So I’ve been having trouble with my bluetooth speaker for a long time now. Honestly I had neglected this issue since I could just turn off my speaker go to bluetooth devices turn off bluetooth, turn it on and connect my speaker again. But lately it seems that the speaker has gone rogue, I can’t even watch a movie anymore without the constant threat of being muted by this problem. Only turning off my laptop and turning it on seems to work but even that fails sometimes. I checked if this was related to a previous problem that I had (Bluetooth error with blueman-manager: Theme parsing error: gtk.css - #2 by megavolt) since I’ve been using the solution that Megavolt gave to me at that time (reloading the driver) but that doesn’t work anymore.
On this post (Bluetooth Audio Headphones stops randomly (no sound, still connected) - #14 by anon553421) there was the solution concerning to install manjaro-pipewire and agree to remove pulseaudio, I refer to that since it seems that I tried that solution at some point with other issue concerning no sound (Bluetooth Error 104 - No output audio on Bose speaker). I even asked chatgpt to lend me a hand and I realized that I installed both pipewire and pulseaudio at some point (I think that was related to GZDoom or something like that) and now they’re conflicting over bluetooth. However there are a lot of dependencies that are intertwined with both programs and now I can’t find a way to uninstall neither.
Here’s some info:
System:
Kernel: 6.1.112-1-MANJARO arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 14.2.1
clocksource: tsc avail: acpi_pm
parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-6.1-x86_64
root=UUID=d97e7378-689f-4116-8a25-2b2c685ad35a rw quiet splash apparmor=1
security=apparmor udev.log_priority=3
Desktop: Xfce v: 4.18.1 tk: Gtk v: 3.24.43 wm: xfwm4 v: 4.18.0
with: albert,xfce4-panel tools: xscreensaver,xscreensaver-systemd
avail: i3lock vt: 7 dm: 1: LightDM v: 1.32.0 2: SDDM note: stopped
Distro: Manjaro base: Arch Linux
Machine:
Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 20366 v: Lenovo Z40-70
serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 10 v: Lenovo Z40-70
serial: <superuser required>
Mobo: LENOVO model: Lancer 4A5 v: 31900059WIN serial: <superuser required>
part-nu: LENOVO_MT_20366_BU_idea_FM_Lenovo Z40-70 uuid: <superuser required>
UEFI: LENOVO v: 9BCN91WW date: 07/21/2015
Battery:
ID-1: BAT0 charge: 9.8 Wh (74.2%) condition: 13.2/28.5 Wh (46.4%)
power: 18.1 W volts: 14.2 min: 14.4 model: Lenovo IdeaPad type: Unknown
serial: <filter> status: discharging
CPU:
Info: model: Intel Core i5-4210U bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Haswell
gen: core 4 level: v3 note: check built: 2013-15 process: Intel 22nm
family: 6 model-id: 0x45 (69) stepping: 1 microcode: 0x26
Topology: cpus: 1x dies: 1 clusters: 2 cores: 2 threads: 4 tpc: 2
smt: enabled cache: L1: 128 KiB desc: d-2x32 KiB; i-2x32 KiB L2: 512 KiB
desc: 2x256 KiB L3: 3 MiB desc: 1x3 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 2167 min/max: 800/2700 scaling: driver: intel_cpufreq
governor: schedutil cores: 1: 2167 2: 2167 3: 2167 4: 2167 bogomips: 19161
Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Vulnerabilities:
Type: gather_data_sampling status: Not affected
Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled
Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT
vulnerable
Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI
Type: mmio_stale_data status: Unknown: No mitigations
Type: reg_file_data_sampling status: Not affected
Type: retbleed status: Not affected
Type: spec_rstack_overflow status: Not affected
Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via
prctl
Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer
sanitization
Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Retpolines; IBPB: conditional; IBRS_FW;
STIBP: conditional; RSB filling; PBRSB-eIBRS: Not affected; BHI: Not
affected
Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode
Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:
Device-1: Intel Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics vendor: Lenovo driver: i915
v: kernel arch: Gen-7.5 process: Intel 22nm built: 2013 ports: active: eDP-1
empty: DP-1,HDMI-A-1,HDMI-A-2 bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:0a16
class-ID: 0300
Device-2: Syntek Lenovo EasyCamera driver: uvcvideo type: USB rev: 2.0
speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 mode: 2.0 bus-ID: 2-6:3 chip-ID: 174f:14b2
class-ID: 0e02 serial: <filter>
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.13 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.2 compositors:
1: Picom v: git-c4107 2: xfwm4 v: 4.18.0 driver: X: loaded: modesetting
alternate: fbdev,vesa dri: crocus gpu: i915 display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1366x768 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 361x203mm (14.21x7.99")
s-diag: 414mm (16.31")
Monitor-1: eDP-1 model: LG Display 0x0455 built: 2014 res: 1366x768 hz: 60
dpi: 112 gamma: 1.2 size: 310x174mm (12.2x6.85") diag: 355mm (14")
ratio: 16:9 modes: 1366x768
API: EGL v: 1.5 hw: drv: intel crocus platforms: device: 0 drv: crocus
device: 1 drv: swrast gbm: drv: crocus surfaceless: drv: crocus x11:
drv: crocus inactive: wayland
API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: intel mesa v: 24.2.4-arch1.0.1
glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 4400 (HSW GT2)
device-ID: 8086:0a16 memory: 1.46 GiB unified: yes
API: Vulkan v: 1.3.295 layers: 4 device: 0 type: integrated-gpu name: Intel
HD Graphics 4400 (HSW GT2) driver: mesa intel v: 24.2.4-arch1.0.1
device-ID: 8086:0a16 surfaces: xcb,xlib
Audio:
Device-1: Intel Haswell-ULT HD Audio vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_hda_intel
v: kernel bus-ID: 00:03.0 chip-ID: 8086:0a0c class-ID: 0403
Device-2: Intel 8 Series HD Audio vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_hda_intel
v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 chip-ID: 8086:9c20 class-ID: 0403
API: ALSA v: k6.1.112-1-MANJARO status: kernel-api with: aoss
type: oss-emulator tools: alsactl,alsamixer,amixer
Server-1: sndiod v: N/A status: off tools: aucat,midicat,sndioctl
Server-2: JACK v: 1.9.22 status: off tools: jack_control,qjackctl
Server-3: PipeWire v: 1.2.5 status: active with: wireplumber status: active
tools: pw-cat,pw-cli,wpctl
Server-4: PulseAudio v: 17.0 status: active with: 1: pulseaudio-alsa
type: plugin 2: pulseaudio-jack type: module tools: pacat,pactl,pavucontrol
Network:
Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
vendor: Lenovo driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: speed: Unknown lanes: 63
link-max: gen: 6 speed: 64 GT/s port: 4000 bus-ID: 01:00.0
chip-ID: 10ec:8168 class-ID: 0200
IF: enp1s0 state: down mac: <filter>
Device-2: Realtek RTL8723BE PCIe Wireless Network Adapter
vendor: Lenovo Z50-75 driver: rtl8723be v: kernel pcie: gen: 1
speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: 3000 bus-ID: 02:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:b723
class-ID: 0280
IF: wlp2s0 state: up mac: <filter>
Info: services: mld, NetworkManager, systemd-timesyncd, wpa_supplicant
Bluetooth:
Device-1: Realtek RTL8723B Bluetooth driver: btusb v: 0.8 type: USB rev: 2.1
speed: 12 Mb/s lanes: 1 mode: 1.1 bus-ID: 2-7:4 chip-ID: 0bda:b728
class-ID: e001 serial: <filter>
Report: btmgmt ID: hci0 rfk-id: 3 state: up address: <filter> bt-v: 4.0
lmp-v: 6 status: discoverable: no pairing: no class-ID: 6c010c
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 661.53 GiB (71.0%)
SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Toshiba model: MQ04ABF100
size: 931.51 GiB block-size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s
tech: HDD rpm: 5400 serial: <filter> fw-rev: 1A scheme: GPT
Partition:
ID-1: / raw-size: 931.22 GiB size: 915.53 GiB (98.32%)
used: 661.53 GiB (72.3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2 maj-min: 8:2
ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 300 MiB size: 299.4 MiB (99.80%)
used: 312 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1
Swap:
Alert: No swap data was found.
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 46.0 C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A
Info:
Memory: total: 8 GiB available: 7.65 GiB used: 3.09 GiB (40.3%)
Processes: 217 Power: uptime: 6m states: freeze,mem,disk suspend: deep
avail: s2idle wakeups: 0 hibernate: platform avail: shutdown, reboot,
suspend, test_resume image: 3.05 GiB services: upowerd,xfce4-power-manager
Init: systemd v: 256 default: graphical tool: systemctl
Packages: 1853 pm: pacman pkgs: 1841 libs: 523 tools: pamac,yay pm: flatpak
pkgs: 0 pm: snap pkgs: 12 Compilers: clang: 18.1.8 gcc: 14.2.1 Shell: Bash
v: 5.2.37 running-in: xfce4-terminal inxi: 3.3.36
Some of the error messages that bluetooth manager delivers are:
Connection to Bluez failed. Bluez daemon is not running, blueman-manager connot continue. This probably means that there were no Bluetooth adapters detected or Bluetooth daemon was not started.
and this one:
Failed to connect. br-connection-adapter-not-powered
One of the suggestions by chatgpt was checking errors related to bluetooth: journalctl -xe | grep -i bluetooth
Which led to this (only posting a small bit because of character limits of this post):
Multiple sound server instances (PipeWire/Pulseaudio/bluez-alsa) are probably trying to use Bluetooth audio at the same time, which can cause problems. The system configuration likely should be fixed to have only one sound server that manages Bluetooth audio.
So in a nutshell I guess that the problem lies with the conflicting sound server instances but when trying to remove either pulseaudio or pipewire there seems to be a lot of problems related to dependencies. Could someone help me to remove some of them?
I’ll make another post with the terminal outputs related to the removal of the sound server instances.