Adam's Blog

It seems that the hidd binary has disappeared after the upgrade. hidd is a server that allows bluetooth keyboards, mice, mobile phones etc. to be connected.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bluez/+bug/281580

apt-get install bluez-compat

On closer inspection, many things have changed!!

• daemons hcid and sdpd have been replaced with the new super daemon bluetoothd
• New config file /etc/bluetooth/main.conf added
• hcid.conf has also been removed.
• pin number cannot be specified in a config file anymore, instead dbus is used.

I can't discover my linux box from my phone (Sony Ericsson K800), i tracked this down to PSCAN and ISCAN not being enabled on the bluetooth adapter. This can be fixed with the following:

# enable PSCAN and ISCAN
hciconfig hci0 piscan 

# check it worked
hciconfig 

hci0:   Type: USB
        BD Address: 00:12:34:56:78:9A ACL MTU: 192:8 SCO MTU: 64:8
        UP RUNNING PSCAN ISCAN
        RX bytes:20425 acl:115 sco:0 events:526 errors:0
        TX bytes:5543 acl:84 sco:0 commands:340 errors:0

Now I can see my the bluetooth adapter, although I still can't pair

I found an application bluez-pin, supplied by a package of the same name (search with dpkg -S bluez-pin, but this seems to be obsoleted now.

I use bluetooth on a mythtv box with mythtv running fullscreen, therefore I cannot be doing with popup messages asking pin numbers etc. Instead I prefer to use a static code, not 1234, or 0000 though. This allows friends etc. to use their phones to control the tv.

I found a useful python script in the source code for bluez-utils

# get source
apt-get source bluez-utils

# look in source code
cd bluez-4.12/test
./simple-agent

# you may need to remove bluez-gnome, because it tries
# to use same ID on the dbus (error message dbus.exceptions.DBusException: 
# org.bluez.Error.AlreadyExists: Agent already exists)
apt-get remove bluez-gnome
killall bluetooth-applet

Note, if you get this error then it is because bluetoothd is not running

dbus.exceptions.DBusException: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.bluez was not provided by any .service files

If you want to use a fixed pin code change the code in test/simple-agent. An exercise for the reader could be to read the value from /etc/bluetooth/pin

        def RequestPinCode(self, device):
                print "RequestPinCode (%s)" % (device)
                return "1234";    #raw_input("Enter PIN Code: ")

Now onto hidd, the mobile phone doesn't seem to be able to connect. Errors such as the following are seen

hidd --connect 00:12:34:56:78:9A
HID create error 77 (File descriptor in bad state)

I tracked the problems to hciconfig parameters do not match previous settings in the now defunct hcid.conf. Setup is now:

hciconfig hci0 piscan
hciconfig hci0 lm master
hciconfig hci0 auth
hciconfig hci0 encrypt

# Check the settings
hciconfig -a
hci0:   Type: USB
        BD Address: 00:12:34:56:78:9A ACL MTU: 192:8 SCO MTU: 64:8
        UP RUNNING PSCAN ISCAN AUTH ENCRYPT
        RX bytes:64712 acl:1063 sco:0 events:2090 errors:0
        TX bytes:29613 acl:1028 sco:0 commands:645 errors:0
        Features: 0xff 0xff 0x0f 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00
        Packet type: DM1 DM3 DM5 DH1 DH3 DH5 HV1 HV2 HV3
        Link policy:
        Link mode: MASTER

Back to the problems with HID. My phone simply won't connect, I just get messages (on the phone saying) Bluetooth connection failed. Check Bluetooth settings on other decice. Bluetooth on. Device visible. Device in range.

It seems the new bluetooth system has a HID daemon built-in. This is in the form of an 'input' plugin. I have found by deleting this file, and running the legacy hidd program supplied in bluez-compat that I'm able to use my phone

# remove input plugin (it won't work with my phone)
rm  /usr/lib/bluetooth/plugins/input.so

# Restart the bluetooth daemon
/etc/init.d/bluetooth stop
/etc/init.d/bluetooth start

# Load the legacy HID daemon (hidd)
hidd --server

# Now I can connect my mobile phone !! 
echo "Happy days"