Noble bluetooth issues

PhAndersson

Support request sent to Volla on May 18 via their online form.

PhAndersson

Just made a new test in the office, where I'm surrounded by an ocean of bluetooth devices.

Both when using bluetoothctl | scan on and when using the Bluetooth page of the Settings app, tons of neighbouring devices are detected, so the bluetooth stack itself seems functional. But requesting to connect to the laptop still times out.

I've also compared the output of bluetoothctl | show on the Quintus (Noble) and on the Pixel (Focal), but I've not noticed any difference there that seemed significant.

PhAndersson

OK, yet another test. I just tried connecting the Quintus to my main UT phone (the Pixel 3a, Focal).

during discovery, the Pixel appears in the list of neighbouring devices on the Quintus (and the Quintus on the Pixel)
when I tap the Pixel in the list on the Quintus, I'm asked to confirm the PIN on both devices, which I did
the Pixel then moves to the "Paired devices" section on the Quintus, shows connected for a few seconds then returns to "disconnected"
on the Pixel, it remains in the list of neighbouring devices (and a notification is re-issued for the last received SMS, which was left unread)

Tapping the Pixel then tapping "connect" causes the following:

the Pixel shows as connected for a few seconds on the Quintus, then it returns to its "disconnected" state
nothing changes on the Pixel on the Bluetooth settings page, but a notification is re-issued for the last received SMS (strange, I know, but I got that same behaviour twice).

PhAndersson

PhAndersson said:

Support request sent to Volla on May 18 via their online form.

Status update: discussion with Volla Support is still ongoing. No technical insight to report yet.

gpatel-fr

@PhAndersson

I have something very similar with my FP5 and 24.04-1.3 stable.

Interestingly, I tried with 26.04 and it was better, I think that a bunch of updates have been to the Bluetooth stack to get it more up-to-date.

If you did not notice it, a back and forth 24-04 stable <-> 26.04 can be done in less than one hour, so if you can afford some downtime it's very doable.

PhAndersson

@gpatel-fr said:

@PhAndersson

I have something very similar with my FP5 and 24.04-1.3 stable.

Interestingly, I tried with 26.04 and it was better, I think that a bunch of updates have been to the Bluetooth stack to get it more up-to-date.

If you did not notice it, a back and forth 24-04 stable <-> 26.04 can be done in less than one hour, so if you can afford some downtime it's very doable.

That's an excellent suggestion -- I can certainly afford the downtime as the Quintus is only used for tests at the moment.

Can you explain how this version switch is done (or point me to the relevant doc), as I've not done that yet?

gpatel-fr

@PhAndersson

no doc but I have written a post about the update tool: https://forums.ubports.com/topic/12322/tip-reverting-phone-to-a-previous-version

PhAndersson

@gpatel-fr Excellent! Many thanks. Will try that.

PhAndersson

The behaviour of the Quintus seems related to this Gitlab issue:

Bluetooth sometimes in a state where not all paired devices are listed and can be connected

PhAndersson

I just went through 'journal' events (phone is now on 24.04-2.0 beta/RC) and found the following errors/warnings related to bluetooth:

Jun 23 23:29:47 ubuntu-phablet bluebinder_post.sh[2815]: Failed to get bluetooth address!

Jun 23 23:29:47 ubuntu-phablet bluetoothd[2861]: src/adapter.c:reset_adv_monitors_complete() Failed to reset Adv Monitors: Unknown Command (0x01)
[...]
Jun 23 23:29:50 ubuntu-phablet systemd[2767]: bluez-mpris-proxy.service - BlueZ MPRIS proxy was skipped because of an unmet condition check (ConditionPathExists=!/usr/lib/systemd/user/mpris-proxy.service).

It's unclear to me whether any of those can explain the BT connection issue with the laptop, but here they are.