bluetooth works in live environment but not after installation

[elijathegold]

OK, just skip ahead to #3.

[cadvanlei]

installed intel-microcode but it made no difference...bluetooth still shows "no adapters available"...
i've got the feeling you're on the right path, though. it's got to do with the firmware.

[Snowhog]

Take a look at InstallingDebianOn/Asus/UX301LA - Bluetooth. Yes, it address installing Debian on your Asus Zenbook, but it addresses the exact same issue you are having; bluetooth not working after installation/updates. I think it might resolve your issue.

[cadvanlei]

excellent! thanks! will try it later or tomorrow and report on it.

[elijathegold]

Take a look at InstallingDebianOn/Asus/UX301LA - Bluetooth. Yes, it address installing Debian on your Asus Zenbook, but it addresses the exact same issue you are having; bluetooth not working after installation/updates. I think it might resolve your issue.

Well, I'd not have thought of that in a month of Sundays

[cadvanlei]

OK, I'm trying to make sense of InstallingDebianOn/Asus/UX301LA - Bluetooth. Please be patient with me:

1) how can I make sure I have firmware-iwlwifi installed?
2) if it isn't installed, how can I install it? I tried (as on the same doc)

~$ sudo apt-get -t wheezy-backports install firmware-iwlwifi
[sudo] password for weword:
Reading package lists... Done
E: The value 'wheezy-backports' is invalid for APT:efault-Release as such a release is not available in the sources

3) supposing that firmware-iwlwifi is installed, the rfkill procedure didn't produce any result, except for a tiny difference:

Application Launcher>Bluetooth>Devices>Bluetooth is disabled (no device found)>Fix it>no Bluetooth adapters have been found.

the tiny difference being that previously it just showed "no Bluetooth adapters have been found".

is there some hope it might work?

[wizard10000]

OK, I'm trying to make sense of InstallingDebianOn/Asus/UX301LA - Bluetooth. Please be patient with me:

1) how can I make sure I have firmware-iwlwifi installed?
2) if it isn't installed, how can I install it? I tried (as on the same doc)

Simple. From inside a terminal, do this:

sudo apt install firmware-iwlwifi

If iwlwifi is installed apt will throw an error message - if it's not installed, apt will install it

If it was not installed, either install the module like this:

sudo modprobe iwlwifi

or just reboot the machine.

Hope this helps -

edit: I have a question. Does wi-fi work on your laptop?

[cadvanlei]

thanks for your suggestion. Sorry I forgot to say that I tried

~$ sudo apt install firmware-iwlwifi
[sudo] password for weword:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package firmware-iwlwifi

and wasn't sure if this shows it's installed - to me it looks like the firmware can't be downloaded (?). and if I run

~$ sudo modprobe iwlwifi
xxxxxx@UX301:~$

wonder if there's a command that can show if the firmware is or isn't there?

[wizard10000]

thanks for your suggestion. Sorry I forgot to say that I tried

~$ sudo apt install firmware-iwlwifi
[sudo] password for weword:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package firmware-iwlwifi

and wasn't sure if this shows it's installed - to me it looks like the firmware can't be downloaded (?). and if I run

~$ sudo modprobe iwlwifi
xxxxxx@UX301:~$

wonder if there's a command that can show if the firmware is or isn't there?

Yeah, my bad. Debian and Kubuntu don't use the same package name for Intel firmware. In Debian it's called firmware-iwlwifi and in Kubuntu it's linux-firmware, which is already installed.

dmesg says that iwlwifi is loading, at least from the live CD. Check this out -

[ 4.224351] iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: loaded firmware version 16.242414.0 op_mode iwlmvm

So the firmware is loading. If you want to know for sure, do this:

lsmod | grep iwlwifi

One other point in the Debian readme that we've skipped is hard-blocking asus-bluetooth, which may be the reason why a live CD works and your installation doesn't; going back to the Debian readme, it says

Firmware is loaded on Jessie provided you have the firmware-iwlwifi package installed (located in non-free). If bluetooth still does not work, as a workaround it maybe necessary to block asus-bluetooth with rfkill. For example:

So - iwlwifi is most likely loading just fine. Next thing to do would be to rfkill asus-bluetooth and see if bluetooth comes up.

[cadvanlei]

hmm...not sure I get what you're saying, sorry...here's what I did (following the Debian readme:

~$ sudo rfkill list all
[sudo] password for xxxxx:
1: asus-wlan: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
2: asus-bluetooth: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
3: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
xxxxx@UX301:~$ sudo rfkill block 2
xxxxx@UX301:~$ sudo rfkill list all
1: asus-wlan: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
2: asus-bluetooth: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: no
3: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
13: hci0: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no

I skipped the last command sudo rfkill unblock 13 because hci0 doesn't appear to be blocked...I'm kinda lost here. The result is the same:


Application Launcher>Bluetooth>Devices>Bluetooth is disabled (no device found)>Fix it>no Bluetooth adapters have been found

[wizard10000]

What probably needs to happen here is

sudo rfkill block 2

The readme says that it's most likely asus-bluetooth that's preventing connections, so we don't want to unblock hci0, we want to block asus-bluetooth. Note that the number 2 came from your rfkill output.

[cadvanlei]

If I understood correctly, I should be completely blocking asus-bluetooth (?).

if I run

sudo rfkill block 2

I don't hard-block Bluetooth:

2: asus-bluetooth: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: no

how do i do that? (if I'm on the right track in the first place

[wizard10000]

Hard blocking requres flipping a hardware switch and I'm pretty sure you don't have one for bluetooth

Soft blocking is when things are blocked in software and I'm pretty sure that's the only way you can block asus-bluetooth. For example if you wanted to soft block wireless you'd use rfkill to block it - if you wanted to hard block wireless you'd turn off the hardware wi-fi switch on your laptop.

[cadvanlei]

you're right, i can't see any switch. So can we conclude that blocking asus-bluetooth doesn't solve the issue? Bluetooth is still pretty much dead...well, except for that sign of life it briefly gives when it asks to be enabled (please see post above).

[wizard10000]

you're right, i can't see any switch. So can we conclude that blocking asus-bluetooth doesn't solve the issue? Bluetooth is still pretty much dead...well, except for that sign of life it briefly gives when it asks to be enabled (please see post above).

So if you soft block it bluetooth still doesn't work?