[4.0.1.48] No sound in BT headset after upgrade to Koli

REPRODUCIBILITY (% or how often): 100%
BUILD ID = OS VERSION (Settings > About product): Sailfish OS 4.0.1.48 (Koli)
HARDWARE (XA2, Xperia 10…): Jolla C
UI LANGUAGE: Russian
REGRESSION: (compared to previous public release: Yes, No, ?): Yes

DESCRIPTION:

After the upgrade to SFOS 4.0.1.48 (Koli) my phone (Jolla C) lost the ability to play sound via Sennheiser PCX550 bt headset. The headset itself is almost new and works well. It has been paired with the phone and connects reliably. I can hear its service voice messages like “Heaset is On”, “Phone 1 is connected”, etc.

HOWEVER, all sound that should be played from the phone is mute. The phone’s speaker is silent too. The volume at both the phone and the PXC550 is set to maximum. This same headset was tested and worked perfectly with the same phone under SFOS 3.

The Settings/Bluetooth page says (back translation):

Device Name: PCX 550
Type: Headset
Supported profiles: HSP, A2DP, AVRCP, HFP, DID, GATT
Low power services: BAS 

I have mpris-proxy installed.

PRECONDITIONS:

SFOS 4.0 Koli, Sennheiser PXC 550

STEPS TO REPRODUCE:

  1. Turn on bluetooth, wait until the headset connects to the SFOS phone.
  2. Try to play any music or IP radio.

EXPECTED RESULT:

Music is heard from the headphones.

ACTUAL RESULT:

Nothing can be heard.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Another (sound-wise lower class) BT headset “JBL Everest Elite 150NC” works and plays audio even after the upgrade to SFOS 4. Here is its device info.

Device Name: JBL Everest Elite 150NC
Type: Headset
Supported profiles: SPP, A2DP, AVRCP, HFP, DID

Links to info about both headsets:


https://jbl.com/EVEREST+ELITE+150NC.html
The PXC550 still works AND PLAYS audio with a Jolla1 running SFOS 3.4.0.24 .

This regression remained in Kvarken as well. Please, fix!

Jolla is being deaf and dumb to bugreports, even regressions :spider: :sob: :spider: :rage: :spider: :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

But it seems that I have found a temporary solution. :nerd_face:

  1. Sennheiser PCX550 is an advanced BT headset that supports multiple A2DP codecs. The working simpler JBL headset only supports the basic SBC codec.
  2. In order to use AptX, LDAC, AAC etc. SailfishOS needs to have bluez5 and pulseaudio-15.x Source
  3. pkcon search pulseaudio tells that even the current SFOS 4.3 provides only the outdated pulseaudio (pulseaudio-14.2+git4-1.7.1.jolla.armv7hl (installed)) ! So, no hifi sound for sailors :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:
  4. I supposed that when bluez5 establishes connection, the PXC550 expects AptX, but gets smth else or nothing… So, I tried to force SBC codec and it worked.

Go to

/etc/pulse/default.pa

and add the following line to the end

load-module module-bluetooth-discover a2dp_config=“sbc_cmode=dual sbc_min_bp=53 sbc_max_bp=53 sbc_freq=44k”

Restart pulseaudio as user (pulseaudio -k) or simply reboot the phone. reconnect the nicer headset and enjoy 1/2 of it’s sonic capabilities.

Oh, come on!
Pulseaudio 15 is just over 2 months old, and 14.2 is from this year.

That’s true, but, this bug is over 6 month old and no one seemd to even notice it.

BT sound worked in SFOS 3.4 with all headsets and failed in SFOS 4.0. I can guess that the regression was actully caused by updated bluez5 that does smth weird with pulseaudio <15.0 and may not fully work as A2DP server until pulseaudio gets updated too. It might mean that someone had overlooked the functional interdependence between those pieces of software.

I had issues with Bluetooth audio as well before, but 4.3 fixed them. How is the situation now with 4.3?

In reply to direc85.
Nothing has changed since 4.0 in this case. 4.3 behaves exactly like 4.0 with my headsets. The only news was that I had to switch from Jolla1 to JollaC running 4.3 and figured a workaround, which I shared above.