Problem connecting bluetooth controllers on pi4

Barbakaas

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

mitu

@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.

Barbakaas

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!

mitu

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

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

Barbakaas

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!

Barbakaas

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.

aluin13

@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.

luzer

@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?

luzer

@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?

philcsf

@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.

luzer

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.

rafaz182

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

Barbakaas

@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.