Bluetooth: pairing Apple Wireless keyboard constantly disconnects and reconnects

[Scott Ferguson]

Binary package hint: gnome-bluetooth

If somebody could please let me know how to find debug info on what's going on I will provide some.

Using Maverick 10.10 beta
gnome-bluetooth package version 2.30.0-1ubuntu3

The main symptom is that my Apple Wireless keyboard which worked in Lucid no longer works in Maverick.

I can pair it "just fine" (it fails occasionally while pairing, but if I try a few times it eventually is successful), once it is paired I can watch in the Bluetooth Preferences window, it will connect briefly, and then disconnect, then reconnect, then disconnect, etc. The device never actually works, even if it appears connected for longer than 1 or 2 seconds.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: gnome-bluetooth 2.30.0-1ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-19.28-generic 2.6.35.3
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-19-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: amd64
Date: Fri Sep 3 23:56:17 2010
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Beta amd64 (20100901.1)
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gnome-bluetooth

[Scott Ferguson (scottwferg)]

Just to add to the symptoms of this bug, I believe the culprit is that gnome-keyring doesn't appear to be storing any of the pins when setting up a bluetooth device. This makes it impossible to use a bluetooth keyboard, since you obviously cannot enter the pin with an unpaired keyboard, and it's an inconvenience with something like a mouse which asks every time I turn the mouse on.

[Maletor (eberner)]

It looks like we need the bluez-compat package and then to do hidd --search hidd --connect DEVICE_ID

However, I cannot figure out how to get it to stay connected, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.

[Scott Ferguson (scottwferg)]

What do you mean by "stay connected"? The device had a little trouble sometimes on Lucid for me where I may have had to remove it from the bluetooth-preferences, shut off the device, reboot, and then re-pair. Is this the case you're experiencing?

[Maletor (eberner)]

HIDD only connects for the current session. Yes Lucid worked flawlessly with gnome-bluetooth. However, maverick does not and I wish I knew the reason why.

No I never had to remove it, shut off, reboot, repair on Lucid. Added hid_apple to /etc/modules and it worked on boot in Lucid.

From what I understand we need this to work with hcitool and not hidd. There is one week left to get it in Maverick.

[Clarke Wixon (cwixon)]

Argh! After many, many months of fighting with the Apple Bluetooth Keyboard to get it to connect reliably -- and failing -- everything was finally fixed at the beginning of this year with the discovery that manually loading the hid_apple module did the trick.

After that, the connection was bulletproof for almost a year, through reboots, upgrades, and the transition from Karmic to Lucid. I was able to put my USB keyboard away in the closet, finally.

Now this! I had forgotten how annoyed I was back then!

OK, now that I have the complaining out of the way, I'll try to add a little value:

I upgraded to Maverick Beta about a week ago, and initially had no problem with the bluetooth keyboard. The problem appeared yesterday evening (October 6), following the latest batch of upgrades and a reboot.

I'm using "blueman" as bluetooth device manager, not the standard gnome-bluetooth package. That suggests the problem -- if my bug is in fact the same one -- is at a lower (kernel or bluez) level.

Tonight I will poke around to see if there is anything in dmesg, provided I can find my ol' wired keyboard in the closet.

[Peter Hoeg (peterhoeg)]

I have the same problem here with maverick RTM with both gnome-bluetooth and blueman. Just for the record, the same kernel version 2.6.35-22-generic under lucid worked fine, so I'm guessing it has to do with bluetoothd.

[Clarke Wixon (cwixon)]

I will add that in my case, there's nothing in dmesg, and when I manually try to reconnect via the blueman UI, after a few seconds I get a "Host is down (112)" error message.

[Maletor (eberner)]

I have tried with 2.6.36-rc7 kernel. No go.

[Clarke Wixon (cwixon)]

Well, I can't explain why, but my keyboard is BACK after the latest round of upgrades. I don't see anything in the changelog for kernel 2.6.35-22.25 that suggests why, and nothing bluez-related has been upgraded other than pulseaudio.

[Maletor (eberner)]

That's really weird that it would be in 2.6.35-22.25 and not in 2.6.36rc8 which is what I'm using now.

[Peter Hoeg (peterhoeg)]

Odd - maverick fully up to date 1 hour ago still exhibits the same behaviour for me (ie, it's still broken).

[jeroen (ijs)]

Before the update I was able to pair by removing the device with blueman-applet and the add it again. Unfortunately after a reboot I had to do it all over again.
Today's update didn't change anything for me.

[Maletor (eberner)]

Why does this still not work?

[Peter Hoeg (peterhoeg)]

For the record, it doesn't work with 2.6.36 from
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.36-maverick/
either.

On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 12:24, Maletor <email address hidden> wrote:
> Why does this still not work?
>
> --
> Bluetooth: pairing Apple Wireless keyboard constantly disconnects and reconnects
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/630001
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Sami Olmari (olmari)]

For now I suggest you could try PPA-snapshot version of next Blueman version, I know it works way better for Maverick than current stable.

Most easy way:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:blueman/blueman-dailies && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

[Peter Hoeg (peterhoeg)]

Nope, doesn't work here. Same problem.

/Peter

[jeroen (ijs)]

Is there anyone subscribed with another brand bluetooth keyboard ? I guess this bug is Apple specific ?

btw. I get the keyboard working using blueman-applet by first removing and then "setup" again.

Jeroen

[Maletor (eberner)]

Nope, doesn't work here. Same problem.

/Ellis

Maybe we should downgrade to the lucid version if that is even possible.

[Peter Hoeg (peterhoeg)]

I've just tried with bluedevil from kde sc 4.5.1 and it doesn't work either.

[Peter Hoeg (peterhoeg)]

It now works with bluedevil - I haven't tried if the following steps do the trick with blueman/gnome-bluetooth:

1) Remove the device using bluedevil (untrust, disconnect then remove)
2) Add new device
3) When prompted for a PIN, let it autoselect (which then becomes "0000")
4) Success

[Sami Olmari (olmari)]

If it is Bluez problem, then there is little that blueman could help, they're diffirent things, other is driver itself, other is GUI for it basically...

But as said, I've personally noticed that blueman 1.21/stable version that comes with Maverick doesn't work too well, but unstable version from PPA works like a charm, so please folks, try that version and then report back? :)

[Maletor (eberner)]

Peter Hoeg,

Your method did not work for me.
Perhaps it is the dongle I am using.

[Maletor (eberner)]

Though probably not since it worked with Lucid.

Ode to Apple.

[Maletor (eberner)]

Anybody try the 2.6.37-rc1 kernel yet?

[Andre Kuehne (andre-kuehne)]

This might be related to what i found using arch (https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/21696):

After upgrading to bluez-4.79-1-x86_64 connecting my Apple Wireless Keyboard does not work anymore.
With bluez-4.77 (after downgrading with "pacman -U bluez-4.77-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz") the connection works just fine.

[Peter Hoeg (peterhoeg)]

@Andre: are you sure about those versions? Because maverick comes with 4.69 which is then unrelated to the arch issue.

[Andre Kuehne (andre-kuehne)]

The versions are the ones I use(d) in arch, yes.

[Tarun Khanna (tarunkhanna)]

I can confirm that the problem is not limited to Apple bluetooth keyboard. I have a Logitech Mediaboard Pro that used to work fine with Lucid. It worked fine with Maverick initially, but after an upgrade (I don't know which one though) it stopped working.

I have been using the gnome bluetooth manager. The keyboard pairs just fine, it even shows success. However it never works. I either get 'host is down' or some 'not authorized' error.

Are there any workarounds to this issue.

[Maletor (eberner)]

So the true issue is how do we downgrade to the Lucid BlueZ?

[Tarun Khanna (tarunkhanna)]

I have another desktop with Lucid (64bit) running kernel 2.6.35-22-generic. The bluetooth keyboard pairs and works just fine on that desktop. So the problem can't be with the 2.6.35-22-generic kernel alone.

[Maletor (eberner)]

Is there anybody working on a solution?

[Peter Hoeg (peterhoeg)]

@Maletor - try downgrading the bluez stack to the version found in
lucid and see if that makes a difference. In my case as mentioned a
few comments above, removing the device and re-adding it with
bluedevil did the trick.

/Peter

[Maletor (eberner)]

@Peter Hoeg - I tried downgrading to the version in lucid. I also tried bluedevil. Both with no success.

[Peter Hoeg (peterhoeg)]

@Maletor, after downgrading/trying bluedevil, did you remove the device (untrust and remove the connection) and ensure that /var/lib/bluetooth is empty and then try re-adding?

I must admit that the Apple bluetooth devices have been insanely hard to get running but when running everything is peachy. I also saw a few times that my bluetooth dongle wasn't being detected and I had to replug it into another USB port before it was detected properly. That obviously also added to the pairing issues....

[Maletor (eberner)]

Did not work.

On Dec 8, 2010, at 10:38 PM, Peter Hoeg wrote:

> @Maletor, after downgrading/trying bluedevil, did you remove the device
> (untrust and remove the connection) and ensure that /var/lib/bluetooth
> is empty and then try re-adding?
>
> I must admit that the Apple bluetooth devices have been insanely hard to
> get running but when running everything is peachy. I also saw a few
> times that my bluetooth dongle wasn't being detected and I had to replug
> it into another USB port before it was detected properly. That obviously
> also added to the pairing issues....
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/630001
>
> Title:
> Bluetooth: pairing Apple Wireless keyboard constantly disconnects and reconnects
>
> Status in Blueman - Bluetooth Manager:
> New
> Status in “gnome-bluetooth” package in Ubuntu:
> Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: gnome-bluetooth
>
> If somebody could please let me know how to find debug info on what's going on I will provide some.
>
> Using Maverick 10.10 beta
> gnome-bluetooth package version 2.30.0-1ubuntu3
>
> The main symptom is that my Apple Wireless keyboard which worked in Lucid no longer works in Maverick.
>
> I can pair it "just fine" (it fails occasionally while pairing, but if I try a few times it eventually is successful), once it is paired I can watch in the Bluetooth Preferences window, it will connect briefly, and then disconnect, then reconnect, then disconnect, etc. The device never actually works, even if it appears connected for longer than 1 or 2 seconds.
>
> ProblemType: Bug
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
> Package: gnome-bluetooth 2.30.0-1ubuntu3
> ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-19.28-generic 2.6.35.3
> Uname: Linux 2.6.35-19-generic x86_64
> NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
> Architecture: amd64
> Date: Fri Sep 3 23:56:17 2010
> InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Beta amd64 (20100901.1)
> ProcEnviron:
> LANG=en_US.UTF-8
> SHELL=/bin/bash
> SourcePackage: gnome-bluetooth
>
> To unsubscribe from this bug, go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/blueman/+bug/630001/+subscribe

[Marc Goujon (markitoxs)]

I managed to make this work, by updating bluez to a newer version found in Brian Rogers repository.

add-apt-repository ppa:brian-rogers/ppa
apt-get update
apt-get install bluez

After this it paired at first time, however it looked like there ware multiple keypresses. After a reboot, it is working flawlessly.

[jeroen (ijs)]

I can confirm MarkitoXs solution works for me.

Thanks of lot !

Jeroen

[Kris Simpson (vortex1)]

I can confirm also, MarkitoXs solution worked for me.

Thanks !