I thought: maybe the kernel finds the device, does not know how to handle it and then disconnect it. So, I decided to try to load the btusb and ath3k kernel modules earlier, right at boot time, using initramfs. I followed the instructions here:
Booting a Linux System | Reference | openSUSE Leap 42.2
echo ‘force_drivers+=“ath3k btusb”’ > /etc/dracut.conf.d/01-bluetooth.conf
dracut -f
reboot
Indeed, something has changed, new messages appeared in dmesg:
# dmesg | egrep 'ath|wifi|hal'
5.309618] device-mapper: multipath: version 1.11.0 loaded
** 6.311336] ath3k: probe of 1-5:1.0 failed with error -2**
6.311352] usbcore: registered new interface driver ath3k
19.969812] ath: phy0: WB335 2-ANT card detected
19.969814] ath: phy0: Set BT/WLAN RX diversity capability
19.976484] ath: phy0: Enable LNA combining
19.977581] ath: phy0: ASPM enabled: 0x42
19.977582] ath: EEPROM regdomain: 0x6c
19.977582] ath: EEPROM indicates we should expect a direct regpair map
19.977583] ath: Country alpha2 being used: 00
19.977584] ath: Regpair used: 0x6c
# dmesg | egrep -i 'bluetooth|firm'
0.206528] [Firmware Bug]: ACPI: BIOS _OSI(Linux) query ignored
6.309932] Bluetooth: Core ver 2.21
6.309947] Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized
6.309950] Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized
6.309952] Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized
6.309959] Bluetooth: SCO socket layer initialized
** 6.311331] usb 1-5: Direct firmware load for ar3k/AthrBT_0x31010100.dfu failed with error -2**
** 6.311332] Bluetooth: Patch file not found ar3k/AthrBT_0x31010100.dfu**
** 6.311333] Bluetooth: Loading patch file failed**
84.128995] Bluetooth: BNEP (Ethernet Emulation) ver 1.3
84.128997] Bluetooth: BNEP filters: protocol multicast
84.129002] Bluetooth: BNEP socket layer initialized
# uname -a
Linux viny-notebook **4.4.70**-18.9-default #1 SMP Wed May 31 09:09:25 UTC 2017 (c1231a7) x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
That is kernel 4.4.70 from the openSUSE Leap 42.2 Update repo, I’m going to try kernel 4.11.4 from the Kernel:stable OBS repo.