Comment 0 for bug 1686815

Bluetooth doesn't work in Ubuntu 16.04 on systems with Intel 8265 wireless modules that haven't yet had firmware loaded onto them. dmesg reports the following:

  Bluetooth: hci0: Direct firmware load for intel/ibt-12-16.sfi failed with error -2

This could be difficult for many people to reproduce, since installing a later version of Ubuntu once will load the necessary firmware, which will persist through reinstalling the operating system. So installing Ubuntu 17.04 just once, will leave Bluetooth in a working state forever.

I was able to consistently produce the issue on a *brand new* Kabylake Meerkat 3. With Ubuntu 16.04.2, bluetooth didn't work. I copied the ibt-12-16.sfi and ibt-12-16.ddc into /lib/firmware/intel and rebooted. After this point, Bluetooth worked (and continued to work after reinstalling Ubuntu 16.04.2 and *not* copying the firmware files again).