Connect to JBL bluetooth speaker

potential reason why...

_{converting my comment to an answer}

Issues such as this are mostly due to kernel issues. The kernel is the key underlying component that interfaces between the physical hardware and presents this in a controlled way that desktop software can usefully use and allow the user to control.

Bluetooth dongles are mostly USB based. Most hardware today are USB2 based or USB3 based. The kernel uses different modules to interrogate these two versions.

Assuming you are using USB3 to connect, there may be an underlying issue with the USB3 kernel module called XHCI.

so what can I do...

You should really test the latest kernels (at the time of writing 3.16 series) - but if you want continued support you need to work with the Canonical kernel developers to identify a solution. Raise a bug-report - include details of the bug report that you've installed the latest kernels and they did/didnt work etc.

As a workaround, many BIOS's have the ability to downgrade USB3 ports - downgrade them to USB2 speeds. This is called "XHCI PRE-BOOT MODE"

If you disable this mode, this should force the kernel to see your bluetooth device as a USB2 based device.

Install driver packages and all the necessary packages for bluetooth devices to work:

sudo apt-get install bluez bluez-alsa bluez-audio bluez-btsco bluez-compat bluez-cups bluez-dbg bluez-gstreamer bluez-hcidump bluez-pcmcia-support bluez-tools bluez-utils python-bluez bluewho indicator-bluetooth libbluetooth-dev libgnome-bluetooth11 libbluetooth3 python-gobject python-dbus