Can't direct audio to connect BT devices

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1

Setup: OpenSUSE Tumbleweed (updated today) on Dell XPS13

Problem: Audio output selection doesn’t show connected Bluetooth devices. I can pair Bluetooth devices and disconnect/reconnect easily but then they don’t appear in KDE media controls as an output device so I can’t direct audio output to them.

Bluetooth devices that I’ve tried: Bose SoundSport buds and Huawei Freebuds Pro 3. Same problem.

Both these headphones work with my phone and my Chromebook.

Also I’ve:

  • Restarted laptop.

  • Applied all Tumbleweed updates.

  • Reset devices and cleared BT pairings.

I’ve run out of ideas now.

Any audio or Bluetooth gurus around?

Thanks for any help.

2

I’m not an audio or BT guru.

On my Dell Inspiron 3020, I had that problem. I found that I could get it working with:

systemctl restart bluetooth

(that needs to be run as root). Maybe restarting pipewire is sufficient, and does not require root.

I’m using KDE, and I have it start from a saved session. At one time, I resaved my session while I was using BT audio. And I have not need to restart the service since then.

3

Thanks for the suggestions.
I tried these, just in case, but wasn’t hopeful as I’ve rebooted a few times trying different things.
They made no difference.

4

Just a guess: TW 20240201 updated pipewire to version 1.0.2, but on the same day there was also the upstream bugfix release of 1.0.3

Maybe you’re hitting a bug with the 1.0.2 version? I don’t know the dependencies but could bluetooth depend on the ALSA driver provided by pipewire for example?