bluetooth headset connects but not showing in sound settings

I was able to listen with my BT headset, but suddenly, one day, it disappeared from sound settings forever!

I've even re-paired my headset (and its connected already) but it doesn't have any options in sound settings in order to listen from it.

When I try this command:

hcitool scan

It doesn't find any devices! Even this command:

pactl list cards short

Only lists my default sound card only! What should I do?

Solution 1:

Try this command:

sudo -H pactl load-module module-bluetooth-discover

I run this whenever I have paired, and successfully connected, but still can't see them in sound settings. It essentially tells pulseaudio to load reload it's list of bluetooth devices.

Solution 2:

Extending upon Mark's answer, which basically did the trick for me.

The problem is that the bluetooth service tries to load the pulseaudio bluetooth module at startup, which fails because they require X11 to be running. You need to change the configuration so that the pulseaudio bluetooth module is loaded after X11.

1. Tell the bluetooth service to not load the module. To do this, edit /etc/pulse/default.pa and comment out these lines by putting # characters in front of them:

   .ifexists module-bluetooth-discover.so
   load-module module-bluetooth-discover
   .endif
   

2. Configure the module to be loaded after X11. To do this, edit /usr/bin/start-pulseaudio-x11 and add two lines:

   if [ x"$DISPLAY" != x ] ; then
       # ...
   
       # Add these lines:
       /usr/bin/pactl load-module module-bluetooth-discover
       /usr/bin/pactl load-module module-switch-on-connect
   fi
   

3. Restart pulseaudio and bluetooh. Either reboot your machine or use the following commands:

   pulseaudio -k
   start-pulseaudio-x11
   sudo service bluetooth restart
   

This way, the pulseaudio bluetooth module should be working and Volume Control (pavucontrol) should detect the bluetooth device and list it under input and output devices.