Trying to revive 'ubtd' (Bluetooth file transfer)

PhAndersson

@gpatel-fr said:

@PhAndersson

I have just switched my phone back to 24.04-1.3 and obex is definitely started automatically.

Not in my case (Volla Quintus upgraded to 24.04-1.3 from 20.04/OTA-12). obexd is not started by default, but Ratatoskr is still able to start it transparently, so the end result is the same.

But the Quintus is currently unable to successfully connect over BT to my laptop (or another UT phone, for that matter) -- see Noble bluetooth issues -- so I'm a bit stuck in my plans to validate Ratatoskr on Noble at the moment.

gpatel-fr

@PhAndersson said:

(Volla Quintus upgraded to 24.04-1.3 from 20.04/OTA-12). obexd is not started by default,

that's strange.

What's the output of

systemctl --user cat obex

and

systemctl --user status obex

(obviously do this after a phone restart)

PhAndersson

@gpatel-fr said:

@PhAndersson said:

(Volla Quintus upgraded to 24.04-1.3 from 20.04/OTA-12). obexd is not started by default,

that's strange.

What's the output of

systemctl --user cat obex

# /usr/lib/systemd/user/obex.service
[Unit]
Description=Bluetooth OBEX service

[Service]
Type=dbus
BusName=org.bluez.obex
ExecStart=/usr/libexec/bluetooth/obexd

[Install]
Alias=dbus-org.bluez.obex.service

# /usr/lib/systemd/user/obex.service.d/ubuntu-touch-session.conf
[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=/usr/libexec/bluetooth/obexd -P ftp,irmc,mas,pcsuite -r $HOME

and

systemctl --user status obex

â obex.service - Bluetooth OBEX service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/obex.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
    Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/user/obex.service.d
             ââubuntu-touch-session.conf
     Active: inactive (dead)

I also checked 'journal' for any OBEX-related message, but there aren't any.

gpatel-fr

@PhAndersson

you are correct, I missed that because I'm mostly on 26.02 these days. I switched back briefly to 24.04 stable and I could repro.
It's probably a service order start problem since starting obex manually succeeds, I will have to investigate it.

kristatos

I'm having a problem with sending/receiving files and my Volla22. I opened the Gallery, selected a picture and tapped on sharing via Bluetooth-Plugin. In the next window I selected my Laptop and then the transmission dialog comes up. On my Laptop there comes up a notification that my Volla22 is now connected and 1-2 seconds later a notification that it's disconnected. At the same time the Bluetooth-Plugin on my phone says that the transmission has failed. In the output of
systemctl --user status obex
I found for this time
Unable to find service record
Sending/receiving between my Laptop and other devices is working like expected, only the Volla with BT-Plugin and 24.04.-1.x stable does not. Any idea?

gpatel-fr

@kristatos

maybe doing some more tests.
I tried it again with my phone (FP5) setup with 24.04-1.3 stable and succeeded with receiving and sending test files.

However I have reproduced some of your problems.

Not the obex service not known. This was not happening for me.

I have seen the disconnection of Bluetooth happening though. Strangely the Bluetooth page for the device (an Android phone) was displaying the device as connected BUT with no signal, then disconnected very soon after (may seem logical given there was no signal).
I removed each phone from the Bluetooth configuration of both phones, tried again and this time the signal was rated 'excellent'. It then stayed connected. Needless to say, for all these tests the phones were sitting on a table very near of each other. It looks as if the state of connection is rated with 'no signal', it's staying so even if the real connection is good. In this case the pairing had been done much before and the phones had both been off or way to distant of each other to talk with Bluetooth.

After solving this connection problem, I think another trouble may be that if a transfer is not acknowledged by the receiving end, all following transfers fail. Not sure but it looks like that. This problem was happening with a transfer UT -> Android.
If my impression is correct, it may be a problem with the app (the connection problem mentioned before is probably more caused by the system bluetooth stack).

kristatos

@gpatel-fr I tried some things again and now I can send files from my Laptop to my phone. The other way still doesn't work and almost instantly ends up in an error of failed transmission.
I deleted each of the devices in their list of paired devices. After that I paired them again. Now the connection doesn't get disconnected after the failed transmission, but the transmission from phone to laptop still fails. Is the BT-Plugin providing any Logs where I can look at?

gpatel-fr

@kristatos

yes however logging happens at the generic journal level, there is no prefix to filter on. Entries are listed under 'aa-exec' and usually include the app name (ratatoskr) in the listed paths, you can try

journalctl -b | grep ratato

There is also logging done by obex that you can list using

systemctl --user -e -u obex

PhAndersson

@gpatel-fr: Just performed the same test as you on the Quintus: "forgot" phone on laptop and laptop on phone, then re-paired. This time, the pairing was easier, the phone kept on showing the laptop as connected (same on the laptop side), but the Settings | Bluetooth page for the laptop shows signal strength as "none" (even though both devices are only 10 cm apart).

Another weird thing is that, although the laptop is still listed as connected, the Bluetooth indicator in the status bar at top shows "disconnected".

Still, I was able to push a file from the laptop to the phone.

(The phone in question is still on 24.04-2.0 beta/RC).

PhAndersson

Just tried the other direction (phone to laptop). Successful as well.

PhAndersson

Disconnected phone from laptop, then reconnected: connection still looks stable, still able to transfer (larger) file from phone to laptop (signal strength still reported as "none").

No idea what could have caused the problem or why it's suddenly fixed.

Could it somehow be related to the fact that the clock is now reasonably synched? I know that an out-of-synch clock can prevent SSL cert validation. Is there a comparable validation built in the BT protocol?

gpatel-fr

@PhAndersson said:

Could it somehow be related to the fact that the clock is now reasonably synched?

I don't think so, for the following reasons:

I did give you the hint about recreating the connection, and I don't have a mediatek device
date problems for ssl come from the securing through a certificate infrastructure, that don't make much sense for Bluetooth, whose hacking radius is 10 meters vs 40000 km for standard internet networking
updating certificates and certificates lists would be unfeasible for many Bluetooth devices that don't even have an Internet link

This said, if you want to try it out, it's easy: just re-enable the qualcomm time service and check again.