Issues with bluetooth.

[JustARandomGuy]

After downloading and installing Kubuntu 20.10 Groovy Gorilla, it seems I'm unable to connect to Bluetooth enabled devices. I'm a total A Newbie, so if I'm missing anything please tell me. Any commands in terminal I should run? Help much appreciated:

I am running a HP Stream 14 with 32GB and 2GB ram + AMD Radeon R3 graphics and AMD A4 Chipset.

Is bluetooth incompatible? Or has something gone wrong with the driver? Thanks in advance.

[claydoh]

Your specific bluetooth adapter may need a third party driver, or (slightly) possibly may not be Linux compatible.
First thing to try is going to System Settings and use the driver manager to see if it offers anything for your bluetooth adapter - often they are part of the wifi card.


If that does not show anything, lets see what you have, hardware-wise:
enter this command in a Konsole window:

lsusb

You will look for a line mentioning bluetooth:

claydoh@hp:~$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 1058:1140 Western Digital Technologies, Inc. My Book Essential (WDBACW)
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0764:0501 Cyber Power System, Inc. CP1500 AVR UPS
[COLOR=#ff0000][/COLOR][B]Bus 001 Device 004:[/B][COLOR=#ff0000][B] ID 0bda:b00a Realtek Semiconductor Corp. Bluetooth Radio [/B][/COLOR]
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0c45:7603 Microdia USB Keyboard
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

We can use that line to find out which card you have, which will help pinpoint what to do next.

[JustARandomGuy]

Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0a5c:216d Broadcom Corp. BCM43142A0 Bluetooth 4.0
That's what it says

[GreyGeek]

Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0a5c:216d Broadcom Corp. BCM43142A0 Bluetooth 4.0
That's what it says

Maybe:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install broadcom-sta-dkms

[JustARandomGuy]

Ok I'll try that

[JustARandomGuy]

No difference still, although the install was successful. Any thing else? By the way for more info on how it isn't working, it can't detect any nearby bluetooth devices although there are plenty

[JustARandomGuy]

Following a random search, I attempted to install blueman Bluetooth utility service. That didn't seem to work either

[claydoh]

A more directed search shows this device may be missing or have outdated firmware blobs;
This github page has the files needed, and instructions on how to find which one you need, and how to copy it to the correct location

While they do link to a deb file, you only need one specific file (from the bcrm folder) for your adapter, so it probably is just about as easy to copy it to the designated folder as to install the deb file.

[claydoh]

Following a random search, I attempted to install blueman Bluetooth utility service. That didn't seem to work either

blueman is just a different GUI for managing bt devices, it won't have any effect on missing drivers or firmware. In your case Broadcom, which often do not allow their proprietary firmware files to be included on Linux distros out of the box, and often require hurdles to jump through.

[chimak111]

I can't be sure which one of the following I needed to install some years ago:

b43-fwcutter/focal 1:019-4 amd64
utility for extracting Broadcom 43xx firmware

firmware-b43-installer/focal,focal 1:019-4 all
firmware installer for the b43 driver

[claydoh]

BCM43142A0 is as far as I can tell unrelated to the b43 fwcutter stuff: 43xxX the OP has vs the fairly old b43xx

[TWPonKubuntu]

I've had problems with the bdcm43142 chip also. You can see my signature for my hardware.

bdcm43142 is widely known for NOT being supported by Linux drivers.

I've not been able to get either the wireless chip or bluetooth to work on my system. Sorry for no help.

I had to install an external wireless adapter to reach the 'net. Nothing for bluetooth.

If someone has a magic wand, please tell us how to work with this chip set.

[GreyGeek]

The b43fwcutter is/was supposed to "cut" the firmware out of the B43xxx chip and install it as
/usr/lib/firmware/brcm/bcm43xx-0.fw
Then it would allow the installation of the bcm43xxx.ko module.
More recent binary blobs include

/usr/lib/firmware/brcm/bcm43xx_hdr-0.fw
/usr/lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac43143-sdio.bin
/usr/lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac43143.bin

IF the OP could identify the kernel module (somemod.ko) which was used to attempt to load the bt driver then he could do
modinfo somemod
and it will list any available "params" which he could play with to see if any provide any help.

[claydoh]

I linked to where to get the firmware for his specific device, which is NOT the older b43(xx), it has 5 digits, and is unrelated.
The link (now fixed, gosh darn it) offers a deb file, as well as instruction for determining which specific file is needed, if it is preferred to manually copy the specific firmware file to the correct dir. The individual firmwares are in the 'bcrm' folder on the github page.
Most of the useful tips for this specific hardware ID link to this page

The OP can either install the deb, or just copy the file to /lib/firmware/brcm. Very likely the file called BCM43142A0-0a5c-216d.hcd, though the commands to determine exactly which one are shown on the page.


Sorry, the forum's post editor seems to like mangling the bbcode for urls, for some reason. I think I finally cleaned out all the extra junk breaking it up.