Can't connect to paired bluetooth devices via g-c-c

[Paride Legovini]

I have a paired bluetooth device listed as "Disconnected" in the Bluetooth section of gnome-control-center. In order to connect to it I click on the device name and switch the "Connection" slider to the "on" position. The slider moves but immediately bounces back to the "off" position, and nothing happens: the connection is not established. It never works even if I try several times.

This happens on an up-to-date Focal system and it's always reproducible across reboots and power cycles of the device. I don't think it's a problem of the device itself or of the underlying bluetooth stack, as connecting/disconnecting to the device works perfectly if I use blueman-manager instead of gnome-control-center.

I don't know if this is a regression as I was not using bluetooth before installing Focal. FWIW (very little), the device connects/disconnects perfectly to Android phones.
---
ProblemType: Bug
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu22
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
InstallationDate: Installed on 2019-02-26 (400 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 19.04 "Disco Dingo" - Alpha amd64 (20190226)
NonfreeKernelModules: zfs zunicode zavl icp zcommon znvpair
Package: gnome-control-center 1:3.36.1-1ubuntu2
PackageArchitecture: amd64
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.4.0-20.24-generic 5.4.27
Tags: focal uec-images wayland-session third-party-packages
Uname: Linux 5.4.0-20-generic x86_64
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to focal on 2020-01-21 (72 days ago)
UserGroups: adm cdrom dialout dip docker libvirt lpadmin lxd plugdev sambashare sbuild sudo utah
_MarkForUpload: True

[Paride Legovini (paride)]

If I unpair ("remove") the device using blueman-manager, it will correctly show up in the gnome-control-center Bluetooth settings as "Not Set Up". If I click on it, it *does* pair and connect. I can also successfully disconnect from the device from gnome-control-center, but can not reconnect, as explained in the bug description. To recap:

- Pairing (+ connecting, happens automatically): works.
- Disconnecting: works
- Connecting to paired device: does *not* work
- Using blueman-manager: everything works.

[Paride Legovini (paride)]

More data points:

- When I try to connect from gnome-control-center, this error is logged:

bluetoothd[1635]: connect error: Device or resource busy (16)

- Connecting *fails* from blueman-manager if gnome-control-center is open at the Bluetooth section at the same time. The same error is logged. When another section is selected in gnome-control-center, then blueman-manager will work.

It's like if gnome-control-center is keeping the device busy (always scanning?), preventing connections.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report, could you try to uninstall blueman and see if it works better with the default installation software?

Can you connect the device from bluetoothctl when you get the issue from gnome-control-center?

Could you add your 'journalctl -b 0' log to the bug after getting the issue?

[Paride Legovini (paride)]

apport information

[Paride Legovini (paride)]

apport information

[Paride Legovini (paride)]

apport information

[Paride Legovini (paride)]

Thanks Sebastien. I already know uninstalling blueman doesn't help as I did install it exactly because I couldn't connect to the bluetooth device with gnome-control-center. I was pretty surprised to see it worked.

bluetoothctl behaves exactly like blueman-manager: does not work if gnome-control-center is open on the Bluetooth section, does work otherwise. This is the failure message:

Attempting to connect to 00:22:D9:00:1A:6F
Failed to connect: org.bluez.Error.Failed

I'll reboot before collecting the full `journalctl -b 0` log you requested, so you'll get a cleaner log.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thanks for the detail. I think if you had let blueman out of the description and focussed on the actual issue the bug would have been easier to understand but I think I understand what you describe now

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

It has been reported upstream as well
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-control-center/-/issues/925

It seems the bluetooth panel is generating activity (through sharing/discovery enablement probably) which create access conflicts...

https://www.reddit.com/r/gnome/comments/flpy74/does_anyone_else_see_this_bug_with_bluetooth_ive/?sort=new suggests the issue is not new though

[Oleg Gorobets (oleg-goro)]

Same issue here, Ubuntu 20.04. External bluetooth speakers stay in "disconnected" mode in Bluetooth Settings, without a possibility to connect (slider moves but immediately bounces back)

"sudo service bluetooth status" shows: connect error: Device or resource busy (16)

Restarting bluetooth service doesn't help.

[Oleg Gorobets (oleg-goro)]

Restarting ubuntu doesn't help either. The only thing that helped me is "Remove device" and then set up again.

[Alan Harris (alanj-harris14)]

I've actually found if you keep toggling the switch it will eventually work. Sometimes it only takes a couple or other times I've clicked it 30 times.

Before I discovered this I was removing and re-adding my devices to get them to reconnect.

[Paride Legovini (paride)]

Not a fix but a workaround:

I installed the gnome-shell-extension-bluetooth-quick-connect package. In integrates well with the Gnome UI, adding a menu similar to the WiFi networks one but for Bluetooth devices, and it connects almost every time.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

thanks, that's a known issue and reported as bug #1870356

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

(sorry the previous comment was obviously on the wrong bug)

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

The issue has been fixed upstream and update is coming to G after the beta freeze, SRU is being tracked as bug #1898068