Bluetooth devices only show up transiently when pairing

Hello! Lurker here, I made an account to ask this question, because I can’t seem to find a discussion on this issue anywhere.

When I try to add new bluetooth devices using the graphical tool, the devices would show up as I scan, but disappear almost instantly. In bluetoothhctl, it looked something like this:

[bluetooth]# scan on
Discovery started
[CHG] Controller A0:C5:34:08:A2:28 Discovering: yes
[NEW] Device 01:7F:99:21:3C:E6 ExpertBT5.0
[DEL] Device 01:7F:99:21:3C:E6 ExpertBT5.0
[NEW] Device 1A:A7:7E:CC:6B:8F ExpertBT3.0
[DEL] Device 1A:A7:7E:CC:6B:8F ExpertBT3.0
[NEW] Device 01:7F:99:21:3C:E6 ExpertBT5.0
[DEL] Device 01:7F:99:21:3C:E6 ExpertBT5.0
[NEW] Device 1A:A7:7E:CC:6B:8F ExpertBT3.0
[DEL] Device 1A:A7:7E:CC:6B:8F ExpertBT3.0

So it’s deleting the device the moment it found it.

I was able to pair it eventually by spamming the pair command if it happen to execute right before the delete happened:

[bluetooth]# pair 1A:A7:7E:CC:6B:8F
Device 1A:A7:7E:CC:6B:8F not available
[bluetooth]# pair 12:34:90:55:E6:CF
Device 12:34:90:55:E6:CF not available
[bluetooth]# pair 12:34:90:55:E6:CF
Device 12:34:90:55:E6:CF not available
[bluetooth]# pair12:34:90:55:E6:CF
Device 1A:A7:7E:CC:6B:8F not available
[NEW] Device 1A:A7:7E:CC:6B:8F ExpertBT3.0
[CHG] Device 1A:A7:7E:CC:6B:8F Connected: yes

This happens for all sorts of bluetooth device, headphones, speakers, mouse etc. This was from a pair of headphones I was trying to connect to:

[NEW] Device 22:22:22:22:34:F5 SN01
[DEL] Device 22:22:22:22:34:F5 SN01

Even though I was able to get it to work, I was wondering if there’s a more elegant solution? What might be prompting the instant deletes?

System:
  Kernel: 5.10.19-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.0 
  parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.10-x86_64 
  Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.21.2 tk: Qt 5.15.2 wm: kwin_x11 vt: 1 dm: SDDM 
  Distro: Manjaro Linux base: Arch Linux 

Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel Bluetooth wireless interface type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 
  bus-ID: 1-5:3 chip-ID: 8087:0a2b class-ID: e001 
  Report: This feature requires one of these tools: hciconfig/bt-adapter 

Many thanks in advance🙏

seems to be similar to: Can't connect device: Huawei FreeBuds 3i

No longer have the issue with my new laptop T580 (20LA), this might just be a hardware problem.

But I had paired bluetooth devices without issues previously with my old laptop, perhaps they were just no longer compatible.