[pulseaudio-discuss] Pulseaudio BlueZ sink is running but not producing audio sound

[Kaster, Kevin W]

Hi,

I'm having problems with a Pulseaudio BlueZ sink, and I don't know how to debug it further. My BlueZ sink appears to be running but it is not passing any audio to the BT headphones.

Background:
I am using BlueZ 5.19, Pulseaudio 5.0, DBus 1.8.4, ALSA lib 1.0.26.
I am basically building a new distribution using Yocto based on Poky. So I have to pull all the pieces in myself, and I may have missed something or built in with the wrong switches.
I am running everything as root (this is a deeply embedded system), including pulseaudio. I have seen the message about not running as root, but I also saw a note that running as --system doesn't support dynamic loading, and I didn't know if that applied to Bluetooth detection or not. So I'm open to changing this if someone can tell me the correct thing to do. But regular audio to the Pulseaudio ALSA sink works fine so I don't think that is the problem.
I have a basic /etc/asound.conf file which just specifies that the default ALSA PCM and CTL use the pulse plugin.

Problem:
When playing audio to the BlueZ sink, it looks like it is running properly, is not muted, has 100% volumes, and I can see the latency bouncing around at reasonable numbers. The Pulseaudio messages in the system log say it is streaming audio over A2DP. hcidump says ACL packets are being transmitted. But no audio comes out of the sink.

What could be wrong? How can I debug this further?


Here are some snippets from the message log:
...
Jul 15 21:20:48 delphi-ive-ev-secondary user.debug pulseaudio[915]: [pulseaudio] module-suspend-on-idle.c: Sink bluez_sink.00_02_3C_43_4A_09 becomes busy, resuming.
Jul 15 21:20:48 delphi-ive-ev-secondary user.debug pulseaudio[915]: [pulseaudio] sink.c: Suspend cause of sink bluez_sink.00_02_3C_43_4A_09 is 0x0000, resuming
Jul 15 21:20:48 delphi-ive-ev-secondary user.debug pulseaudio[915]: [bluetooth] module-bluez5-device.c: Acquiring transport /org/bluez/hci0/dev_00_02_3C_43_4A_09/fd0
Jul 15 21:20:48 delphi-ive-ev-secondary daemon.debug bluetoothd[885]: profiles/audio/transport.c:media_owner_create() Owner created: sender=:1.8
Jul 15 21:20:48 delphi-ive-ev-secondary daemon.debug bluetoothd[885]: profiles/audio/a2dp.c:a2dp_sep_lock() SEP 0x7945e8 locked
...
Jul 15 21:20:48 delphi-ive-ev-secondary daemon.debug bluetoothd[885]: profiles/audio/transport.c:transport_set_state() State changed /org/bluez/hci0/dev_00_02_3C_43_4A_09/fd0: TRANSPORT_STATE_IDLE -> TRANSPORT_STATE_REQUESTING
...
Jul 15 21:20:48 delphi-ive-ev-secondary daemon.debug bluetoothd[885]: profiles/audio/transport.c:transport_set_state() State changed /org/bluez/hci0/dev_00_02_3C_43_4A_09/fd0: TRANSPORT_STATE_REQUESTING -> TRANSPORT_STATE_ACTIVE
...
Jul 15 21:20:48 delphi-ive-ev-secondary daemon.debug bluetoothd[885]: profiles/audio/avdtp.c:avdtp_sep_set_state() stream state changed: OPEN -> STREAMING
Jul 15 21:20:48 delphi-ive-ev-secondary daemon.debug bluetoothd[885]: profiles/audio/sink.c:sink_set_state() State changed /org/bluez/hci0/dev_00_02_3C_43_4A_09: SINK_STATE_CONNECTED -> SINK_STATE_PLAYING
Jul 15 21:20:48 delphi-ive-ev-secondary daemon.debug bluetoothd[885]: profiles/audio/transport.c:transport_update_playing() /org/bluez/hci0/dev_00_02_3C_43_4A_09/fd0 State=TRANSPORT_STATE_ACTIVE Playing=1
Jul 15 21:20:48 delphi-ive-ev-secondary user.info pulseaudio[915]: [bluetooth] module-bluez5-device.c: Transport /org/bluez/hci0/dev_00_02_3C_43_4A_09/fd0 acquired: fd 38
Jul 15 21:20:48 delphi-ive-ev-secondary user.info pulseaudio[915]: [bluetooth] module-bluez5-device.c: Transport /org/bluez/hci0/dev_00_02_3C_43_4A_09/fd0 resuming
Jul 15 21:20:48 delphi-ive-ev-secondary user.debug pulseaudio[915]: [bluetooth] module-bluez5-device.c: Stream properly set up, we're ready to roll!
...
Jul 15 21:20:48 delphi-ive-ev-secondary user.debug pulseaudio[915]: [pulseaudio] bluez5-util.c: Properties changed in transport /org/bluez/hci0/dev_00_02_3C_43_4A_09/fd0
Jul 15 21:20:48 delphi-ive-ev-secondary user.debug pulseaudio[915]: [pulseaudio] bluez5-util.c: Transport /org/bluez/hci0/dev_00_02_3C_43_4A_09/fd0 state changed from idle to playing


Here is the output from pactl list sinks. The only strange thing I see here, is the "intended_roles" says "phone":
Sink #1
        State: RUNNING
        Name: bluez_sink.00_02_3C_43_4A_09
        Description: Creative WP-350 Headset
        Driver: module-bluez5-device.c
        Sample Specification: s16le 2ch 44100Hz
        Channel Map: front-left,front-right
        Owner Module: 24
        Mute: no
        Volume: front-left: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB,   front-right: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB
                balance 0.00
        Base Volume: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB
        Monitor Source: bluez_sink.00_02_3C_43_4A_09.monitor
        Latency: 28496 usec, configured 45317 usec
        Flags: HARDWARE DECIBEL_VOLUME LATENCY
        Properties:
                bluetooth.protocol = "a2dp_sink"
                device.description = "Creative WP-350 Headset"
                device.string = "00:02:3C:43:4A:09"
                device.api = "bluez"
                device.class = "sound"
                device.bus = "bluetooth"
                device.form_factor = "headset"
                bluez.path = "/org/bluez/hci0/dev_00_02_3C_43_4A_09"
                bluez.class = "0x240404"
                bluez.alias = "Creative WP-350 Headset"
                device.icon_name = "audio-headset-bluetooth"
                device.intended_roles = "phone"
        Ports:
                headset-output: Headset (priority: 0)
        Active Port: headset-output
        Formats:
                pcm

Thanks,
Kevin

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