Bluetooth not working in Ubuntu 14.04

My laptop is sony VPCEH15EN. In the early releases of Ubuntu like 12.04 and 13.10 my bluetooth used to work properly. But now in Ubuntu 14.04 it is not working.

Here is the output of sudo lshw -C network

*-network               
       description: Wireless interface
       product: AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express)
       vendor: Qualcomm Atheros
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:07:00.0
       logical name: wlan0
       version: 01
       serial: cc:af:78:b3:e5:0f
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath9k driverversion=3.13.0-24-generic firmware=N/A latency=0 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn
       resources: irq:16 memory:92500000-9250ffff
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
       vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:13:00.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: 06
       serial: 78:84:3c:e7:0f:5a
       size: 10Mbit/s
       capacity: 1Gbit/s
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=half firmware=rtl_nic/rtl8168e-2.fw latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=MII speed=10Mbit/s
       resources: irq:41 ioport:2000(size=256) memory:91404000-91404fff memory:91400000-91403fff
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       physical id: 1
       logical name: wwan0
       serial: fe:66:3d:53:82:83
       capabilities: ethernet physical
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=qmi_wwan driverversion=22-Aug-2005 firmware=WWAN/QMI device ip=10.49.48.237 link=yes multicast=yes

The output of lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family DRAM Controller (rev 09)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev b4)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev b4)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 6 (rev b4)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation HM65 Express Chipset Family LPC Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family 6 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 04)
07:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)
0d:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTS5209 PCI Express Card Reader (rev 01)
13:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 06)

The ouput of ifconfig

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 78:84:3c:e7:0f:5a  
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
          RX packets:491 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:491 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:52829 (52.8 KB)  TX bytes:52829 (52.8 KB)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr cc:af:78:b3:e5:0f  
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

Here is the output of lsusb

Bus 002 Device 006: ID 093a:2510 Pixart Imaging, Inc. Optical Mouse
Bus 002 Device 005: ID 8564:1000  
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 0b38:0010 Gear Head 107-Key Keyboard
Bus 002 Device 008: ID 12d1:1436 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. E173 3G Modem (modem-mode)
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0cf3:3005 Atheros Communications, Inc. AR3011 Bluetooth
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 064e:a302 Suyin Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Solution 1:

Check your dmesg log:

dmesg | grep -i blue

In my case, I had an issue with missing firmware:

$ dmesg | grep -i blue
[    2.216624] Bluetooth: Core ver 2.18
[    2.216639] Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized
[    2.216644] Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized
[    2.216646] Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized
[    2.216653] Bluetooth: SCO socket layer initialized
[    2.237027] Bluetooth: Firmware file "ath3k-1.fw" not found
[    2.414454] Bluetooth: BNEP (Ethernet Emulation) ver 1.3
[    2.414457] Bluetooth: BNEP filters: protocol multicast
[    2.414464] Bluetooth: BNEP socket layer initialized
[    2.419758] Bluetooth: RFCOMM TTY layer initialized
[    2.419767] Bluetooth: RFCOMM socket layer initialized
[    2.419772] Bluetooth: RFCOMM ver 1.11

This was resolved by:

sudo apt-get install linux-firmware

Hope that's helpful.

Solution 2:

I have two notebook computers - a Toshiba and a Fujitsu both of which are very old and are both dual boot computers with Windows 7 and Ubuntu 14.04 LTE 32 bit. Both computers and both operating systems work fine with Bluetooth linking to a Bose mini soundlink speaker for playing music. I use a USB bluetooth dongle for the link and all works well.

However, with a much newer laptop, a Toshiba Satellite Pro C50-A-1K9 running the 64 bit version of Ubuntu 14.04 LTE I cannot get bluetooth to work despite using the same dongle and the same speaker. The first time it finds the device, attempts to pair, but asks that a particular 4 digit code be entered from the device. This is of course impossible as the Bose mini soundlink speaker does not have a keypad! Further attempts to search for bluetooth devices after this first time find nothing. If I then go back to the old notepad computers they also cannot find the device at all with either Windows or Ubuntu 14.04 32 bit. I strongly suspect that the 64 bit version of Ubuntu 14.04 LTE has sent a code to the speaker which prevents it linking via bluetooth thereafter.

If anyone else has the Bose mini soundlink speaker and needs to overcome this problem, then

1. perform a factory reset on the speaker by first turning it on then holding down the bluetooth button for about ten seconds when the speaker beeps and will now work again with the old computers and windows 7 or Ubuntu 14.04 LTE 32 bit.
2. avoid using bluetooth with Ubuntu 14.04 LTE 64 bit version until such time as a very skilled programmer finds the bug!