Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro connected, but not listed as audio output [pipewire]

[JiashuXu]

Hello,
I purchased Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro and unfortunately have difficulties in using this on manjaro. I am able to connect to the buds using bluetoothctl. However compared to my older earphones that are listed as “Audio Device” the new buds is listed as “Other Device” (in the screenshot below the “Galaxy Buds 2 (52E4)” is my older device, listed as “Audio Device” but the top two are the new Galaxy Buds 2 Pro which I do not know why there are two of them but both are listed as “Other device”)

As a result, I cannot direct audio output to the wireless buds – there is simply no such option available in the Settings > Audio tab.

I found a possibly-related issue in here but I use manjaro-pipewire so I do not think this is applicable.

I have attached all my inxi -F outputs below

System:
  Host: jxu-omenbyhplaptop17ck1xxx Kernel: 6.1.38-1-MANJARO arch: x86_64
    bits: 64 Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 5.27.6 Distro: Manjaro Linux
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: HP product: OMEN by HP Laptop 17-ck1xxx v: N/A
    serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: HP model: 8A17 v: 32.25 serial: <superuser required> UEFI: AMI
    v: F.15 date: 04/21/2023
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 79.0 Wh (100.0%) condition: 79.0/83.0 Wh (95.1%)
CPU:
  Info: 14-core (6-mt/8-st) model: 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700H bits: 64
    type: MST AMCP cache: L2: 11.5 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1735 min/max: 400/4600:4700:3500 cores: 1: 915 2: 2700
    3: 1007 4: 2700 5: 656 6: 2700 7: 842 8: 2700 9: 471 10: 2700 11: 541
    12: 2700 13: 814 14: 920 15: 909 16: 640 17: 2700 18: 2700 19: 2700
    20: 2700
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Alder Lake-P Integrated Graphics driver: i915 v: kernel
  Device-2: NVIDIA GA104 [Geforce RTX 3070 Ti Laptop GPU] driver: nvidia
    v: 535.54.03
  Device-3: Quanta HP Wide Vision HD Camera driver: uvcvideo type: USB
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.8 driver: X: loaded: modesetting,nvidia
    unloaded: nouveau dri: iris gpu: i915 resolution: 2560x1440
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 Mesa 23.0.4 renderer: Mesa Intel Graphics (ADL GT2)
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Alder Lake PCH-P High Definition Audio
    driver: sof-audio-pci-intel-tgl
  Device-2: NVIDIA GA104 High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
  API: ALSA v: k6.1.38-1-MANJARO status: kernel-api
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 0.3.74 status: active
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Alder Lake-P PCH CNVi WiFi driver: iwlwifi
  IF: wlp0s20f3 state: up mac: f4:c8:8a:e3:a7:4c
  Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
    driver: r8169
  IF: eno1 state: down mac: 7c:4d:8f:9b:c3:31
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel driver: btusb type: USB
  Report: rfkill ID: hci0 state: up address: see --recommends
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 2.29 TiB used: 1.12 TiB (49.2%)
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 970 EVO Plus 2TB
    size: 1.82 TiB
  ID-2: /dev/nvme1n1 vendor: Samsung model: MZVL2512HCJQ-00BH1
    size: 476.94 GiB
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 343.44 GiB used: 103.35 GiB (30.1%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3
  ID-2: /boot/efi size: 300.4 MiB used: 23.5 MiB (7.8%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1
  ID-3: /home size: 491.08 GiB used: 345.54 GiB (70.4%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p4
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%)
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 46.0 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 1765 fan-2: 0
Info:
  Processes: 437 Uptime: 22m Memory: total: 32 GiB note: est.
  available: 31.02 GiB used: 10.88 GiB (35.1%) Shell: Zsh inxi: 3.3.28

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[fyoory]

I have my pro2’s working fine. You may need to add some additional package, I wish I could recall what as it has been a few months.

I did install galaxybudsclient-bin from AUR as it kind of works and connects ok. I have to rescan devices if I connect them to another bluetooth host like another machine or my android phone. After a few seconds it should reconnect. It is not as easy to reconnect as windows/android/etc but doing that works ok every time.

I did also mark them ‘trusted’ in bluetooth.

[Galaxy Buds2 Pro]# info
Device 98:0D:6F:xx:xx:xx (public)
Name: Galaxy Buds2 Pro
Alias: Galaxy Buds2 Pro
Class: 0x00244404 (2376708)
Icon: audio-headset
Paired: yes
Bonded: yes
Trusted: yes
Blocked: no
Connected: yes
LegacyPairing: no
UUID: Serial Port (00001101-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
UUID: Audio Sink (0000110b-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
UUID: A/V Remote Control Target (0000110c-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
UUID: Advanced Audio Distribu… (0000110d-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
UUID: A/V Remote Control (0000110e-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
UUID: Handsfree (0000111e-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
UUID: PnP Information (00001200-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
UUID: Vendor specific (2e73a4ad-332d-41fc-90e2-16bef06523f2)
UUID: Vendor specific (a23d00bc-217c-123b-9c00-fc44577136ee)
UUID: Vendor specific (b4a9d6a0-b2e3-4e40-976d-a69f167ea895)
UUID: Vendor specific (d908aab5-7a90-4cbe-8641-86a553db0146)
UUID: Vendor specific (e7ab2241-ca64-4a69-ac02-05f5c6fe2d62)
UUID: Vendor specific (f8620674-a1ed-41ab-a8b9-de9ad655729d)
Modalias: bluetooth:v0075pA013d0001

It works fine tho mostly. The AUR package is a bit quirky. If you disconnect them, be sure to stop/kill the buds client app and restart it. Also it is, IMHO rather CPU intensive for what it is.

Hope that helps at least.

[JiashuXu]

Hi @fyoory, thanks! I

• install galaxybudsclient-bin
• open the case but keep buds within the container
• connect
• take out the buds
  The above steps works for me now! I think galaxybudsclient-bin might be the issue why previous it did not work.

[fyoory]

Glad to hear it helped. It is still, like I said, not without flaws. It may not sometimes fully initialize the audio devices. You’ll know when its connected, shows up in the mixer but no sound comes out. Just rinse and repeat the case. After it works reliably you probably only need budsclient when there is an issue pairing, etc or need to adjust the programing, update firmware etc.