Bluetooth stopped working on Rpi4

[xwons]

Hi,

Yesterday, when I went to pair my (original) PS3 controller, nothing happened. The controller kept blinking but did not connect. I have been using it for several years now without an issue. Same with another ps3 controller.

So I checked, and it seems that something is wrong with the bluetooth in my RPI4. Using the bluetooth tool in Retropie-Setup, no devices are found.

If i run hciconfig, this is what I see:

pi@retropie:~ $ hciconfig
hci0:	Type: Primary  Bus: UART
	BD Address: AA:AA:AA:AA:AA:AA  ACL MTU: 1021:8  SCO MTU: 64:1
	UP RUNNING 
	RX bytes:4728 acl:0 sco:0 events:263 errors:0
	TX bytes:6138 acl:0 sco:0 commands:253 errors:0

That mac address does not look normal at all. Same with:

pi@retropie:~ $ bluetoothctl list
Controller AA:AA:AA:AA:AA:AA retropie [default]

And if I check the service status:

pi@retropie:~ $ systemctl status bluetooth.service 
● bluetooth.service - Bluetooth service
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Wed 2021-08-11 18:27:14 BST; 12min ago
     Docs: man:bluetoothd(8)
 Main PID: 29915 (bluetoothd)
   Status: "Running"
    Tasks: 1 (limit: 4915)
   CGroup: /system.slice/bluetooth.service
           └─29915 /usr/lib/bluetooth/bluetoothd --noplugin=sap

Aug 11 18:27:14 retropie systemd[1]: Starting Bluetooth service...
Aug 11 18:27:14 retropie bluetoothd[29915]: Bluetooth daemon 5.50
Aug 11 18:27:14 retropie systemd[1]: Started Bluetooth service.
Aug 11 18:27:14 retropie bluetoothd[29915]: Starting SDP server
Aug 11 18:27:14 retropie bluetoothd[29915]: Excluding (cli) sap
Aug 11 18:27:14 retropie bluetoothd[29915]: Bluetooth management interface 1.18 initialized
Aug 11 18:27:14 retropie bluetoothd[29915]: Failed to set privacy: Rejected (0x0b)

Seems to be running, except for that last "Failed to set privacy: Rejected" message.

Maybe that is due to some system or firmware update? I regularly run apt-get update and apt-get upgrade, but I had never had issues like that.

Anyone knows what could be happening?

[xwons]

Update: Apparently there was a bluez update that killed bluetooth.

More info in https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=317364

To revert to an older version:

sudo apt install bluez=5.50-1.2~deb10u1+rpt2
sudo apt show -a bluez

[mitu]

This issue has been fixed with an RPI OS update for the Bluetooth packages, so the workaround is no longer necessary - an update of the packages/OS is enough.

You can update the packages as part of RetroPie's update menu or manually with

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

The bluez package version that fixes the issue - 5.50-1.2~deb10u2+rpt1.