Bluetooth Issues Sony VAIO / BCM43142

[jman-rice-cakes]

Short version: I am unable to get the Bluetooth in my SONY VAIO Laptop to work properly. It worked fine in Windows 10, but I decided I was tired of Windows 10 and took the plunge with Linux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon 64-bit. I am not new to linux, or hardware issues, I run a full time 24/7 home server that is based on Ubuntu Server 16.04 currently. But I have done some searching, tried a few things, and can't get it to work for the life of me -- so here I come!

Long version: Below I am going to give some of the computer specs, system messages and things I have tried. Sometimes the Bluetooth seems like it is 'working' but I can't see any devices, or do any pairing.

Laptop is a Sony VAIO. There are two model numbers, one that is on the OEM sticker which is SVF15AC1QL and another which is on the service tag sticker and reads SVF15A16CXB.

OS is Linux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon 64-bit, fresh install. All I have done is the available updates in Update Manager.

Kernel is 4.4.0-53-generic.

Next thing I did was go to Additional Drivers, and enable bcmwl-kernel-source version 6.30.223.248+bdcom-0ubuntu8 for BCM43142 802.11b/g/n. This allows me to use my wifi device for Internet (which oddly enough I was able to do on the Live CD, but not after install until I enabled it here.)

As far as I can tell, the wifi adapter and the bluetooth are related, and use the broadcom drivers. Anyway, here is what dmesg reports (though it varies, sometimes it doesn't show these messages at all):

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dmesg | grep -i bluetooth
[    3.227994] Bluetooth: Core ver 2.21
[    3.228006] Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized
[    3.228009] Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized
[    3.228012] Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized
[    3.228015] Bluetooth: SCO socket layer initialized
[    3.259583] Bluetooth: hci0: BCM: chip id 70
[    3.275710] Bluetooth: hci0: BCM43142A
[    3.275715] Bluetooth: hci0: BCM (001.001.011) build 0000
[    3.280474] bluetooth hci0: Direct firmware load for brcm/BCM.hcd failed with error -2
[    3.280479] Bluetooth: hci0: BCM: Patch brcm/BCM.hcd not found
[    5.284480] Bluetooth: hci0 command 0x1003 tx timeout
[    5.351295] Bluetooth: BNEP (Ethernet Emulation) ver 1.3
[    5.351298] Bluetooth: BNEP filters: protocol multicast
[    5.351302] Bluetooth: BNEP socket layer initialized
[   16.610722] Bluetooth: RFCOMM TTY layer initialized
[   16.610729] Bluetooth: RFCOMM socket layer initialized
[   16.610734] Bluetooth: RFCOMM ver 1.11
[ 2401.098821] Modules linked in: rfcomm bnep binfmt_misc microread_mei microread mei_phy crc_ccitt hci nfc snd_hda_codec_hdmi intel_rapl x86_pkg_temp_thermal wl(POE) intel_powerclamp coretemp kvm_intel btusb btrtl btbcm uvcvideo kvm snd_hda_codec_realtek btintel snd_hda_codec_generic bluetooth videobuf2_vmalloc videobuf2_memops videobuf2_v4l2 videobuf2_core v4l2_common irqbypass snd_hda_intel videodev crct10dif_pclmul snd_hda_codec crc32_pclmul media snd_hda_core ghash_clmulni_intel snd_hwdep aesni_intel snd_pcm hid_multitouch aes_x86_64 lrw gf128mul glue_helper ablk_helper snd_seq_midi cryptd snd_seq_midi_event snd_rawmidi snd_seq snd_seq_device input_leds snd_timer joydev serio_raw cfg80211 rtsx_pci_ms snd memstick mei_me lpc_ich mei soundcore shpchp sony_laptop mac_hid parport_pc ppdev lp parport
[ 2405.806576] Modules linked in: rfcomm bnep binfmt_misc microread_mei microread mei_phy crc_ccitt hci nfc snd_hda_codec_hdmi intel_rapl x86_pkg_temp_thermal wl(POE) intel_powerclamp coretemp kvm_intel btusb btrtl btbcm uvcvideo kvm snd_hda_codec_realtek btintel snd_hda_codec_generic bluetooth videobuf2_vmalloc videobuf2_memops videobuf2_v4l2 videobuf2_core v4l2_common irqbypass snd_hda_intel videodev crct10dif_pclmul snd_hda_codec crc32_pclmul media snd_hda_core ghash_clmulni_intel snd_hwdep aesni_intel snd_pcm hid_multitouch aes_x86_64 lrw gf128mul glue_helper ablk_helper snd_seq_midi cryptd snd_seq_midi_event snd_rawmidi snd_seq snd_seq_device input_leds snd_timer joydev serio_raw cfg80211 rtsx_pci_ms snd memstick mei_me lpc_ich mei soundcore shpchp sony_laptop mac_hid parport_pc ppdev lp parport
[ 2410.518249] Modules linked in: rfcomm bnep binfmt_misc microread_mei microread mei_phy crc_ccitt hci nfc snd_hda_codec_hdmi intel_rapl x86_pkg_temp_thermal wl(POE) intel_powerclamp coretemp kvm_intel btusb btrtl btbcm uvcvideo kvm snd_hda_codec_realtek btintel snd_hda_codec_generic bluetooth videobuf2_vmalloc videobuf2_memops videobuf2_v4l2 videobuf2_core v4l2_common irqbypass snd_hda_intel videodev crct10dif_pclmul snd_hda_codec crc32_pclmul media snd_hda_core ghash_clmulni_intel snd_hwdep aesni_intel snd_pcm hid_multitouch aes_x86_64 lrw gf128mul glue_helper ablk_helper snd_seq_midi cryptd snd_seq_midi_event snd_rawmidi snd_seq snd_seq_device input_leds snd_timer joydev serio_raw cfg80211 rtsx_pci_ms snd memstick mei_me lpc_ich mei soundcore shpchp sony_laptop mac_hid parport_pc ppdev lp parport

Default version of blueberry and gnome-bluetooth are installed. From my experience, when you open Bluetooth Manager (blueberry) you see the hostname of the computer and that it is looking for devices. Sometimes I just get the name of the computer, and no looking for devices, and sometimes instead of my hostname it says "Bastien's computer" which I have read some other people have seen before.

I have tried using hex2hcd and placing the resulting file BCM43142A0_001.001.011.0122.0128.hcd into /lib/firmware/brcm (Edit: I'd like to note that I found the .hex file by looking at the driver being used in Windows 10 under the Device Manager and looking for its associated files, I copied it over to an external hard drive before installing Linux Mint as I had done some reading about hardware issues with bluetooth and figured I might need it... I no longer have Windows 10 installed on the laptop!). No avail.

Edit: There is another .hex file that was present on my Windows 10 system, BCM43142A0_001.001.011.0277.0280.hex, that was in the system32 directory but not listed as being used by the Bluetooth driver in Device Manager. I haven't tried to use this file, maybe I will have time later this evening. I wanted to make a post here before doing so...

I also downloaded various version of drivers from other posts (BCM43142A0-0a5c-216c.hcd, BCM43142A0-0a5c-216d.hcd) and tried the same. No avail.

I noticed that the print out from dmesg gripes about the path of the firmware being \lib\firmware\brcm\BCM.hcd, so I tried renaming any of the above files to that path and no avail. When doing this, all the messages from bluetooth disappear from dmesg. Which is weird.

I know it isn't blocked by rfkill, as sudo rfkill list shows:

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0: sony-wifi: Wireless LAN
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no
1: sony-bluetooth: Bluetooth
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no
2: hci0: Bluetooth
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no
3: phy0: Wireless LAN
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no
4: brcmwl-0: Wireless LAN
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no
5: nfc0: NFC
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no

The bluetooth service is running, but has a lot of errors, most of which I don't understand but imagine are partially due to the driver not loading the firmware at boot (or after). From sudo systemctl status bluetooth

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● bluetooth.service - Bluetooth service
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Thu 2017-01-05 11:05:34 EST; 2h 17min ago
     Docs: man:bluetoothd(8)
 Main PID: 1422 (bluetoothd)
   Status: "Running"
   CGroup: /system.slice/bluetooth.service
           └─1422 /usr/lib/bluetooth/bluetoothd

Jan 05 11:05:34 JMint18NB bluetoothd[1422]: Not enough free handles to register service
Jan 05 11:05:34 JMint18NB bluetoothd[1422]: Not enough free handles to register service
Jan 05 11:05:34 JMint18NB bluetoothd[1422]: Current Time Service could not be registered
Jan 05 11:05:34 JMint18NB bluetoothd[1422]: gatt-time-server: Input/output error (5)
Jan 05 11:05:34 JMint18NB bluetoothd[1422]: Not enough free handles to register service
Jan 05 11:05:34 JMint18NB bluetoothd[1422]: Not enough free handles to register service
Jan 05 11:05:34 JMint18NB bluetoothd[1422]: Sap driver initialization failed.
Jan 05 11:05:34 JMint18NB bluetoothd[1422]: sap-server: Operation not permitted (1)
Jan 05 11:05:46 JMint18NB bluetoothd[1422]: Endpoint registered: sender=:1.39 path=/MediaEndpoint/A2DPSource
Jan 05 11:05:46 JMint18NB bluetoothd[1422]: Endpoint registered: sender=:1.39 path=/MediaEndpoint/A2DPSink

And here is a listing of the /lib/firmware/brcm - I have removed any files that were not there when I first began trouble shooting the problem.

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bcm4329-fullmac-4.bin   brcmfmac43241b0-sdio.bin  brcmfmac43340-sdio.bin  brcmfmac4350c2-pcie.bin  brcmfmac43602-pcie.ap.bin
bcm43xx-0.fw            brcmfmac43241b4-sdio.bin  brcmfmac4334-sdio.bin   brcmfmac4350-pcie.bin    brcmfmac43602-pcie.bin
bcm43xx_hdr-0.fw        brcmfmac43241b5-sdio.bin  brcmfmac4335-sdio.bin   brcmfmac4354-sdio.bin    brcmfmac4366b-pcie.bin
brcmfmac43143.bin       brcmfmac43242a.bin        brcmfmac43362-sdio.bin  brcmfmac43569.bin        brcmfmac4371-pcie.bin
brcmfmac43143-sdio.bin  brcmfmac4329-sdio.bin     brcmfmac4339-sdio.bin   brcmfmac4356-pcie.bin
brcmfmac43236b.bin      brcmfmac4330-sdio.bin     brcmfmac43455-sdio.bin  brcmfmac43570-pcie.bin

I have been working on this problem for almost a week. Not sure what else to do at this point. Some playing with sudo bluetoothctl shows that sometimes the bluetooth controller is present, and sometimes it cannot be found. I am not sure at this point what else to do, so any help is appreciated!

As I side note, I have been wondering what the dmesg is talking about when it says BCM: Patch brcm/BCM.hcd not found, after it has already tried to load the same HCD as direct firmware load. Maybe its trying again?

Also, I wonder if any of this is related to the wifi driver I am choosing to use, and whether I should try the b34-firmware-installer (or the legacy version) instead.

Any thoughts? Advice? Help? I have no more ideas. Thanks for looking sorry for the long post

[JeWu]

Same here with Logitech BT Mouse M535.

The bluez developer team seems to ignore the issue for years, considering the vast amount of unsolved forums submissions I found during my web searches.