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    Please do not post a support request without first reading and following the advice in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

    Problem connecting bluetooth controllers on pi4

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    bluetoothcontrollerspi4 4gbretropie 4.7.1
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    • B
      Barbakaas
      last edited by

      I tried this, but now I seem to be encountering a problem that I have encountered a few times before, usually after running the update but did not encounter in this installation yet

      pi@retropie:~ $ hcitool dev
      Devices:
      pi@retropie:~ $
      
      pi@retropie:~ $ hciconfig -a
      hci0:   Type: Primary  Bus: UART
              BD Address: E4:5F:01:04:B9:75  ACL MTU: 1021:8  SCO MTU: 64:1
              DOWN
              RX bytes:794 acl:0 sco:0 events:46 errors:0
              TX bytes:823 acl:0 sco:0 commands:54 errors:0
              Features: 0xbf 0xfe 0xcf 0xfe 0xdb 0xff 0x7b 0x87
              Packet type: DM1 DM3 DM5 DH1 DH3 DH5 HV1 HV2 HV3
              Link policy: RSWITCH SNIFF
              Link mode: SLAVE ACCEPT
      
      pi@retropie:~ $ sudo hciconfig hci0 up
      Can't init device hci0: Connection timed out (110)
      
      [bluetooth]# list
      Controller E4:5F:01:04:B9:75 retropie [default]
      [bluetooth]# show e4:5f:01:04:b9:75
      Controller E4:5F:01:04:B9:75 (public)
              Name: retropie
              Alias: retropie
              Class: 0x00000000
              Powered: no
              Discoverable: no
              Pairable: yes
              UUID: Generic Attribute Profile (00001801-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
              UUID: A/V Remote Control        (0000110e-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
              UUID: PnP Information           (00001200-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
              UUID: A/V Remote Control Target (0000110c-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
              UUID: Generic Access Profile    (00001800-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
              Modalias: usb:v1D6Bp0246d0532
              Discovering: no
      [bluetooth]# power on
      Failed to set power on: org.bluez.Error.Failed
      

      So, I can not begin to attempt to pair the controllers right now, unfortunately

      mituM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • mituM
        mitu Global Moderator @Barbakaas
        last edited by

        @barbakaas In this case, revert to the stable (installed from apt ) kernel with

        sudo apt-get install --reinstall raspberrypi-bootloader raspberrypi-kernel
        

        Try installing the xpadneo driver and see if the Thrustmaster or the 8bitdo controller pair.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • B
          Barbakaas
          last edited by

          I did the rollback to the stable version. however when trying to install xpadneo I get this error

          pi@retropie:~/xpadneo $ git clone https://github.com/atar-axis/xpadneo.git
          cd xpadneo
          sudo ./installCloning into 'xpadneo'...
          remote: Enumerating objects: 173, done.
          remote: Counting objects: 100% (173/173), done.
          remote: Compressing objects: 100% (90/90), done.
          remote: Total 3413 (delta 111), reused 128 (delta 76), pack-reused 3240
          Receiving objects: 100% (3413/3413), 20.51 MiB | 5.71 MiB/s, done.
          Resolving deltas: 100% (2131/2131), done.
          pi@retropie:~/xpadneo $ cd xpadneo
          pi@retropie:~/xpadneo/xpadneo $ sudo ./install
          sudo: ./install: command not found
          

          which i find very weird. I looked at the github page and tried to do the setup for "generic distributions" but that didn't work either. Both DKMS and raspberrypi-kernel-headers seem to be up to date as stated in the prerequisites.

          Again I apologize if I'm missing some basic knowledge, but I never expected to have to dive this deep into linux to get things working!

          mituM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • mituM
            mitu Global Moderator @Barbakaas
            last edited by

            @barbakaas You can install it from RetroPie-Setup, it's under the drivers section of the packages.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • P
              philcsf
              last edited by philcsf

              I recently fixed the Bluetooth stability issues by rolling back to the last stable 5.4 kernel. Bear in mind that you'll no longer be able to do 'apt-get upgrade' without the kernel auto-updating to the buggy 5.10 version.

              sudo rpi-update 453e49b
              
              L 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • B
                Barbakaas
                last edited by

                Ok, so I still encountered the problems from my last post where hci0 seems to be powered down, I reinstalled a fresh image onto the sd card, configured wifi and ssh, and installed xpadneo via the setup menu.

                However even with the fresh install it now doesnt want to power on the bluetooth connector. I will leave it for today and try again tomorrow, could there be some configs or something that could carry over between installs? how can this bluetooth connector be so random.

                Thank you for your help up until now though!

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • B
                  Barbakaas
                  last edited by

                  Update: I gave up and got a bluetooth dongle. I disabled on board bluetooth and was able to connect everything in a matter of minutes. I find it hard to believe that both Pi's had faulty bluetooth chips. Is there some way to test this? With a multi-meter or something?

                  Anyway I learned a lot about linux, raspberry Pi's and how bluetooth works so its not been for nothing.

                  L 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • aluin13A
                    aluin13
                    last edited by

                    @barbakaas I'm encountering the same issue as you, but what I've found is if I install a new dongle, re-image the pi, or otherwise start with fresh bluetooth settings, I am able to pair my devices once. However, I inevitably encounter weird bluetooth issues on subsequent reboots that end up causing me to have to re-pair. Then, I'm back to square one and cannot get around the org.bluez.Error.AlreadyExists exception.

                    This has been driving me bananas for the last few days.

                    L 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • L
                      luzer @Barbakaas
                      last edited by

                      @barbakaas said in Problem connecting bluetooth controllers on pi4:

                      Update: I gave up and got a bluetooth dongle. I disabled on board bluetooth and was able to connect everything in a matter of minutes. I find it hard to believe that both Pi's had faulty bluetooth chips. Is there some way to test this? With a multi-meter or something?

                      Anyway I learned a lot about linux, raspberry Pi's and how bluetooth works so its not been for nothing.

                      i tried this but had issues
                      do you have more details?

                      B 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • L
                        luzer @philcsf
                        last edited by

                        @philcsf said in Problem connecting bluetooth controllers on pi4:

                        sudo rpi-update 453e49b

                        do you still need to do this with the latest pi images?

                        P 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • P
                          philcsf @luzer
                          last edited by

                          @luzer I think they fixed in in a newer kernel (it's up to 5.10.24 or so now), but the stable version (5.10.17) is still broken. Try running rpi-kernel after your standard apt update/upgrade to get the latest dev kernel.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                          • L
                            luzer @aluin13
                            last edited by

                            i just restarted everything and get this error

                            @aluin13 said in Problem connecting bluetooth controllers on pi4:

                            @barbakaas I'm encountering the same issue as you, but what I've found is if I install a new dongle, re-image the pi, or otherwise start with fresh bluetooth settings, I am able to pair my devices once. However, I inevitably encounter weird bluetooth issues on subsequent reboots that end up causing me to have to re-pair. Then, I'm back to square one and cannot get around the org.bluez.Error.AlreadyExists exception.

                            This has been driving me bananas for the last few days.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • R
                              rafaz182
                              last edited by

                              @philcsf I did it but I still receiving failed to connect org.bluez.error.failed

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • B
                                Barbakaas @luzer
                                last edited by

                                @luzer

                                In boot/config.txt I added dtoverlay=disable-bt to disable the onboard bluetooth. The bluetooth dongle is a cheap one (€10 ish) but it works fine. I did connect my controllers through the bluetoothctl command line options just so I could check how things worked behind the menu in retropie.

                                Can't help you any further though, sorry.

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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