Built-in Bluetooth card not working on Linux

Hardware Support
1

Hello everyone, recently I installed Linux (Fedora KDE, then moved to Zorin) on my laptop (acer aspire e5-573), and ever since the built-in bluetooth card (Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network Adapter) stopped working, but only the bluetooth, the wifi still works fine. This is a completely new SSD, so I assume it can't be due to Windows Fast Boot, I even had it disabled since it caused driver issues on W10.

I did some research and still haven't managed to find a solution, tried some of the proposed solutions, like resetting the BIOS to default, power cycling by removing the CMOS battery and holding power for a minute, and found posts where people had the same issue as me, which gave me those results:

sudo rfkill list all

0: acer-wireless: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no

lsmod | grep btusb

btusb 73728 0
btrtl 32768 1 btusb
btintel 69632 1 btusb
btbcm 24576 1 btusb
btmtk 36864 1 btusb
bluetooth 1011712 15 btrtl,btmtk,btintel,btbcm,bnep,ath3k,btusb

sudo lsmod | grep acer

acer_wmi 36864 0
sparse_keymap 12288 1 acer_wmi
platform_profile 20480 1 acer_wmi
video 77824 2 acer_wmi,i915
wmi 28672 3 video,acer_wmi,wmi_bmof

sudo ls /lib/firmware/ath3k/

ls: cannot access file: No such file or directory

Some posts said to sudo apt install --reinstall linux-firmware, but people in the comments said this would also download a bunch of unnecessary drivers, so I didn't before asking.

Also found some posts about blacklisting the acer_wmi driver and changing something on the kernel, but I'm afraid of messing up my system and having to format again so I didn't do it (and I have no idea how to do it).

If anyone knows what I should do from here, any help would be appreciated!

2

Welcome to the Forum!

This is a Packgae with various Drivers. So, it is intended that it cludes them. And with a reinstall Command, You would only reinstall it - so, You already have it installed. You can try that.

Did the Bluetooth worked on Fedora?

I find it interesting that on Your rfkill list Command is now Bluetooth even listed. What is Your Output for sudo lshw -C network please?

Did You checked the ''Additional Drivers'' Tab if there is maybe a Driver offered? Does Your System run in Wayland or X11? You can check that with the Terminal Command echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE

Are Secure Boot and Fast Boot in BIOS disabled?

3

What about Radio driver?

sudo lshw -C network

4

It didn't work on Fedora either, so I assumed it's not related to the kernel version.

Fast Boot and Secure Boot are both off in the BIOS, it also doesn't have anything related to Bluetooth, since some guides mentioned turning it off and on there.

echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE
wayland

I tried using the X11 session and it didn't work either

sudo lshw -C network

*-network

Description: Ethernet interface

Product: RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller

Manufacturer: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.

Physical ID: 0
Bus information: pci@0000:02:00.0
Logical name: enp2s0
Version: 15
Serial: 1c:39:47:54:55:4e
Size: 100Mbit/s
Capacity: 1Gbit/s
Width: 64 bits
Clock: 33MHz
Capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
Configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=6.14.0-36-generic duplex=full firmware=rtl8168h-2_0.0.2 02/26/15 ip=192.168.1.106 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=100Mbit/s
Features: irq:18 I/O port:3000(size=256) memory:c1104000-c1104fff memory:c1100000-c1103fff

*-network
Description: Wireless Interface
Product: QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network Adapter
Manufacturer: Qualcomm Atheros
Physical ID: 0
Bus Information: pci@0000:03:00.0
Logical Name: wlp3s0
Version: 01
Serial: 5c:c9:d3:5e:34:88 
width: 64 bits 
clock: 33MHz 
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical wireless 
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath9k driverversion=6.14.0-36-generic firmware=N/A latency=0 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11 
resources: irq:19 memory:c1000000-c107ffff memory:c1080000-c108ffff

I found this post on the ubuntu forum where someone had the same issue with this card, but the solution listed for an older kernel version, and I looked in the /etc/modprobe.d/ directory and the btconfig.conf file doesn't exist, no idea really on what I should be doing to follow this post

5

I also found this solution here, it is nearly the same. You can create an empty textfile, rename it "acer-wmi.conf and put it into the folder /etc/modprobe.d

With a texteditor write the following text into the file and save it:

blacklist acer-wmi

You need root rights to do this, so open nautilus as root from terminal

nautilus admin:/

This will open your filemanager with root rights so that you can create and edit files in root directory.

When you are ready with all, reboot.

If it doesn't help, you could try to add
btcoex_enable=1 to the file as a second line, save it and also reboot for testing.

If no success, remove the file which you have created.

6

It worked!!

Amazing how the solution was something so simple, yet I was completely lost until you mentioned the root rights.

Many thanks!

1 Like
7

Glad it helped you!