20.04 bluetooth issue (btrtl) with keyboard/mouse

**glimung** · February 23rd, 2020

Very funny issue - I have two bt devices that are supposed to connect to my PC running Ubuntu 20.04 (upgrade from 18.04).

Code:

Host: daisy Kernel: 5.4.0-14-generic x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: Gnome 3.34.3    Distro: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)  Machine:   Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: ROG STRIX B450-I GAMING v: Rev 1.xx    serial:  UEFI [Legacy]: American Megatrends v: 2901    date: 10/16/2019


  hci0:   Type: Primary  Bus: USB     BD Address: D0:C5:D3:B3:17:26  ACL MTU: 1021:8  SCO MTU: 255:16     UP RUNNING      RX bytes:673209 acl:40293 sco:0 events:9131 errors:0     TX bytes:60995 acl:3119 sco:0 commands:1461 errors:0     Features: 0xff 0xff 0xff 0xfe 0xdb 0xfd 0x7b 0x87     Packet type: DM1 DM3 DM5 DH1 DH3 DH5 HV1 HV2 HV3      Link policy: RSWITCH HOLD SNIFF PARK      Link mode: SLAVE ACCEPT      Name: 'daisy'     Class: 0x000104     Service Classes: Unspecified     Device Class: Computer, Desktop workstation     HCI Version: 4.2 (0x8)  Revision: 0xab6b     LMP Version: 4.2 (0x8)  Subversion: 0x705c     Manufacturer: Realtek Semiconductor Corporation (93)


  Device 98:FD:B4:77:CB:11 (public)     Name: HP Bluetooth Mouse Z5000     Alias: HP Bluetooth Mouse Z5000     Class: 0x00000580     Icon: input-mouse     Paired: yes     Trusted: yes     Blocked: no     Connected: yes     LegacyPairing: no     UUID: Service Discovery Serve.. (00001000-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)     UUID: Human Interface Device... (00001124-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)     UUID: PnP Information           (00001200-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)     Modalias: usb:v03F0p084Cd0200

  
Device 10:9A:DD:9B:E7:69 (public)     Name: Apple Wireless Keyboard     Alias: Apple Wireless Keyboard     Class: 0x00002540     Icon: input-keyboard     Paired: yes     Trusted: yes     Blocked: no     Connected: yes     LegacyPairing: no     UUID: Human Interface Device... (00001124-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)     UUID: PnP Information           (00001200-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)     Modalias: usb:v05ACp023Ad0050

At boot time only one of those devices would connect. After that second device can't connect any more, despite being paired and trusted.

If the mouse connects first, it is possible to "make" the keyboard connect by giving disconnect command for keyboard to bt controller (bluetoothctl disconnect 10:9A:DD:9B:E7:69). After that the keyboard will start responding.

If keyboard connects first, mouse can't connect any more until systemctl restart bluetooth.service. However, only mouse would be connected then and no keyboard until above mentioned disconnect command is issued.

Needless to say both mouse and keyboard worked fine with simple Bluetooth USB dongle on another system.
I'm out of ideas.

TIA
g.

**him610** · February 24th, 2020

The specs of you MB, Asus ROG STRIX B450-I GAMING indicate you have an intel wireless chip with bluetooth
Please post the results between the code tags....

Code:

lspci -nn | grep Net
lsusb

Intel chips are probably the best, (IMHO)
I have a motherboard with the same B450 chip, and using Xubuntu 20.04. I have not tried to connect two bluetooth devices simultaneously. My preference is for wireless Logitech keyboards and mice with the Unifying Receiver.
I just connected my phone and a bluetooth speaker at the same time. Have no idea why you can not connect more than one device.
These are the results of the two commands on my system,

Code:

$ lspci -nn | grep Net
03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Dual Band Wireless-AC 3168NGW [Stone Peak] [8086:24fb] (rev 10)
lsusb ....
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0aa7 Intel Corp.

**glimung** · February 24th, 2020

Hi, thanks for fast response. In the end, both devices are connected but only with (counter-intuitive) manual intervention and work fine, with notably smaller battery consumption when compared to connecting via dongle I've used previously with 18.04.

Code:

$ lspci -nn | grep Net

04:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation I211 Gigabit Network Connection [8086:1539] (rev 03)
05:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8822BE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac WiFi adapter [10ec:b822]

$ lsusb

Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0b05:185c ASUSTek Computer, Inc. Bluetooth Radio 
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0b05:1872 ASUSTek Computer, Inc. AURA LED Controller
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Regarding your advice to go for Logitech with USB receivers or Intel based wifi/bt adapter it reminds be of the days when one would carefully choose hardware to have it working reliably under Linux. I like to think that we departed from that approach by the end of previous century :)

g.

**him610** · February 25th, 2020

... one would carefully choose hardware to have it working reliably under Linux

Yes, that still happens. Unfortunately, many of the hardware manufacturers do not provide driver support for Linux. The Linux community must reverse engineer those devices to get reliable working drivers. There are a few manufacturers, one being Intel, that provide Linux drivers.
Before I bought my latest two motherboards, I made sure each had intel wireless modules; if not, then out of consideration.

**glimung** · February 25th, 2020

Yes, I agree that happens, but here we don't have exotic RAID controller or some fancy peripheral. It is (apparently) common hardware and potential for Ubuntu or other distributions that take care of their kernel to make outstanding level of compatibility and ease of use.
I'm adding couple of logs that contain whole boot process and attempts to restart bluetooth.service and disconnect the Apple keyboard, with bluetoothd debug enabled. I hope somebody would find them useful in tackling this problem or recognizing some common error that escapes me.

g.

**glimung** · March 8th, 2020

In addition to problems described above bluetoothd will occasionally go to 100% CPU. This will not affect functioning of keyboard and mouse and it will not produce additional logs, it will just keep 100% CPU. Restarting it helps.

**glimung** · May 25th, 2020

Just for the record, replaced Realtek WiFi/BT card with Intel ax200 - same issues or even further complications. This just doesn't work.

Reverted back to decade old Belkin USB dongle, in defeat. All problems gone, everything works, just pair it and it is always there.

Battery consumption of the BT connected devices however is far worse than with 18.04, I would say even worse than with 16.04 using same dongle.

True regression for this basic functionality

Best regards.
Glimung