RPI 4 Model B 8GB Bluetooth not working

fahadshery

Hi Everyone,

My bluetooth stopped working after a reboot.
When I checked the status it showed this:

pi@retropie:~ $ sudo systemctl status bluetooth
● bluetooth.service - Bluetooth service
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: inactive (dead)
     Docs: man:bluetoothd(8)

I then did the following:

sudo modprobe bluetooth
sudo systemctl restart bluetooth.service

It worked then:

pi@retropie:~ $ sudo systemctl status bluetooth
● bluetooth.service - Bluetooth service
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Thu 2021-11-04 10:12:56 GMT; 8s ago
     Docs: man:bluetoothd(8)
 Main PID: 1157 (bluetoothd)
   Status: "Running"
    Tasks: 1 (limit: 4915)
   CGroup: /system.slice/bluetooth.service
           └─1157 /usr/lib/bluetooth/bluetoothd

Here are the dimes

[   31.834544] vcc-sd: disabling
[  257.847702] Bluetooth: Core ver 2.22
[  257.847783] NET: Registered protocol family 31
[  257.847792] Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized
[  257.847812] Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized
[  257.847825] Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized
[  257.847846] Bluetooth: SCO socket layer initialized
[  266.943562] Bluetooth: BNEP (Ethernet Emulation) ver 1.3
[  266.943573] Bluetooth: BNEP filters: protocol multicast
[  266.943589] Bluetooth: BNEP socket layer initialized

But it still can't see any bluetooth devices.
What am I missing?

cheers,

mitu

Make sure you're fully updated - run the RetroPie update and say Yes when asked to update the OS/packages.

MacGyver

@fahadshery
Also make sure that it's not a USB3 problem.
RF interference from the USB3 ports on a Raspberry Pi 4 can knock out the 2.4Ghz Wifi band and the Bluetooth randomly. It can work fine one day and not the next.
I would remove any USB3 cables (by putting them in the USB2 ports) and reboot.
I was even forced to use a small USB2 extension cord on my NESPi case just to keep the USB3 SATA adapter stable. (it makes the device work at USB2 speeds)

Better explained here:

It's not Pi specific, but the bad shielding on certain USB3 devices on a Pi can make it worse.