[SOLVED] Jam bluetooth speaker setup almot there but not

[woodsmoke]

Hi

EDIT: EDIT: EDIT

PLEASE READ BELOW IN BUBBLE FOR HOW I got things to work.

The situation settled out in that what I have as my main machine is a much updated, upgraded Kubu that goes back Saucy.

And, I think that the situation is one of just piling stuff on top of stuff, and here is the reason why:

I finally just downloaded a clean version of 14.04, the latest version:

It immediately recognized the usb bluetooth dongle, bluetooth found the Jam speaker and assigned it to a "headset".

I went to "multimedia" in settings and it had found the speaker, and had it "below" the onboard sound as a "greyed" icon and name.

There are bottons at the bottom which are NOT in my longlasting, much upgraded and fiddled with Kubuntu that are: "prefer" and "defer".

I defered the onboard and prefered the speaker, did a test and voila! worked!

So...........if one is running the absolute latest version of Kubu, 14.04 in this case of this date bluetooth works and finds the speaker.

Here is a listing of what is enabled in the repos:

for bluetooth

bluez this is 4.101-Oubuntu13
libbluedevil
libbluetooth3
bluez-alsa
bluez-cups

for Pulseaudio

pulseaudio-module-bluetooth
libasound2-plugins
libcanberra-pulse
libgsm1
pulseaudio-utils
libpulse0
libpulse-mainloop-glib0
libpulsedsp
pulseaudio-module-x11
gstreamer1-0-pulsaudio
pulseaudio this is 1:4.0-0ubuntu11
gstreamer0-10-pulsaudio
liba04
liba0-common

For folks for whom this is not on the radar the "Jam" bluetooth speaker, and others of it's ilk, are going to be the "next big thing", and may already be the next big thing.

And the MAIN reason for that, I think is that the thing is both "cute" and "cool looking" and "easy to carry" etc. It is already very popular and I thing going to be much more so.



Anyhooo....these were introduced at WallyWorld and blew out of the place for ten bucks. I saw them last week at my cellphone place for 69 bucks and then at Sears for 29 bucks and bought one.

Bluetooth and it works automagically with my cellphone.

It also worked automagically, with a manual paring, using my MyEebo tablet.

PREVIOUS POST TEXT DELETED because of irrelevance by woodsmoke

[claydoh]

yes it does use a pin, if necessary. Try removing the device from KDE, and re-add. When prompted for a PIN, enter '0000'
You might have to manually put it into pairing mode if it doesn't get there automatically.

Depending on your device you may be prompted to enter a pairing code. If prompted enter “0000” as
the code.
Press and hold the PLAY/PAUSE button for 5 seconds to activate pairing mode

http://www.jamaudio.com/media/docume...P230_EN_IB.pdf

[woodsmoke]

The below text concerns working within a slightly borked 14.04 install.

Hi Claydoh

Sorry, I should have stated that yes, I did enter 0000 but still no go.

I have not tried "removing it" from KDE so will do that.

thanks for the suggestion

woodsmoke

[claydoh]

Also, try putting the speaker in "pair mode" after removing it from KDE and trying to re-pair.

[woodsmoke]

The below text concerns working within a slightly borked 14.04 kubu install

Hi Claydoh

Thanks for the suggestion but I've done all that.

The device does not have any real way to "do" anything with it...it is just supposed to do it...there is no way to "set pair mode".

Also, I found on the net that one can "reset" the device and it will pair with an Ipad, the post mentioned the "pin in the hole", which is not there now, one long presses the "run" button to reset, but that did not work.

There are several things in settings about "Blue Devil" now that were not there before I added the Bluez stuff and it tried valiently but no go.

The problem seems to be that the software "is not quite there yet" for this particular type of device.

It will "add" and "connect" as a "telephone", one enters the 0000 and after a few restarts it will pair that way, and ....eventually after resets, removals, etc. when I got only:

"Device added succesfully but failed to connect".

The right click on the KDE symbol sometimes shows that it is connected as a telephone and as a "music sink"...but then after a while those go away also.

But, even when it shows as "added" and "connected" the music does not work.

FOR GRINS AND GIGGLES...

I tried right clicking and opening with, it did not show Amarok, but it did show VLC, and I tried opening with that, thinking that maybe it was something in "Pulseaudio" or whatever the particular player was using, as a back end, but again. no.

This is probably something that will be fixed in a relatively short while.......>I NORMALLY wait a couple of YEARS before trying out equipment", so oh well..

hey thanks for the suggestions.

NOTE: in the fora I checked all of the fora said that it will connect with an Iphone, Android, etc. so ....commercial drivers... ( sigh )

AGAIN...if anyone has suggestions, including Claydoh I'll try them!!

woodsmoke

[woodsmoke]

the below text concerns working within a slightly borked up 14.04 kubu instal.

Working in the "Bluedevil" app it presented a symbol for the Jam speaker as a "headset"., but didn't do anything that had not already been done.

I then removed the usb dongle, a Kensington 2.0 and THEN restarted the computer, with the Jam still in bluetooth mode.

After the restart I then re-inserted the dongle and clicked in the KDE workspace Bluetooth app to connect as a music sink and it so did,..........and it has stayed.

However still no music is forthcoming.

QUESTION.... I'm sure that folks remember the situation with putting a headset into some laptops a couple of years ago.

Kubuntu, and other distros, would put the sound of music through,...( just realized what I typed! :0 ) and the onboard speakers worked, but then insert a headset in the headset plug and it wouldn't put sound into the headset.

Wonder if there is a CLI thing that was used for "laptop/headset" sound that would somehow apply here

Maybe changing the kind of "sound system"..? or would that bork the system for not much benefit?

woodsmoke

[claydoh]

And it could be a hardware thing, not necessarily related to the OS - the dongle or the speaker. I have 4 bluetooth devices, that all work fine on my PC - except one (a phone earpiece), and all work fine on my phone - except one (my Logitech H800 needs to be re-paired every so often). My generic, no-name 10-bucks on Amazon jam-like speaker works wonderfully, as do my 13 dollar Ebay behind-the neck earbuds. So don't just assume it is the OS/software

[woodsmoke]

EDIT:

The below text should be considered to be about a slightly borked 14.04 install.

LOL Was not assuming that old friend! lol

But, it may be, also...the software.... Looking at the following pages, there is a "bluez5" in experimental which ....may do the job, however, even after setting the exprimental repo

https://packages.debian.org/experime...bluez/download

I could not get it to insall, the install button was grey and it said that there is an older version in the channels...

Here is the original reference from the Arch wiki:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...not_play_sound

ALSA, bluez5, and PulseAudio work together to allow a wireless Bluetooth headset to play audio. The following method works with a Lenovo T61p laptop and SoundBot SB220 wireless bluetooth headset. The required software stack is extensive and failure to include all components can produce errors which are difficult to understand. The following list of software packages might not be the minimum required set and needs to be examined more closely.

Bluez5 has a regression causing HSP/HFP Telephone profile to not be available. This regression is documented in the draft release notes for Pulseaudio 5.0 which say (in "Notes for packagers"): "PulseAudio now supports BlueZ 5, but only the A2DP profile. BlueZ 4 is still the only way to make HSP/HFP work."

But....I have 30 days to return it to Sears, and maybe get the one you mentioned.............but...............is it a cool electric blue! ? Geekymindsgottaknow! LOL

woodthegeeksmoke

[woodsmoke]

Well, I am a KDE fan always will be so I'm not going off the farm, but ....

I have an old Toshiba Lappy upon which I installed Ubu with Unity so that my lab assistant, a very perspicacious young lady could try out Unity...

So, just for grins and giggles, since the lappy has never even heard of bluetooth....

I put the Jam speaker a couple of feet away and plugged in the Kingston USB bluetooth dongle.

Ummmmm

Unity popped the Bluetooth icon in the panel, I clicked it, and....clicked settings and a window popped with "seen" off I clicked it and bluetooth was "on".

Then a larger set of options appeared under bluetooth and I searched for devices, within a second it found the complex number/semicolon sequence for the Jam speaker and then within a scond the name appeared.

I started a song on VLC and it was going through the onboard speakers.

I went to settings / sound and was presented with...

Built in Audio Analog Stereo
Jam Classic

I clicked Jam Classic and.... it just woiked!

Nowww it was loud.... and I had to go back to settings / sound and drag the slider for "output volume" waaay far to the left... lol

so...just sayin... with all the complaints about Unity....

woodsmoke

[claydoh]

Hmm makes me remember something I didn't think to suggest trying on the KDE side:

If the speaker is paired and connected but you are not hearing sound, click the kmix icon to bring up the mixer. There should be an entry for whichever thing is playing audio, like amarok or chrome or whatever. Right clink click somewhere on that area and select "move". From there you can send the output stream to whichever device you choose.

[woodsmoke]

well I'm upgrading right now but will so do!

woodtryingsmoke

[woodsmoke]

This thread can be marked solved, in that the fix is to have a fully functioning Kubuntu 14.04 whereas I had a continually upgraded one from back in Saucy.

NOW given........yes............it "should" have worked "anyway", but I am continually experimenting with an install and have installed, uninstalled, you name it probably fifty apps, including all of the audio players going all the way back to xmms2 on the sytsem, and I am sure that what happened was that since I had a lot of apps on the system that were installed from backports, and off the wall repos, that was the problem.

I have posted in the ORIGINAL POST what happened with a clean install of 14.04, the Kensington usb dongle, and the Jam speaker.

ALSO I have typed off all of the stuff from the repo that seem to be involved, that is pulse audio and also bluez(bluetooth)\

As a note I can remember when bluez first showed up on the Linux horizon.......... the app has gone a long way in its development and the devs are to be congratulated on good work!

woodsmoke