Multiple strange Bluetooth issues

superrune

Hi,

I'm using RetroPie 4.7.1 on a Raspberry Pi 3b+, istalled from an official image a while back. It's running on Raspbian 9.13 Stretch

Bluetooth have been working fine on this install, until I stopped using RetroPie for half a year. When I turned it back on today, the devices connected as they should until I did a reboot. Now they will not connect at all.

I've tried adding the devices in the Bluetooth Configuration, and they all appear correctly in the "Display Registered & Connected Bluetooth Devices" menu. But when I press "Connect now to all registered devices", I get the message:
"/home/pi/Retropie-Setup/scriptmodules/supplementary/bluetooth.sh: line 329: Connecting: command not found"

As far as I can see, the line references contains this command: "bt-device --connect [MAC-Adress]". But when I try to run it using one of the MAC-adresses in "bt-device --list" all I get is this:

"Error: GDBus:org.bluez.Error.AlreadyExists: Already Exists"

Does anyone have tips as to what else I could try?

I've tried to reinstall the Bluetooth drivers from source, but that did not help. I've tried removing then registering and connecting the devices, and that has not helped either.

By the way, when entering the "Register and Connect to Bluetooth Device" menu, Retropie adds every single Bluetooth device it finds, which counts to something like 20 in our apartment! It's a lot of boring work to manually delete every single one except the two gamepads I want to add. Is this normal?

superrune

I have done a complete reinstall of RetroPie from a fresh 4.7.1 image, and both issues are still present:

When entering the "Register and Connect to Bluetooth Device" menu, RetroPie will add every single Bluetooth device in the apartment (including my neighbors devices). I can select one device and connect it, but to connect the others I have to remove the devices first. This is tiresome to clean up, I have to remove some 20 devices each time I try to connect a single controller.
The original reconnect issue seems to be related to my 8bitdo FC30 Arcade Stick. It does not want to reconnect on reboot. Not sure if its the stick or RetroPie though. Any tips on how to know?

mitu

When entering the "Register and Connect to Bluetooth Device" menu, RetroPie will add every single Bluetooth device in the apartment (including my neighbors devices). I can select one device and connect it, but to connect the others I have to remove the devices first. This is tiresome to clean up, I have to remove some 20 devices each time I try to connect a single controller.

What do you mean ' to connect to others ' ? The list has all BT devices that are in range, so you can pick one of them and pair it. It may be large, depending on how many devices are in the vicinity, but how would it work otherwise ?

The original reconnect issue seems to be related to my 8bitdo FC30 Arcade Stick. It does not want to reconnect on reboot. Not sure if its the stick or RetroPie though. Any tips on how to know?

Try powering off the stick and power it back on if you reboot the Pi.

superrune

@mitu

Sorry for not explaining this properly. English is not my first language :)

When I first set up Bluetooth controllers on RetroPie, I distinctly feel the tool worked in a different fashion:

Menu option 1 would show a list of all devices, and you could add them there. Menu option 2 would only show the added the devices, and you could remove the ones you've added in option 1.

But now, as soon as I enter option 1, everything is added and listed in menu option 2. So if I want to add two gamepads, this is happening:

I enter option 1, selected my gamepad and chose the security mode. First gamepad is set up correctly.
I enter option 1 again, to add the second gamepad. But now this list is empty, and I cannot pair the second pad.
I enter option 2, and find every bluetooth items in there instead, including my Hue lights, my TV etc etc. So I delete them all except for the first gamepad I added.
I enter option 1, now the list is full again, and I can add the second gamepad and pair it.

I still get command not found when trying to reconnect devices, but I am not sure if that's related.

The connection problems seem to be an issue with my FC30 Arcade Stick. I am trying out different firmwares to see if some work better than others.

mitu

I enter option 1, selected my gamepad and chose the security mode. First gamepad is set up correctly.
I enter option 1 again, to add the second gamepad. But now this list is empty, and I cannot pair the second pad.

OK, I see what you're referring to now. I'm not sure why the scanned devices appear in the 'Registered devices' tab, I guess that's something that could be improved.

I still get command not found when trying to reconnect devices, but I am not sure if that's related.

The Connect now all registered devices menu uses the bt-device command, part of the bluez-tools package. Do you have this package installed ?

superrune

@mitu

I am not sure if I have bluez-tools installed. I have a fresh reinstall, does it come as standard? I see something called “custombluez“ in the driver packages, is that the same? Knowing how picky Linux is on names, I assume it’s something different.

mitu

@superrune said in Multiple strange Bluetooth issues:

I am not sure if I have bluez-tools installed. I have a fresh reinstall, does it come as standard?

What does 'fresh install' mean ? You mentioned you have installed on Raspbian 9.13 Stretch, which is no longer supported. A fresh 4.7.1 install will use Raspbian (Raspberry Pi OS) Buster as base.

The bluez-tools is automatically installed as a dependency, so it should be there.

I see something called “custombluez“ in the driver packages, is that the same? Knowing how picky Linux is on names, I assume it’s something different.

No, that's a different package.

superrune

@mitu I did a fresh install just before writing the second post in this thread :) And this install is 4.7.1 based on “buster”. The error messages are the same with this fresh install.

BuZz

I am aware of some of the issues as described. I will look into it. You can remove a device that didn't pair and retry and then it will show up again when scanning. But I agree it shouldn't add devices to registered and connected list automatically as it seems to do for some things.

BuZz

Please can you try out https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/pull/3273