How to stop and restart Bluetooth service?

Moem · 25 Feb 2021, 10:17

I have found that the most reliable way to reconnect my smartwatch in the morning is to power down the phone completely, then reboot it. It will then reconnect with no further intervention.
Just switching bluetooth off and on does not do it; neither does a normal restart.

So I think I want to completely stop and start bluez (and related services? Maybe?). Is there any way to make that easy? With a launcher of some kind?

Any pointers would be welcome.

AntiDroid · 25 Feb 2021, 11:44

@moem You could try

sudo service bluetooth restart

Or maybe even this old trick to get bluetooth speakers to reconnect on Xenial. I do not know if it will work on UT.

rfkill block bluetooth

rfkill unblock bluetooth

Moem · 25 Feb 2021, 11:50

Sorry, and thank you, but I was hoping for a nice clicky-clicky thing or a way to make one... the UT terminal and me, we're not friends. Without an actual keyboard... well, let's not go there.

I'm looking for something that is easier than a complete reboot. Otherwise I can just do the reboot.

kugiigi · 25 Feb 2021, 12:05

@moem I would assume toggling bluetooth off and on doesn't work. Some issues can be fixed by that.
Also, using the terminal with OSK is quite decent on UT. Tap for Tab, swipe up and down for history and swipe 2 finger for scrolling. There are also shortcut keys at the bottom bar.

Moem · 25 Feb 2021, 12:18

@kugiigi said in How to stop and restart Bluetooth service?:

I would assume toggling bluetooth off and on doesn't work.

Right. It doesn't, like I said.

As for the terminal, I do not understand it and there are no instructions anywhere that I have seen. I'm happy that you consider it easy to use. I do not. I do not even understand what the shortcut keys do. A terminal solution is never going to be easier for me than a reboot. Please take my word for it.

kugiigi · 25 Feb 2021, 12:25

@moem Oh sorry, I missed that
To me, using the terminal would be a lot easier and faster than rebooting. You can create a bash script in your home directory with the commands needed. Then on the terminal you can simply type the first few characters of the bash script in the terminal tap the screen enter. I use this trick on the pinephone whenever wifi stops working.

Moem · 25 Feb 2021, 13:29

@kugiigi said in How to stop and restart Bluetooth service?:

You can create a bash script in your home directory with the commands needed.

See, now we are getting somewhere...
Might there be a way to create a launcher to call up that script?

kugiigi · 25 Feb 2021, 13:34

@moem I believe you can create a desktop file manually in ~/.local/share/applications

Moem · 25 Feb 2021, 13:40

@kugiigi Oooh. Good info, thank you! I will investigate.

Keneda · 25 Feb 2021, 13:59

@moem said in How to stop and restart Bluetooth service?:

Might there be a way to create a launcher to call up that script?

If i remember correctly, Launcher Modular allows ro create shortcuts of that kind (command line).

Moem · 25 Feb 2021, 14:49

@keneda That would be a great solution, thank you very much! Going to look into that...

AntiDroid · 25 Feb 2021, 18:23

@moem if you follow the clickable instructions for setting up an app development enviroment the first thing you do after installing all the required dependencies and programs is you generate an app template. That template is a program with a single button in the middle that when you click it, it prints "hello world" to the command line. I would think it would be easy to change that to one of the commands above (after manually testing via the command line at least once). It would be a great way to get into making yout own programs too.

Moem · 25 Feb 2021, 18:29

@antidroid That's not something I'm interested in, but thanks!

Moem · 25 Feb 2021, 19:07

This post is deleted!

Moem · 26 Feb 2021, 08:21

@antidroid said in How to stop and restart Bluetooth service?:

@moem You could try
sudo service bluetooth restart
Or maybe even this old trick to get bluetooth speakers to reconnect on Xenial. I do not know if it will work on UT.
rfkill block bluetooth

rfkill unblock bluetooth

I tried both of these options. The first one was not a succes: BT stopped and never started again (which a reboot solved). The second one worked very well!

So in Launcher Modular, which I'm using anyway, I made a custom icon as suggested by @Keneda. This is a winning combination.
The command I used is

rfkill block bluetooth && rfkill unblock bluetooth

and this morning, when I woke up, the Pebble was unlinked (it has an option to unlink when it does not sense any motion for half an hour, to save battery power) so I tapped the icon.
The notifier for BT flashed very briefly and immediately went active, and the Pebble buzzed to indicate connection.
In other words, this is a complete success and I'm now going to mark it solved and celebrate with a mug of my best tea.

Thank you, folks, for some great information!

Keneda · 26 Feb 2021, 09:37

@moem
You're welcome. I hope Launcher Modular to grow as it's a good app, but some bugs on MX4 unfortunatly.

Moem · 26 Feb 2021, 10:34

@keneda said in How to stop and restart Bluetooth service?:

some bugs on MX4 unfortunatly

Sorry to hear that! On OpO, it's pretty much flawless. It really helped me when switching from Android... I felt a lot more at home (sorry, devs). And I like having an analog clock on the home screen.