I go into Bluetooth settings and tick the “Visible” box.
After a while, after a restart or after a transfer, this keeps turning itself off without my intervention.
Is this a bug or design? I want it to stay permanently visible.
That is by design.
Bluetooth devices (On all platforms I’m aware of! Not only Linux, but Android, Windows, MacOS, … as well) will only stay visible for about 2 minutes at a time to allow for new pairing.
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Do you know of anyway to override this? Surely something controls the timeout etc.
The connection timeout is defined in the Bluetooth module of the Linux kernel (L2CAP_CONN_TIMEOUT) and there is no way to change it in user-space without becoming a kernel developer. 
This is by design as Strit already said and is for security purposes as a Bluetooth device without pin-code or password can be paired with by any device in Bluetooth range and maybe you misunderstand what these mean:
- Enabled: any already paired child device can connect to the parent device
- visible: Any child device can start pairing to the parent device.
Therefore, I’ve marked this answer as the solution to your question as it is by far the best answer you’ll get.
However, if you disagree with my choice, please feel free to take any other answer as the solution to your question or even remove the solution altogether: You are in control! (If you disagree with my choice, just send me a personal message and explain why I shouldn’t have done this or 
or 
if you agree)
P.S. In the future, please don’t forget to come back and click the 3 dots below the answer to mark a solution like this below the answer that helped you most:
so that the next person that has the exact same problem you just had will benefit from your post as well as your question will now be in the “solved” status.
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