I have read about so many issues regarding Bluetooth and Linux its ridiculous. Usually its random disconnecting, not auto reconnecting, not disconnecting properly, basically every issue possible. And ive had them too. I would really love it if i could just have my ps4 controller hook up right when I turn it on for example. Or have my shared speaker system actually disconnect when I turn off blnluetooth (it doesnt).
I’ve mostly only used mint with Bluetooth. Some popos but it had the same issues ofc. Only really used desktops, but also have issues on an atari vcs with mint and Bluetooth, exact same issues my desktop has.
Anyone know some real fixes? This is one of those things that makes it very hard to get people to switch when windows handles bluetooth devices perfectly (in my experience) and linux has just sucked so bad on that front.
Been using Bazzite for over a year now and Bluetooth has always just worked.
Personally I solved it by plugging in a wired headphone in my laptop. Fuck Bluetooth, it’s never worked in a stable fashion for me these past 25 years or so, no matter what devices or OS I use. 3.5mm jack and USB remain the superior choices.
I had problems on an old laptop, installed bluez and it fixed it (though I still had to connect my airpods via terminal for the first time, then they worked.) Haven’t tried on my new one actually because I really don’t use bluetooth that often on pc.
I wish ! On my computer I have to re-pair every single time. Reconnect always fails with a “failed to create socket” error, and I cannot find anything online on how to fix it.
Unfortunately the problem isn’t with Linux (or other OSs), it’s the Bluetooth spec.
There are so many different optional parts layered on top of other optional parts that the whole thing is unstable.
Here’s an audio article which doesn’t answer your problem directly, but gives some background on where the root of the problem is
https://www.soundguys.com/why-is-bluetooth-unreliable-55016/
Huh, I didn’t realize Bluetooth was still such a problem for some people. I’ve been using Ubuntu and cheap chinese Bluetooth earbuds with a Intel wireless/Bluetooth chip, and they’ve been fine. Haven’t really had many disconnect or connection issues.
Now the 10 year old integrated nvidia gpu on my alienware steam machine, on the other hand… Sleep just broke again when I did an apt upgrade yesterday, time to diagnose that, again. On 24.04 LTS if anyone was interested.
Lucky, it used to be Bluetooth wouldn’t work unless I shutoff my computer and turned it back on. I just stopped using it.
I’ve had a smoother time with Bluetooth since switching to Linux than I did on Windows.
On Windows it would randomly disconnect, or I would need to manually forget and re-pair the device every few months. Now when I turn on the device, it reliably reconnects to either my phone or the Linux device, depending on which one it was connected to last.
Maybe it’s distro / device dependent
Yeah I think a lot of people have crummy Bluetooth devices and Bluetooth is kind of a Dark Art in itself regardless of operating system but anytime something goes wrong that would have been the same way on Windows they just blame Linux because it’s new and they’re not used to it.
Have you added:
options nvidia NVreg_PreserveVideoMemoryAllocations=1options nvidia NVregTemporaryFilePath=/var/tmpto
/etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-graphics-drivers-kms.conf?This was the fix found here that worked for me, the file in the fix didn’t exist but this one was the only nvidia related conf file in modprobe.d and the fix worked and has persisted despite multiple driver updates.
I’m running kubuntu 25.04.
Thanks for trying! But that didn’t seem to work. My file had both of those lines but on the 2nd line had /var instead of /var/tmp. I added the /tmp and rebooting, but still doesn’t sleep. I guess I’m on the nvidia 580 drivers now, I think what had worked for the 470 drivers was the following bellow. I think doing a kernel upgrade messed me up, but I got rid of the previous kernel so not sure which I have to go back to to get it working again.
I actually did the opposite of this guide to see if that would work and it didn’t. Without the nvidia power management services , the device doesn’t sleep it comes right back on after a second of back screen, but with the services the device has a black screen, but is still on, not asleep and I can’t wake it so I have to hard reboot.
"Good news for affected users! I found a fix!
A LITTLE BACKGROUND You may already know that NVIDIA drivers on Linux rely on either of two different methods for power management ( as described here 68 ), which include:
Kernel Driver Callback: Works out of the box with no configuration required, but lacks advanced power management features and preserves only a portion of the video memory.
systemd (/proc/driver/nvidia/suspend): Provides advanced power management features and preserves complete video memory, but requires configuration and setup.
THE CAUSE Having mentioned the above, upon further inspection I found out the 470 driver migrated to systemd method while previous versions relied on Kernel Driver Callback. Apparently this is broken on some setups and kernels.
THE WORKAROUND Now it’s obvious we have to revert back to Kernel Driver Callback method for now that the systemd method is broken, and here’s how you can do that:
Disable NVIDIA systemd services sudo systemctl stop nvidia-suspend.service sudo systemctl stop nvidia-hibernate.service sudo systemctl stop nvidia-resume.service sudo systemctl disable nvidia-suspend.service sudo systemctl disable nvidia-hibernate.service sudo systemctl disable nvidia-resume.service Remove NVIDIA systemd script sudo rm /lib/systemd/system-sleep/nvidiaReboot and you should be able to suspend and resume properly with driver version 470.xx.
NOTE: Backup your configuration just in case, or downgrade the driver if this does not work on your setup. This was tested on Kubuntu 21.04 with GeForce GT 710."
I gotta say, after my last post I promptly upgraded my PC to 25.10 which immediately broke my Nvidia suspend, after a bit more investigation I found restarting the services you listed above fixed the issue. The fix persisted across restarts. I’m running an RTX 3060 so along with the 25.10 it’s a bit of a different setup from yours.
Glad that helped ya out!
Mine (also Ubuntu, also Intel, but Sony earbuds) also works great.
Almost the only time in recent memory it hasn’t is when I’d accidentally kicked the cable out of the WiFi access point closest to the couch. My laptop was connected to one at the other end of the house, and it turns out that trying to stream video over 2.4GHz WiFi while listening on (also 2.4GHz) Bluetooth headphones isn’t a match made in heaven.
Now Windows on the other hand. My work laptop (also Intel Bluetooth adapter) starts out fine after a reboot, but over the course of a week will go from taking 2-3 seconds for the headphones to connect once powered on, to 30-40 seconds. Sometimes the headphones will connect, disconnect, and then connect again before actually making any sound.
The one thing the two OSes have in common is switching between 2-way voice (HFP) and high-quality music (A2DP) modes is a problem. In Linux it’s fairly reliable, but completely manual. In Windows it’s “automatic”, but frequently gets stuck in the wrong mode, or disconnects entirely when switching.
What’s funny is that all those same Bluetooth issues are also still very common on Windows, Mac, iOS, Android…
I have had issues on android. I cant recall having many windows bluetooth issues but I haven’t used windows for a while
That’s the best way to use windows.
BT is a minor pain on Windows, but I’ve never heard of such complaints as I hear from the Linux community.
That’s mostly because people in the Linux Community actually talk about it, as opposed to Windows users who just buy new devices.
Mostly depends on your blurtooth card. If the one on your mobo isn’t behaving, grab a $10 generic usb one off amazon that claims it works with linux. Mine’s been solid for years, it’s what I had to do.
But how you FIX it is you dig into the code and fix it so everyone else with your card gets the positive experience.
Hopefully it gets done in a shorter time than Wayland took.
Learn how to develop kernel drivers for Bluetooth chipsets and debug them. That’s really the big issue, the huge number of buggy chipsets that don’t quite follow the standard and have to be worked around.
Not to mention that Bluetooth is a hell of a protocol anyway. The spec is huge and complex.
I wish I was that smart!
Yeah its just a small cheap dongle I have. However atari seems to have perfected it with atari os and im not sure how
mostly a lot of work. If you can’t do it yourself then hire someone - for a quatrer million per year.
that of course is why nobody does it- those who try can get bored before they get far. Or they get a day job and run out of time.
Distro makes a difference , or rather the packages installed that come with the distro. My Bluetooth worked great for my devices, until I tried my 20 year old BT mouse and it would fail to reconnect after boot. But it was fixed by changine or adding other Bluetooth packages. I forget which right now but something like bluewave vs blueman or somthing, then it was fine.
Bluez for the bluetooth stack and blueman for the frontend manager
My motherboards always have the shittest no range garbo bluetooth chips, so I’ve been using generic bluetooth USB dongles instead. Work fine under Linux so far.
I had tonnes of problems when I used Mint which went away when I switched to Arch. I switched from Arch to EndeavourOS and didn’t get the problems coming back. I think EndeavourOS is about on par with Mint in terms of difficulty and set up time, but seems more stable and capable. I use KDE and the associated Bluetooth management stack and it works well.
That said, in the rare case I do have an issue I just restart Bluetooth through systemctl and it starts working again. The most recent time I had this was when I had my left earbud working on my phone and my right on my computer. It worked fine until I stepped away for a second, it dropped from my phone but not my computer, but then the left earbud tried to join up with the right connecting to the PC and everything broke. A quick restart of Bluetooth and boom, all good.
I wish I knew.
I have two Linux systems: a laptop with Fedora and home media PC with Ubuntu. Bluetooth works great on the laptop, no issues whatsoever.
Completely different story with the media PC. I’ve never been able to get it working properly, and I’ve spent hours googling things to throw into the terminal hoping to get it fixed. I’m no IT guy but I know the basics, and it’s not an old PC or anything (Asus NUC 14 Pro I think), but I can’t get the stupid thing to stay connected with my Xbox controllers for the life of me. My wife wants to play games god damnit!
My Windows box, while rife with other problems (even though I’m on 10 LTSC) also never has Bluetooth issues, and it isn’t the first time I’ve had said problems with Linux distros (had Mint installed on a box at one point but I managed to fix the issue by changing drivers). There must be a better way!
When i get this problem, the problem is normally the Bluetooth, so i search, what bluetooth there is in bought device’s, then i can seach if they are compatible with eachother and often they aren’t and you need to install a compatible Bluetooth pack.
Hmmm, I never thought of that. I’ll try it out, thanks!
if your BT is connected via USB (
lsusb), there’s a buncha kernel switches that prevent it from suspending. since it’s a stationary device that’s often not needed, so disabling USB and BT autosuspend goes a long way to make them things behave.It’s integral to the motherboard, but that does make sense otherwise.
those are still connected via USB internally most of the times, type
lsusband if it’s there, same thing applies.
I’ve been using Pop!_OS as my main system (Lenovo X1 Extreme) since just before the COVID lockdown and I’ve never had an issue with my Bluetooth devices.
I am going to guess that maybe the issue is that some computers use a Bluetooth device that has less than optimal Linux support. Maybe the way to address the issue is by having a more detailed hardware support list so that consumers can choose the hardware that is the most stable with Linux.
My desktop just has a cheap dongle.
The crazy thing, the atari vcs has its own debian based atari os and the bluetooth on it works perfectly. But when running mint on the same machine, I get disconnect issues. I want to figure out how atari got it to be so solid
