Version: 2.4.4-1

Severity: serious

Tags: forky, sid, trixie


Bug Description:


With Debian 13 Trixie, I can no longer pair my headphones Sony MX 1000 M3. All my Debian machines are affected by this problem which did not exist under Debian 12.


Blueman sees my headset, when I try to connect to it, it creates the connection, then tells me it's paired, then disconnects half a second later.


Normally in graphical mode, on the right side of the "blueman-manager v2.4.4" window, there are 3 colored indicators, the first one which is gray seems to display the battery status, the second and third are orange and blue and seem to represent TX/RX.


On Blueman with my headphones Sony MX 1000 M3 there are only two colored indicators, orange and blue. Gray is missing.


When I click on the headset icon again in "blueman-manager", it shows me an error message :



Connection Failed: No audio endpoints registered



The problem is also present if I try to connect in text mode via bluetoothctl.

 I have the exact same problem of unable to connect if I try to connect to another audio bluetooth device, like bluetooth speakers.


This makes me think of a missing module or a bug, but I don't know how to investigate further.


My laptop doesn't have a 3,5 mm audio jack, so I have to use a Bluetooth connection for audio. This situation is extremely embarrassing for me.

I also wanted to clarify that my Bluetooth mouse has absolutely no problems connecting to my laptop.

Strangely this problem is only present under Cinanmon, everything works fine from Gnome.



Thank you to correct this as soon as possible.


Best regards.


Philippe

Hi,

the error indicates that there is no handler for Bluetooth audio
devices. The package recommends pulseaudio-module-bluetooth or
libspa-0.2-bluetooth as the relevant modules for the respective sound
server.

Regards

Hello Christopher,

Thank you very much for your message.

Surprisingly pulseaudio-module-bluetooth is already installed (see attachments). Could it be bugged ?

My system uses pulse-audio by default. Will I have any conflicts if I install libspa-0.2-bluetooth in addition ? I'm a little scared of it...

If I install Debian with both Gnome and Cinnamon desktops together, it works under Gnome but pairing remains impossible under Cinnamon. So I have the feeling that it is the Cinnamon tool blueman that is at fault... but maybe I am wrong ?

Regards.

Philippe

On cinnamon packages was switched to have pipewire as default, gnome do
it before.

Checking my latest Sid installation with cinnamon there are both
pipewire and pulseaudio installed by default (not good), but pipewire is
running and pulseaudio not, so should be ok, unless some program checks
properly and tries to use the inactive one, I have not verified the
blueman code.

 From the test I did some time ago (I don't remember when) it only
installed pipewire correctly, I suppose something has changed which now
makes pulseaudio prevail as the first choice of blueman by installing
that one too.

I don't have bluetooth audio device to do test.

For major of case pipewire and pipewire-pulse are more than fine FWIK,
cases where pulseaudio is really needed should remove pipewire or at
least make sure pulseaudio is really working.

@phamiet: start to check what is really active (normaly must be only one):

systemctl --user status pipewire

systemctl --user status pulseaudio

About check what blueman try to use and if try to use the one not active
I don't know how to check.


@Christopher Schramm: now that pipewire seems the default of major of
cases (if I'm not wrong) probably is good to consider reversing the
priority in the recommended, what do you think? (I mean
pulseaudio-module-bluetooth | libspa-0.2-bluetooth ->
libspa-0.2-bluetooth | pulseaudio-module-bluetooth)


I tried a very fast check (not sure if complete) in cinnamon related
packages:

- cinnamon: libcanberra-pulse (recommends) that have dep. pipewire-pulse
| pulseaudio

- cinnamon-settings-daemon: recommends pipewire-pulse | pulseaudio

and out of blueman (that is recommend in cinnamon) install pipewire as
default but also allows the installation of pulseaudio (for users who
need it) via the alternative.

I don't know if it's just blueman or something else that causes
pulseaudio to install, have recommends pulseaudio-module-bluetooth
| libspa-0.2-bluetooth, pulseaudio-module-bluetooth have dep. pulseaudio

I saw that gnome-core have dep. pipewire-audio with no alternative so
force to pipewire and I'm not sure is good the same also in cinnamon
that can still support also pulseaudio and few users want to use pulseaudio.

 From a fast look gnome don't have dep. or recommends that can install
pulseaudio unlike cinnamon which at least has blueman.

As a possible workaround in cinnamon I can think of adding as recommend
libspa-0.2-bluetooth | pulseaudio-module-bluetooth but don't seems optimal.

Hello, here are the requested results.


Please note that I also experience this problem with Creative Pebble V3 Bluetooth speakers.

Regards.


systemctl --user status pipewire :


xxx@station:~$ systemctl --user status pipewire
● pipewire.service - PipeWire Multimedia Service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pipewire.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Sun 2025-11-09 12:34:01 CET; 4h 49min ago
 Invocation: a66de08175964fdfb62ac21611fb223c
TriggeredBy: ● pipewire.socket
   Main PID: 1952 (pipewire)
      Tasks: 3 (limit: 38148)
     Memory: 8.6M (peak: 11.5M)
        CPU: 5.725s
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/session.slice/pipewire.service
             └─1952 /usr/bin/pipewire

nov 09 12:34:01 station systemd[1928]: Started pipewire.service - PipeWire Multimedia Service.



systemctl --user status pulseaudio :

xxx@station:~$ systemctl --user status pulseaudio
○ pulseaudio.service - Sound Service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pulseaudio.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: inactive (dead)
TriggeredBy: ○ pulseaudio.socket

The problem is still persistent and extremely problematic for me.

Affected tested hardware :

  - Sony MX 1000 M3
  - Creative Pebble V3
  - Audio-Technica ATH-AL5NC

If you could fix this before the release of Debian 14, that would be great for me.

Please note that this is a recurring bug that was already present in Debian 11 + Cinnamon, but not in Debian 12 + Cinnamon.

Again, Debian + GNOME is not affected by this issue.

Cinnamon doesn’t seem mature enough to me. I’m at a stage where I’m hesitating about upgrading to Gnome or KDE, as Cinnamon is too capricious in production ;-(

Although we ask Clem to ensure that everything works in Debian so that it is safe not to have any problems later on LMDE and Mint 2x.x, unfortunately Cinnamon under Debian continues to be sorely lacking in human resources and means. The bugs persist and are later present in Linux Mint.

LMDE is also affected by the same BT problem...

Best regards.

Hi,

As a workaround I didn't want to force PipeWire only in Cinnamon by
adding a dependency on it. In the past some users had problems with
PipeWire and needed PulseAudio. Most of those problems are probably
solved now, but some users may still need the real PulseAudio (not
PipeWire's compatibility layer).

I still think that swapping the order of the alternatives in blueman's
Recommends (libspa-0.2-bluetooth | pulseaudio-module-bluetooth) would be
a good fix, but I'm not the blueman maintainer.

I'm now checking whether something changed in the audio packages that
could let me workaround the problem on the Cinnamon side, without
preventing users from choosing PulseAudio. I may have found something,
but I still need to verify it.

In the meantime, installing pipewire-audio (`sudo apt install
pipewire-audio`, then log out and back in) should fix it: it pulls in
libspa-0.2-bluetooth and removes pulseaudio and
pulseaudio-module-bluetooth, which are installed but not running on your
system.

Regards,
Fabio

Hello Fabio,

Thank you for your message.

Unfortunately, your workaround is failing ( 'sudo apt install pipewire-audio' ).

I can pair my headphones, but after that the connection is cut and it is no longer possible to use them (see screenshot).

The problem is the same as with Pulse-Audio...

Best regards.

Philippe

Hi Philippe,

yesterday I tried what I had in mind, but testing the various
combinations it only partly solved the problem in Debian 13, and even
less in testing/unstable. So I did more tests and made a different
change, which seems to work around the problem in the various cases:
cinnamon will recommends libspa-0.2-bluetooth (the PipeWire Bluetooth
plugin) directly.

Unfortunately, from what you describe (the headphones pair, but then the
connection is refused with "br-connection-refused", even with the
PipeWire Bluetooth plugin installed), you may be hitting a different
bug, which can't be solved by simply installing a package. I don't have
Bluetooth headphones to reproduce the problem and debug it, so guiding
you through the debugging could be complicated or long.

Another bug came to mind, and I don't know whether it could be related:
https://bugs.debian.org/1126547 (an assertion failure in
cinnamon-desktop's volume control library when a Bluetooth headset
connects with PipeWire). It's fixed upstream, but even if it looks
relevant, the changes are significant, so I'd rather wait for Cinnamon
6.8 than spend a lot of time backporting and adapting that and other
commits, and testing them, not to mention that I don't have the devices
needed for complete manual tests.

Regards,
Fabio

Hello Fabio,

I understand you perfectly.

Let’s keep this bug aside and deal with it later...

The bug you linked to me is strange.

I also use a Sony WH-1000XM3 headset and it works perfectly under Gnome.

My workaround is to first install Gnome and then add the post-install Cinnamon layer so that the audio BT works on my machines on Debian 13.

Best regards.

Philippe

If Debian + Cinnamon fails, Debian + GNOME works, and Debian + GNOME + Cinnamon also works, then Cinnamon is not the cause per se.

After analyzing the differences between the packages in a Gnome + Cinnamon installation (functional) and those from Cinnamon alone (non-functional), the following two files were selected for installation :

apt install bluetooth power-profiles-daemon

After restarting and pairing, the audio connection via BT is stable and working !!!

The two files are required to operate in either "hands-free" or "high fidelity" mode, as desired. If we remove one of the two modules, we’ll only be in hands-free mode...

It seems that the maintainers of Linux Mint neglected this point, because this failure is also present in LMDE 7. Maybe Mint 22.x is also affected, I haven’t tested... I hope that this will be part of their procedures in the future.

There is a sound quality issue with the audio codec in SBC-XQ, we hear crackles, it looks like there are micro cuts. SBC work fine.

I was able to activate LDAC, everything works :)

Bug Solved

Bug Solved