Pi – Bluetooth Audio

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  • May 11, 2018 at 8:03 am #20568
    Ed PEd P
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      @edps
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      Normally I view myself as moderately tech literate, but connecting up an inexpensive Mars Boy Bluetooth speaker had me tearing my hair out. Sometimes it connected without issue, sometimes VLC would play ball, but almost as often it was complete silence apart from my curses.

      If you recognise this situation, I recommend that you follow the scripting set out in this Stack Exchange Article.

      This will at least ensure that your speakers are detected at boot (assuming you have switched them on), and that pulseaudio is started. Then all you need do is to struggle through the Bluetooth menu and unintuitive requirements to right-click on the speaker icon to connect the speaker! Of course you will still have to navigate the equally unintuitive requirement to set up the devices section of Bluetooth.

      May 18, 2018 at 8:07 am #20831
      Ed PEd P
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        @edps
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        Crow-eating time!

        I should not have used an old Stretch when I posted the above. In the latest version Raspberry Pi have dumped Pulse (hooray), but their Bluez-Alsa substitute is flaky in the extreme. It tries to be automagical but crashes at frequent intervals needing a Pi reboot to fix.

        Bluez-alsa is NOT compatible with the old pcm method referenced in my previous post!

        May 19, 2018 at 8:42 am #20883
        D-DanD-Dan
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          @d-dan
          Forumite Points: 6

          What do you have against pulse? I use it on my desktop, laptop and both PIs. The only speakers are connected to the desktop (5:1), and the laptop and PIs connect to that pulse server, meaning I get audio from all on the same device. Couldn’t be easier.

          I must get around to testing the BT from the Pi.

          Arch Linux, on a Ryzen 7 1800X, 32 GB, 5 (yes -5) HDs inc 5 SSDs, 4 RPi 3Bs + 1 RPi 4B - one as an NFS server with two more drives, PiHole (shut yours), Plex server, cloud server, and other random Pi stuff. Nice CoolerMaster case, 2 x NV GTX 1070 8GB, and a whopping 32" AOC 1440P monitor.

          May 19, 2018 at 7:15 pm #20911
          Ed PEd P
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            @edps
            Forumite Points: 39

            vlc often does not play well with pulse on pi..

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