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Cannot power on bluetooth from bluetoothctl if it was powered off from the GNOME Setting

I first switch off Bluetooth by clicking on the switch button inside GNOME Settings. Then, I want to power on Bluetooth from the command line, but I get an error.

❯ bluetoothctl power on
Failed to set power on: org.bluez.Error.Failed

I tried to sudo bluetoothctl power on, but the issue remains.

However, if I switch on Bluetooth from GNOME Settings, then use bluetoothctl to switch Bluetooth on and off, it works fine.

So, my problem is that if I had switched Bluetooth off from GNOME Settings, I cannot switch it back on using the command line.

Relevant information

  • GNOME Settings version: 46.2

  • Operating system (distribution): NixOS 24.05 (Uakari)

  • bluetoothd and bluetoothctl version: 5.75

  • Error message:

❯ bluetoothctl power on
Failed to set power on: org.bluez.Error.Failed
  • Screenshots

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Open GNOME Settings
  2. Switch off Bluetooth using the switch button
  3. Open a terminal
  4. Run bluetoothctl power on

Additional notes

I can reproduce it.

It appears that Settings app sets some state in the Bluetooth adpater / driver code which causes this. Below are the debug logs for bluetoothd.

bluetoothd[]: src/adapter.c:property_set_mode() sending Set Powered command for index 0 bluetoothd[]: src/shared/mgmt.c:send_request() [0x0000] command 0x0005 bluetoothd[]: src/shared/mgmt.c:can_read_data() [0x0000] command 0x05 status: 0x03 bluetoothd[]: src/adapter.c:property_set_mode_complete() Failed (0x03) bluetoothd[]: Failed to set mode: Failed (0x03)

Unfortunately, the adapter returns an error code of 0x03 which is a generic Failed error code as in bluez/lib/mgmt.h#L1250.

  • #2984 (moved) might be related, but this issue is different in that I cannot switch Bluetooth on from command line, not from a GUI.