Bluetooth dongle won't work

dingdongdynamo

So I bought a USB Bluetooth dongle for my Pi 2. It's this one (sorry that the site is in Danish) and thought that would be fine for my Pi 2. However, while it's recognized, I can't seem to turn it on as I get the following error message:

pi@retropie:~ $ hciconfig hci0 up
Can't init device hci0: Operation not permitted (1)

Here are some info:

pi@retropie:~ $ hciconfig -a
hci0:   Type: Primary  Bus: USB
        BD Address: 00:1A:7D:DA:71:11  ACL MTU: 679:9  SCO MTU: 48:16
        DOWN
        RX bytes:1722 acl:0 sco:0 events:90 errors:0
        TX bytes:1104 acl:0 sco:0 commands:90 errors:0
        Features: 0xff 0xff 0x87 0xfa 0xdb 0xbf 0x7b 0x83
        Packet type: DM1 DM3 DM5 DH1 DH3 DH5 HV1 HV2 HV3
        Link policy: RSWITCH HOLD SNIFF PARK
        Link mode: SLAVE ACCEPT

pi@retropie:~ $ hcitool dev
Devices:

Also:
Model: Raspberry Pi 2 Model B Rev 1.1
RetroPie version: Says "Linux retropie 4.14.98-v7+" when I login via SSH.
Built From: SD image on RetroPie website.

Any ideas as to how I get it working? Or should I have gotten a different dongle?

mitu

@dingdongdynamo said in Bluetooth dongle won't work:

pi@retropie:~ $ hciconfig hci0 up
Can't init device hci0: Operation not permitted (1)

That's because you need admin rights for this operation, you can prefix the command with sudo to work. Regardless, it should work without doing this manual config.

Can you run

rfkill list all

and post the output ? Maybe the BT radio is soft locked.

dingdongdynamo

@mitu said in Bluetooth dongle won't work:

hciconfig hci0 up

Still getting an error with sudo:

pi@retropie:~ $ sudo hciconfig hci0 up
Can't init device hci0: Operation not supported (95)

It's not soft locked:

pi@retropie:~ $ rfkill list all
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no
2: hci0: Bluetooth
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no

Should all dongles be compatible with a Pi 2 with RetroPie?

mitu

@dingdongdynamo said in Bluetooth dongle won't work:

Should all dongles be compatible with a Pi 2 with RetroPie?

RetroPie is just plain Raspbian Lite at the OS level, so as long as it's compatible with Linux, the dongle should work. It might be that this particular device is not Linux compatible. For the record, this is the output of my dongle (which seems similar to this one) on the same Raspbian version:

pi@retropie:~ $ hciconfig -a
hci0:   Type: Primary  Bus: USB
        BD Address: 00:1A:7D:DA:71:09  ACL MTU: 310:10  SCO MTU: 64:8
        UP RUNNING PSCAN 
        RX bytes:758 acl:0 sco:0 events:52 errors:0
        TX bytes:1725 acl:0 sco:0 commands:44 errors:0
        Features: 0xff 0xff 0x8f 0xfe 0xdb 0xff 0x5b 0x87
        Packet type: DM1 DM3 DM5 DH1 DH3 DH5 HV1 HV2 HV3 
        Link policy: RSWITCH HOLD SNIFF PARK 
        Link mode: SLAVE ACCEPT 
        Name: 'retropie'
        Class: 0x000000
        Service Classes: Unspecified
        Device Class: Miscellaneous, 
        HCI Version: 4.0 (0x6)  Revision: 0x22bb
        LMP Version: 4.0 (0x6)  Subversion: 0x22bb
        Manufacturer: Cambridge Silicon Radio (10)

Can you get the dmesg output from unplugging and plugging the device:

# unplug the dongle
sudo dmesg -c

# plug the dongle back and get the output of the follwing command
dmesg

dingdongdynamo

Thanks for helping me out here. This is what I get:

pi@retropie:~ $ dmesg
[69061.275907] usb 1-1.2: new full-speed USB device number 9 using dwc_otg
[69061.408272] usb 1-1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=0a12, idProduct=0001
[69061.408292] usb 1-1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[69061.408306] usb 1-1.2: Product: USB1.1-A

But yeah, it's probably a dongle that isn't compatible with Linux - I didn't know I should've checked for that. Unless you have something I can try, I'll probably just order a new one.

mitu

@dingdongdynamo said in Bluetooth dongle won't work:

Unless you have something I can try, I'll probably just order a new one.

I'd say exchange it if possible (if you just bought it).

dingdongdynamo

@mitu Will do. Thanks.