a bug with A2DP's implementation.

I fixed this in Ubuntu 19.04 by installing Blueman and pairing my headphones as an Audio Sink rather than a headset:

    Unpair your headphones, if they're currently paired.
    sudo apt install blueman
    Open Blueman, click on "search".
    Select your headphones, right click, select "Setup"
    Make sure they're paired as an Audio Sink rather than a Headset
    Select your headphones as an audio output in your sound settings

If you have Spotify open throughout the process you have to restart it.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Patch for Ubuntu 19.10

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Patch for Ubuntu 18.04.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

I've sponsored the 18.04 and 19.10 SRUs now

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Hello Nicholas, or anyone else affected,

Accepted bluez into eoan-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bluez/5.50-0ubuntu5 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested and change the tag from verification-needed-eoan to verification-done-eoan. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-eoan. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Hello Nicholas, or anyone else affected,

Accepted bluez into bionic-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bluez/5.48-0ubuntu3.3 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested and change the tag from verification-needed-bionic to verification-done-bionic. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-bionic. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

[Ubuntu SRU Bot (ubuntu-sru-bot)]

All autopkgtests for the newly accepted bluez (5.50-0ubuntu5) for eoan have finished running.
The following regressions have been reported in tests triggered by the package:

network-manager/1.20.4-2ubuntu2 (arm64)

Please visit the excuses page listed below and investigate the failures, proceeding afterwards as per the StableReleaseUpdates policy regarding autopkgtest regressions [1].

https://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu-archive/proposed-migration/eoan/update_excuses.html#bluez

[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates#Autopkgtest_Regressions

Thank you!

[Jeff Campbell (jeff-soupbowl)]

YEAH!!!

Finally Fixed!!! I just tested the bluez proposed update and my headphones connected in A2DP mode the first time (without having to go through all the tricks of connecting/disconnecting bluetooth, etc, etc). I did try powering off and on my headphones several times and it continues to work as expected.

I'm a "good-to-go" for this fix.

[Alexey Kulik (doctor-rover)]

I confirm that upgrade with proposed enabled on Eoan fixed the bug for me.
I've tested it using two bluetooth audio devices: Sony WH-1000XM3 and Plantronics Marque M155.
Thanks to everyone involved!

[Alexey Kulik (doctor-rover)]

Also confirm that the problem is fixed for me on Focal with regular upgrades.
Tested with the same devices: Sony WH-1000XM3 and Plantronics Marque M155.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Re comment #39, can someone with the privileges please click retry? It won't let me.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Verified fixed on bionic in 5.48-0ubuntu3.3

Also comment #41 verifies eoan.

(I am replying by email because Launchpad is timing out and refusing all web
entry at the moment)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package bluez - 5.50-0ubuntu5

---------------
bluez (5.50-0ubuntu5) eoan; urgency=medium

  * Add lp1845046-policy-Add-logic-to-connect-a-Sink.patch to properly expose
    A2DP high quality audio support on some headphones (LP: #1845046).

 -- Daniel van Vugt <email address hidden> Mon, 06 Jan 2020 14:17:42 +0800

[Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100)]

The verification of the Stable Release Update for bluez has completed successfully and the package is now being released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package bluez - 5.48-0ubuntu3.3

---------------
bluez (5.48-0ubuntu3.3) bionic; urgency=medium

  * Add lp1845046-policy-Add-logic-to-connect-a-Sink.patch to properly expose
    A2DP high quality audio support on some headphones (LP: #1845046).

 -- Daniel van Vugt <email address hidden> Mon, 06 Jan 2020 16:30:36 +0800

[Grzegorz Bizon (grzesiekbiz)]

The fix works for me! Thank you very much for fixing this bug, really appreciated!

It appears that dependencies of the new Bluez packages are also compatible with Debian GNU/Linux. Since I use Debian, I confirm that installing fixed Ubuntu package on Debian 11 (testing right now) also fixes the problem.

Thank you again for fixing this <3

[Alexandre Anoutchine (xirius)]

This issue is real pain and persists even with Ubuntu 20.04 and my Bose QuietComfort 35.
Selecting High Fidelity Playback (A2DP Sink) does nothing. I managed to do it once but it seems it stuck with low quality now :(

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

This bug has been closed for a couple of months. Please open new bugs for any ongoing issues by running:

  ubuntu-bug bluez

[rumpl (rumplstielz)]

in 20.04 still there with sennheiser
MOMENTUM M2 AEBT]# devices
Device 00:1B:66:7F:E9:C9 MOMENTUM M2 AEBT

urt@Yak:~$ dmesg | grep -i bluetooth
[ 5.098523] Bluetooth: Core ver 2.22
[ 5.098543] Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized
[ 5.098549] Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized
[ 5.098551] Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized
[ 5.098553] Bluetooth: SCO socket layer initialized
[ 5.122692] Bluetooth: hci0: read Intel version: 370810225019140f38
[ 5.122693] Bluetooth: hci0: Intel device is already patched. patch num: 38
[ 6.873845] Bluetooth: BNEP (Ethernet Emulation) ver 1.3
[ 6.873847] Bluetooth: BNEP filters: protocol multicast
[ 6.873852] Bluetooth: BNEP socket layer initialized
[ 72.378369] Bluetooth: RFCOMM TTY layer initialized
[ 72.378377] Bluetooth: RFCOMM socket layer initialized
[ 72.378382] Bluetooth: RFCOMM ver 1.11
[ 222.503800] Bluetooth: hci0: SCO packet for unknown connection handle 0
[ 222.513805] Bluetooth: hci0: SCO packet for unknown connection handle 0
[ 222.513807] Bluetooth: hci0: SCO packet for unknown connection handle 0
[ 222.513808] Bluetooth: hci0: SCO packet for unknown connection handle 0
[ 222.523806] Bluetooth: hci0: SCO packet for unknown connection handle 0
[ 222.523808] Bluetooth: hci0: SCO packet for unknown connection handle 0
[ 234.095980] Bluetooth: hci0: SCO packet for unknown connection handle 258
[ 234.095984] Bluetooth: hci0: SCO packet for unknown connection handle 258
[ 234.095985] Bluetooth: hci0: SCO packet for unknown connection handle 258

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

This bug has been closed for a couple of months. Please open new bugs for any ongoing issues by running:

  ubuntu-bug bluez