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This has been a bad surprise for me coming (escaping) from the Windows environment which I used for my whole life. A few months ago I decided to uninstall Windows 10 and install Ubuntu 16.04 to force myself to use AND start learning Ubuntu and its environment.

But hey, I cannot use my bluetooth speaker (Marshall Woburn to be specific but brand/model doesn't matter from what I see). The description of my problem I would like to get help for is simple as that. There are bugs with the bluetooth part of this OS. Sometimes no device shows up in bluetooth device list. Sometimes it is listed there but fails to connect. Sometimes it connects but disconnects after some while. It's been months I'm struggling with this problem to do the simple things like watching a movie or listening to music and I started to feel tired about this.

Is there an official explanation about this bug or some fix for it? If we are depended to a bluetooth speaker, should we avoid Ubuntu 16.04?

Thanks in advance.

Kind regards, Tayfun.

mindblast
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2 Answers2

1

Works great here in 16.04.3 It auto pairs & auto connects to my bluetooth speaker when I turn it on. The only caveat is that if I set up & connect in another ubuntu install when returning to previous install I have to set up in bluetooth settings again.

If only using speaker in 1 ubuntu install then no problems..

Basically.

Make sure pulseaudio is fully updated, current is 1:8.0-0ubuntu3.7 Don't have blueman installed, just using gnome-bluetooth

Set up speaker

Open Bluetooth settings, add the speaker (pair).If speaker was already in Bluetooth settings then remove & add fresh.

After pairing close settings, then open indicator, click on your speaker > connect. (On is exposed, not covered) To check then open sound settings, make sure bluetooth speaker is selected as output device. Test for sound.

To get autoconnect in 16.04

Open /etc/pulse/default.pa in root text editor, ex. sudo -H gedit /etc/pulse/default.pa

Under the .ifexists module-bluetooth-discover.so section add this new section, save.

.ifexists module-switch-on-connect.so load-module module-switch-on-connect .endif

reboot

If still having issues with auto connecting or connection breaks right after connecting read my post here. Note I no longer need the startup script anymore with the updated pulse & it only worked if speaker was on before logging in. https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2365083&p=13661744&viewfull=1#post13661744

doug
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I found that replacing the default bluetooth manager with blueman solved my bluetooth problems with 16.04. I can't explain why but it seemed to do a much better job of detecting and pairing devices.

SteveSong
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