I’ll try to guide you step by step - if you don’t mind.
Let’s see how far we get.
Please report where you get stuck and what the message says at that point.
software wise, everything seems to be installed
so, first, just to be sure
restart the bluetooth service
systemctl restart bluetooth.service
and check the status
systemctl status bluetooth.service
it should say:
● bluetooth.service - Bluetooth service
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
Active: active (running) since Thu 2021-02-04 10:02:09 CET; 8s ago
“enabled” in the second line and “Active” in the third
then start bluetoothctl
the prompt will change to
[bluetooth]
or to some other name if, like for me, a bluetooth mouse is already in use
Now put the headphones in pairing mode!
and at the prompt enter
power on
agent on
default-agent
(you can perhaps skip these three, but not the next one)
scan on
it can take a while 'till the headphones show up - but not as long as a minute
it’s just not instantaneous
the output looks like this:
[CHG] Controller 68:5D:43:58:FC:40 Discovering: yes
[NEW] Device C0:28:8D:33:9D:24 C0-28-8D-33-9D-24
[NEW] Device E8:AB:FA:25:94:79 TaoTronics TT-BH060
[CHG] Device E8:AB:FA:25:94:79 RSSI: -37
this is my headphones:
[NEW] Device E8:AB:FA:25:94:79 TaoTronics TT-BH060
use the mac address in further commands
enter:
pair E8:AB:FA:25:94:79
it should print some lines, ending with “Pairing successful”
But they are not connected yet!
enter:
trust E8:AB:FA:25:94:79
it needs to state:
Changing E8:AB:FA:25:94:79 trust succeeded
enter:
connect E8:AB:FA:25:94:79
it needs to state:
Connection successful
enter:
scan off
and:
quit
That is the whole process I went through - I then also set up auto-connect. But only after this initially worked.
At which stage in the process does it stop working for you?
With what message?
edit:
because @realmain said that he did manage to use the GUI to set his headphones up
just now I tried again to use the GUI (blueman-manager) to do this - and this time, it worked too.
Maybe I wasn’t doing the steps in the right order previously or missed some - because I had no idea how the process worked - it got clear after having done it via command line.
headphones in pairing mode
from the bluetooth icon in the panel: right click → new device
run through the wizard to pair it
then go to “devices” via the same panel icon
set it to trusted
connect it
done