Unable to detect/scan Ruuvitags with Bluetooth 5

yeongren · September 17, 2020, 7:24am

Hi,

I have tested on two computers and realised that Intel Bluetooth 5 unable to detect any ruuvitags.

hci0: Type: Primary Bus: USB
BD Address: 60:F2:62:0C:5E:94 ACL MTU: 1021:4 SCO MTU: 96:6
UP RUNNING
RX bytes:18307 acl:0 sco:0 events:2924 errors:0
TX bytes:670538 acl:0 sco:0 commands:2922 errors:0
Features: 0xbf 0xfe 0x0f 0xfe 0xdb 0xff 0x7b 0x87
Packet type: DM1 DM3 DM5 DH1 DH3 DH5 HV1 HV2 HV3
Link policy: RSWITCH SNIFF
Link mode: SLAVE ACCEPT
Name: ‘ddf’
Class: 0x0c0104
Service Classes: Rendering, Capturing
Device Class: Computer, Desktop workstation
HCI Version: 5.0 (0x9) Revision: 0x100
LMP Version: 5.0 (0x9) Subversion: 0x100
Manufacturer: Intel Corp. (2)

otso · September 17, 2020, 8:57am

Hello,

Bluetooth 5 dongles should be backwards compatible to BLE 4. What commands you’re using to scan for RuuviTags?

yeongren · September 17, 2020, 9:24am

I am using the node-ruuvitag module.

This is not a dongle, but Intel WiFI with Bluetooth built-in.

otso · September 17, 2020, 9:42am

Can you try running

hcitool lescan --duplicates --passive
hcidump --raw

You can use sudo if you get error about permissions.

yeongren · September 17, 2020, 10:01am

sudo hcitool lescan --duplicates --passive

Set scan parameters failed: Input/output error

otso · September 17, 2020, 10:53am

I’d guess there is the root cause of your problems.

alex · October 13, 2020, 8:34pm

I know this problem very well. Long story short it is related to a bug in Intel Bluetooth firmware. I have spend a lot of time trying to troubleshoot this issue, sadly the only solution I have found is to keep running on the old kernel 4.15. I never managed to run BLE functionality on Intel 9620 on any 5.x kernel on any distro.

yeongren · October 17, 2020, 10:00am

You are right. My kernel is currently running version 5.4.

Any risk to downgrade the kernel? Haha.

alex · October 19, 2020, 5:49am

Only safety concerns. You can install the old kernel parallel and test it. I’m running it on Ubuntu server now and we have to consider end of support for this kernel. Could be wise to change this bluetooth card. I didn’t really look for a new one, let me know if you find a good and working card, or a solution for the issue.