bluetooth.service running, but bluetoothctl says "org.bluez.Error.NotReady"

Question

my raspberry pi 3 model B, running Arch, has an issue with bluetooth. First of all:

Bluetooth has worked flawlessly previously
pi-bluetooth from the AUR is up to date
bluez and bluez-utils are up to date
The system is up to date as well (just ran pacman -Syu)

Still, when I try to use the bluetooth interface, it doesn't work.

bluetoothctl (as root), when I run "scan on", tells me

Failed to start discovery: org.bluez.Error.NotReady

wminput can't find the bluetooth interface:

No Bluetooth interface found
unable to connect

"systemctl status bluetooth" has the following output:

● bluetooth.service - Bluetooth service
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: active (running) since Sat 2019-03-23 21:32:47 CET; 9min ago
     Docs: man:bluetoothd(8)
 Main PID: 2005 (bluetoothd)
   Status: "Running"
    Tasks: 1 (limit: 1404)
   CGroup: /system.slice/bluetooth.service
           └─2005 /usr/lib/bluetooth/bluetoothd

Mar 23 21:32:47 media.lan systemd[1]: Starting Bluetooth service...
Mar 23 21:32:47 media.lan bluetoothd[2005]: Bluetooth daemon 5.50
Mar 23 21:32:47 media.lan systemd[1]: Started Bluetooth service.
Mar 23 21:32:47 media.lan bluetoothd[2005]: Starting SDP server
Mar 23 21:32:47 media.lan bluetoothd[2005]: Bluetooth management interface 1.14 initialized

I am at my wits end here, everything seems to be fine, yet nothing works. What is going on here?

score 69 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 06 '19 at 11:08

69

I got the same problem. It turned that the @turf answer didn't work for me.

After I checked rfkill:

$ rfkill list
0: hci0: Bluetooth
        Soft blocked: yes
        Hard blocked: no
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no

I ran the command:

rfkill unblock all

And the Bluetooth worked again.

answered Nov 06 '19 at 11:08

Rafael Toledo

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Thanks a ton @Rafael, does anyone know how this kind of thing can happen? I don't think I did anything different except maybe a system update on Arch Linux – seveibar Jan 24 '21 at 16:42
Amazing! Thanks! – Miller Oct 09 '21 at 23:08
In my case, `rfkill` output all no's, but `bluetoothctl` indicated that the power was off – darw Nov 14 '21 at 09:26

score 68 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 07 '19 at 16:35

68

Okay, wow, turns out all I had to do was run

bluetoothctl power on

edited Apr 07 '19 at 16:35

Rui F Ribeiro

55,929
26
146
227

answered Mar 23 '19 at 20:51

turf

1,381
1
7
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score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 08 '22 at 22:19

5

In my case the solution was:

bluetoothctl power on

followed by

rfkill unblock all

hci0 was soft blocked.

answered Mar 08 '22 at 22:19

Thomas Arend

51
1
1

bluetooth.service running, but bluetoothctl says "org.bluez.Error.NotReady"

3 Answers3