Pi3 Bluetooth Issues and Gotchas

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  • June 9, 2018 at 7:27 pm #21713
    Ed PEd P
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      @edps
      Forumite Points: 39

      Following a sudo apt-get upgrade, BlueTooth came out completely broken and it was unable to find the BlueTooth adapter. After wasting a couple of hours pursuing ineffective solutions I finally found that the only cure was the procedure set out by Nerdlinger here.  In addition I also had to reinstall pi-bluetooth and bluealsa.

      The other gotcha with Pi Bluetooth is that it shares the broadcom wifi hardware buffers – the net result are frequent data under-runs that lead to un-recoverable Bluetooth crashes. Unfortunately the only cure is to replace either the on-board Wi-Fi or Bluetooth with a USB adapter. It is easiest to replace the on-board wifi as disabling the on-board wifi just needs a minor addition to /boot/config.txt of:

      dtoverlay=pi3-disable-wifi

      A bit irritating as it consumes a valuable USB port, but if you need to use Wi-Fi to connect the pi3 to the Internet and want Bluetooth sound, then this is the only option!

      June 10, 2018 at 8:00 am #21720
      D-DanD-Dan
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        @d-dan
        Forumite Points: 6

        I’ve only tried BT Audio on the Pi once (yesterday, funily enough), and whilst I was able to successfully connect to my BT earbuds, there was no audio at all. Unfortunately, it’s not a clash with WiFi since the particular Pi I tested is wired. I only have one on WiFi, which doesn’t really need audio at all.

        Having said that, it’s not really a problem for me. All my PIs have pulseaudio connecting to the server on my main rig for full 5:1 surround sound, anyway. An arrangement that works just peachy and very easy to set up.

        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.

        June 10, 2018 at 10:28 am #21724
        Ed PEd P
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          @edps
          Forumite Points: 39

          Unfortunately Pi Bluetooth audio  needs a LOT of hands-on fiddling to get it to work. You probably need to do a sudo apt-get dist-upgrade and  install bluealsa as starters.  As you like using cli this link might help.

          The other trick you may need is to run sudo raspi-config -> advanced ->audio and select the option to force audio to the headphone. (You also need to do this for Bluetooth speakers)

           

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