Major Bluetooth Issues Bazzite 41

Bazzite
1

Ive just complete a new install on a fairly straight forward system:

Asrock x570 Steel Series
AMD 5800X
AMD 6900 XT
1TB Samusing SSD
32GB Ram

Everything went according to plan and all things except Bluetooth are functioning perfectly.

Now I have tried

3 different USB Bluetooth dongles(Realtek, Cambridge Silicon)
4 Xbox One S controllers
Sony XM5 Headphones

All usb dongles have issues and require unpluging and replugging to actually work, and when they do work, I can not get anything to connect, all of these devices work perfectly fine in Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, WIndows 10, Windows 11 and even OpenFyde/FydeOS so there is no issue with any of this hardware.

There is some really strange issues with Bazzite 41 and Bluetooth, if I mess about with the following:

sudo bluetoothctl
scan on
pair (device of choice)
trust (device of choice)
connect (device of choice))

I can get a controller to pair and connect, but then it drops out and wont work again, each of the bluetooth controllers seem to have odd behaviour unique to it, but I know they all work 100% on every other OS I have tested them with, 2 of them I specifically got for long range audio use, the othe is just some random cheap useless thing, but does work.

After messing about for many hours, I finally got a controller to work, but after a reboot, it wont connect again.

I have now dragged out my Xbox USB dongles 1 of the 2 works, but it too requires me to unplug it and re-plug it in on a cold boot, but it at least works, but no chance of the headphones working.

Now I have no issue with bluetooth on my Legion Go or my Minis Forum machine, but they had these devices added prior to upgrading to 41.

At this point I have tried everything I can possible try, but I cant use this OS on this machine in this state, so I will have to put Windblows back on it, as 2 days of messing about is enough, It shouldn’t be like this with known working hardware.

2

I use an USB Wifi adaptor and I have tried several Linux distributions and under ALL of them the same problem: when you boot up, the adaptor is in a switched off state and I can’t see any other solution except to unplug & replug it into the USB port, and then it works perfectly and even continues after a warm reboot but a cold reboot will again leave it switched off. I don’t think this is related to distributions so much as some driver/firmware issue. Sadly Linux on the desktop is still FULL of papercuts like this. It almost works but will give you several papercuts and minor issues that vary from one distro to another but no distro ever works 100%. While some OSS software is either not regularly updated or poorly coded the overwhelming problem actually is hardware support. Even in 2024 too many hardware makers treat Linux as third class. If they supply a firmware/driver at all, it is often not as featureful as their Windows driver, almost deliberately (you’d think) borked in a minor manner. I don’t know if or when this will ever change.

3

You probably can make a little script that unloads and loads the wifi kernel driver on boot. it is kind of a nasty workaround but it totally should work. Which USB Wifi adapter do you have? Maybe we can make that script for you. - Try plugging your adapter, unplugging it, and plugging it back again then sending the output from dmesg here as a file or something

4

Idk about bluetooth but I have the same problems with Xbox x/s wireless controller dongle. It works, I can connect two controllers and it pairs and connects them. But after I switch controller off and try to connect again one of two things would happen:

  1. Controller is unable to connect to dongle
  2. Controller connects to dongle but software like Steam don’t see it as connected

Solution in both cases is to unplug and replug the dongle. Sometimes the same happens after booting system - it won’t work until I replug dongle first.

I tested this dongle with same controllers in Win11, Mint and EndeavourOS and all is fine, it’s only Bazzite being weird about this.

5

Similarly for me, with F41, bluetooth maouse and keyboard works fine (already paired) but headphones won’t pair. If I toggle bluetooth, it will just break completely until I reboot my system.
ROG Strix G834JY

Edit: Seams that this affect me: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=219447
Should be patched soon

6

I switched this particular machine back to Windows, as I wanted to actually play my games, I have very limited time, and I just need it to work, but I have discovered after raising this post, I did an update to KDE Neon on my daily driver laptop, and out of the blue, my bluetooth devices are playing up???

My daily driver bluetooth earbuds just get kicked randomly now, tried everything, even setup Neon on another Laptop with an AX200 card, and exact same weird issue, this has been happening for a number of days, these buds work on everything else, Apple gear, Android, Windows, and normally Linux with zero issues, and then I wake up this morning, another large update to KDE Noen, and magically, they are working perfectly again.

This weekend I will grab a spare NVME drive and setup Bazzite on this gaming rig again and test the bluetooth again, it may have been some strange Kernel issue? hopefully it fixes itself with an update, if not, I will setup Fedora 41 and see if the issue is also there.

I dont see unplugging and plugging in USB dongles or running funky scripts and even having to toggle or restart services as a real fix, bluetooth should be like a light switch in this day and age, it should just work, normally I see better bluetooth support on Linux over Windows, but something has gone all pair-shaped recently as I have seen a number of complaints related to Bluetooth on more cutting edge Linux releases floating arounf the web.

7

So how did it went for you? Managed to get it working?

As I faced similar issue with AX200 which shoukd be just plug and play on Linux, but for some reason Bluetooth adapter isn’t detected at all.

As you mentioned, I also started to assuma that it’s just Kernel issue in general.

8

Everything seemed to have ironed itself out, Bluetooth is working across the board for me now, AX200, AX210, BE100 and several Chinesium infused BL5.X USB dongles, even the mediatek AMD ones.

I havent seen any issues for a while now, seemed to have fixed itself after a few updates.

9

My system dont see my Xbox controller, but i found a way to fix it, the problem mainly was in Privacy setting at: /etc/bluetooth/main.conf and BLE mode on my usb bluetooth adapter, as Xbox controllers use BLE mode to pair. Here is what helps, i find that fix with chatgpt and ask him to make a tuto:

Xbox Controller not detected over Bluetooth on Bazzite/Linux — fix for CSR/Barrot 0a12:0001

I ran into an issue on Bazzite KDE where an Xbox Wireless Controller worked perfectly over USB and also connected normally over Bluetooth in Windows, but Bazzite/Linux could not detect it at all.

Bluetooth adapter:




ID 0a12:0001 Cambridge Silicon Radio, Ltd Bluetooth Dongle

However, bluetoothctl show reported manufacturer 2279, which means this is actually one of the Barrot-based adapters that identifies itself using the old CSR USB ID.

The following errors appeared during scanning:




org.bluez.Error.InProgress

and with btmgmt:




Unable to start discovery. status 0x0d (Invalid Parameters)

What fixed it

In my case, the problem was related to Bluetooth Privacy.

Open:




sudo nano /etc/bluetooth/main.conf

Under the [General] section, set:




Privacy = off

Important: if you previously had:




Privacy = network

replace it with off.

Save the file and restart Bluetooth:




sudo systemctl restart bluetooth

Then reset the Bluetooth controller settings with:




sudo btmgmt power off
sudo btmgmt privacy off
sudo btmgmt le on
sudo btmgmt bredr on
sudo btmgmt power on

Check the current state:




sudo btmgmt info

Under current settings, the regular privacy flag should no longer be present.

ll-privacy may still remain — that is fine.

Test Xbox Controller discovery

Put the Xbox Controller into pairing mode so the Xbox button is flashing rapidly.

Run an LE-only scan:




sudo btmgmt find -l

After applying the fix, my controller immediately appeared:




name Xbox Wireless Controller
type LE Public

So BLE discovery was finally working correctly.

Pair the controller

Stop the low-level scan:




sudo btmgmt stop-find

Then start:




bluetoothctl

Inside bluetoothctl, run:




power on
agent on
default-agent
scan le

Once the Xbox Controller appears, note its MAC address, for example:




68:6C:E6:59:1C:43

Then run:




pair 68:6C:E6:59:1C:43
trust 68:6C:E6:59:1C:43
connect 68:6C:E6:59:1C:43

You can verify the connection with:




info 68:6C:E6:59:1C:43

A successful result should look similar to:




Paired: yes
Bonded: yes
Trusted: yes
Connected: yes

After that, the Xbox Controller should work normally over Bluetooth in Bazzite/Steam.

Short version

If Bazzite/Linux detects your adapter as:




0a12:0001 Cambridge Silicon Radio

but cannot find your Xbox Controller, try:




# /etc/bluetooth/main.conf

[General]
Privacy = off

Then run:




sudo systemctl restart bluetooth

sudo btmgmt power off
sudo btmgmt privacy off
sudo btmgmt le on
sudo btmgmt bredr on
sudo btmgmt power on

sudo btmgmt find -l

In my case, disabling Bluetooth Privacy immediately fixed BLE scanning, and the Xbox Wireless Controller became visible and connected successfully.

One more note: run btmgmt commands with sudo. Without it, you may get:




status 0x14 (Permission Denied)

Also, if the controller is detected with a very weak RSSI such as -90 to -100, keep it close to the Bluetooth dongle during the first pairing attempt.

10

Old thread, but here is some advice to anyone stumbling across this post:

If you have issues with a BT device, you should lead with actual type of BT dongle you have, as nearly every type I have has been working out of the box with PS5 and Xbox controllers since kernel 6.18, there was a massive list of devices added to the kernel at that point, I have not had to do anything for them to work in Bazzite/CachyOS/SteamOS they all just work now, I do have some products, that will not work, there is some funky workarounds to make them work, but its far easier to just buy a cheap one, that just works.

I have large amount of usb dongles now, Wifi/BT ones, and just BT, ranging from BT 4 to 5.4, along with NGFF and Mini PCI cards, Intel, Realtek, Mediatek, they all function great now, the BE range from Intel seems to be the best of the lot and the most reliable with stunning range, but these are internal cards, the some of the cheap Realtek ones are now bullet proof as well, I prefer to avoid Mediatek based stuff as they often have issues, kernel updates can break them, depending on the actual chipset version.

Currently available units I have that work perfectly out of the box:

TP-Link

Cheap Chinesium (Highly Recommend as its quite cheap and is identical to the AX900 Nano IMO and I supply these with my DIY Steam Machines now)

Ugreen

  • Long Range BT 5.4 - BT 5.4 Also has ridiculously good range, link to product - https://link.amazon/B01Puhbui
  • Long Range BT 5.3 - This one does not work so avoid it

I have many older ones that all work, but are not really sold anymore so no point recommending them, but the above were added to kernel 6.17 and 6.18, the Wifi on respective units may not work with the USB Install image of Bazzite, but BT does, once you update the OS, they function fully.

My recommend one, that’s best bang for the buck is the one on Aliexpress, just note, when using these Nano dongles, use then on a USB Extension cable as shoving them in the rear of a PC Case, will destroy their range, all that metal blocks the signal, either stick them in the front USB or use them on an extension cable

If you want stunning range, then the Ugreen 5.4 is the go, I walk around listening to YouTube with my BT headphones, and I know the exact location where each of these units start dropping out, the Ugreen goes through several brick walls, cars, cloths dryer and must be over 35meters away before it even starts to drop packets, so it will give you a great controller experience.

One more recommendation, with both PS5 and Xbox controllers, make sure to update the firmware on them, Playstation have a software tool, and so does Microslop, both are Winblows only unfortunately, if anyone knows how to update these under Linux, please correct me.

Last recommendation, if you can afford it, get a Steam Controller, navigating the desktop from your couch using Valves controller is “Game Changing” pun intended, it makes the PS5 and Xbox seem like pure jank.