Bluetooth keyboard and mouse frequently stops reconnecting

Question

Bluetooth keyboard and mouse frequently stops reconnecting. I see them trying to find the computer but they don't reconnect. Pressing connect manually from the bluetooth settings never works.

• This only happens with my bluetooth mouse and keyboard. My 2 types of bluetooth headphones reconnect just fine.
• It happens unpredictably and frequently (like once a day)
• I can't reproduce it by just turning off, on my mouse or keyboard or just suspending my laptop. But I can reproduce this by doing both.

To get them connected again I go to the Bluetooth settings and re-pair the devices. Removing the existing devices for them isn't actually necessary.

When this happens I checked hciconfig, it looks like my laptop's bluetooth device was in a pscan mode. So a fix mentioned in the following comment probably won't work for me. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/249448#yui_3_10_3_1_1586957376032_691

hciconfig
hci0:   Type: Primary  Bus: USB
  BD Address: 9C:B6:D0:D4:B2:52  ACL MTU: 1024:8  SCO MTU: 50:8
  UP RUNNING PSCAN
  RX bytes:2197035 acl:32474 sco:2270 events:215262 errors:0
  TX bytes:132474588 acl:214704 sco:1717 commands:365 errors:0

Probably not relevant but it's super weird that the device is both listed under Paired Devices as Nearby devices. {image}

Not sure if relevant but while pairing a couple of times, using other tools I notice the mac address of my mouse seems to change:

1. D8:2F:80:B9:15:8E
2. D8:2F:80:B9:15:8F
3. D8:2F:80:B9:15:90
4. D8:2F:80:B9:15:91

I also used bluetoothctl to trust and connect but that doesn't change anything. This is the info after successfully pairing.

Device D8:2F:80:B9:15:91 (random)
    Name: M720 Triathlon
    Alias: M720 Triathlon
    Appearance: 0x03c2
    Icon: input-mouse
    Paired: yes
    Trusted: yes
    Blocked: no
    Connected: yes
    LegacyPairing: no
    UUID: Generic Access Profile    (00001800-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
    UUID: Generic Attribute Profile (00001801-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
    UUID: Device Information        (0000180a-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
    UUID: Battery Service           (0000180f-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
    UUID: Human Interface Device    (00001812-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
    UUID: Vendor specific           (00010000-0000-1000-8000-011f2000046d)
    Modalias: usb:v046DpB015d0007
    RSSI: -67
    TxPower: 4

I tried reconnecting using bluetoothctl but it also fails.

~ bluetoothctl
Agent registered
[bluetooth]# devices
Device D8:2F:80:B9:15:91 M720 Triathlon
Device 20:9B:A5:82:E8:EC SoundBuds Slim
Device 20:9B:A5:91:46:58 SoundBuds Slim
Device 2C:41:A1:E8:2E:1F Bose QuietControl 30
[bluetooth]# connect D8:2F:80:B9:15:91
Attempting to connect to D8:2F:80:B9:15:91
[bluetooth]# connect D8:2F:80:B9:15:91
Attempting to connect to D8:2F:80:B9:15:91
Failed to connect: org.bluez.Error.Failed
Failed to connect: org.bluez.Error.Failed
[bluetooth]# connect D8:2F:80:B9:15:91
Attempting to connect to D8:2F:80:B9:15:91

I was thinking I would write a workaround script that would automatically remove and re-pair these devices, but the changing address makes that much harder.

Update: I have bluez version 5.50-0ubuntu0ppa1 from the ppa:bluetooth/bluez repository.

Answer 1

I think I solved this when I tried fixing another issue: my Bluetooth headphones kept connecting in low fidelity mode.

First a note, some tips adapt /etc/bluetooth/audio.conf, but since Ubuntu 16.04+ (elementary 0.4 Loki) you actually need to edit /etc/bluetooth/main.conf.

I changed /etc/bluetooth/main.conf to just contain:

[General]
Enable=Source,Sink,Media,Socket
AutoConnect=true

Following this advice: https://jabriffa.wordpress.com/2019/04/29/fixing-bluetooth-headset-playback-profile-on-ubuntu-18-04-lts/

I then noticed that sudo service bluetooth restart wasn't enough, I needed to restart.

Since I did that both my issues have been fixed.