Bluetooth not working zero 3w official OS

#1

Hello Everyone.

Just got my new Radxa zero 3w. I used the official Debian 11/Kernel 5.10 OS image provided by Radxa + all full update/upgrade. I noticed that the BT icon on the panel is present but not activated. While trying to turn it on, it disappear. By digging down, looks like the problem is related with the missing associated /dev/ttyS1, and no other S are available.

Then I went in the rssetup utility and enabled the UART3, and now I can see the /dev/ttyS3 and also hci0 and hci1 are now available and associated with bluethoot and unblocked within the rfkill command.

I checked/created a dedicated service within
sudo systemctl start rsetup-aic8800-reset@ttyS1, errors due to ttyS1 missing
sudo systemctl start rsetup-aic8800-reset@ttyS3, with no errors
sudo systemctl start rsetup-hciattach@ttyS1, errors due to ttyS1 missing
sudo systemctl start rsetup-hciattach@ttyS3, with no errors

I checked also the bluetooth service and it is up&running without errors.
By running hciconfig I see both hci0 and hci1 as UART but down and cannot come up.
By digging into it, hci0 has the problem of the missing ttyS1, while the hci1 has the problem of infinite TX timeout.

Is there anyway to enable the UART1 within /dev/ttyS1?
Is there anyway to make the UART3 within /dev/ttyS3 working correctly within the BT?

ps1// while working with armbian / bookworm official image, BT is working fine within the same hardware.

pd2// one though I had is to make an custom overlay for the UART0, someting like this https://github.com/radxa-pkg/radxa-overlays/blob/main/arch/arm64/boot/dts/rockchip/overlays/rk3568-uart0.dts
but for the rk3566. Do you think is it possible?

Thank you for your help.

#2

May I ask if you are using this version of OS：
https://github.com/radxa-build/radxa-zero3/releases/download/b6/radxa-zero3_debian_bullseye_xfce_b6.img.xz

#3

yes, file decompress is radxa-zero3_debian_bullseye_xfce_b6.img.

#4

if it can help, within the same hardware, I tried dietpi that has the same kernel version 5.10 but Debian 12, and in there the /dev/ttyS1 is present and BT is working fine.

#5

That AIC8800 driver and configuration is very confusing / incomplete in some distributions / messy. Or it’s simply beyond my knowledge.

Have you attached the UART interface that connects the Bluetooth chip to HCI?

hciattach -s 1500000 /dev/ttyS1 any 1500000 flow nosleep &

#6

Bluetooth on the 3W uses the UART1 interface, i.e. ttyS1.
As a matter of fact, the DebianOS b6 version of Bluetooth we released is working fine.
Did you run System Update in rsetup?

#7

Can I have more details of:

How many revision of hardware there are that equips with different WiFi / BT chips and what model are they?

Is the Bluetooth version 5.0 / 5.1 or 5.4? The closest I can get is to use Rockchip-Ubuntu but it has problems with my Bluetooth 5.1 keyboard and trackpad combo. I am trying to track down if it’s a driver configuration issue or misconfiguration of the HID association.
dmesg shows this after a device is disconnected, and then Bluetooth doesn’t work anymore unless I restart the machine.

[ 750.692905] Bluetooth: hci0: command 0x1003 tx timeout
[ 750.692896] Bluetooth: hci0: Opcode 0x1003 failed: -110

What are the necessary kernel modules to make Bluetooth fully functional?

Summary

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#8

yes, manually as you stated by doing in the terminal directly, and also it is done when you run this sudo systemctl start rsetup-aic8800-reset@ttyS1 that call (if I recall well) the rsetup-aic8800-reset@.service

while passing the e.g. ttyS1 or ttyS3 etc…it pass it as parameter to the same script and it run that command. in any case, doing one or the other didn’t help. of course when you do for the ttyS1 it does not work because /dev/ttyS1 does not exist and it raises dependency issue.

#9

yes I did. I also did again all a couple of time.

I have now DietPi where Debian is 12 and kernel is 5.10.160-legacy-rk35xx installed on the microSD,
and I will reflesh again the Raxda OS but on the eMMC so to have a double boot on demand.
Please do let me know if you need me to perform any specific action/command. What I will do is: download img from your link, expand, flash the eMMC, as soon as it is up&running, first first I will
do is to run sudo ls -l /dev/ttS1 in the terminal,
then going in the rssetup utility and will run the update from there (usually I did always as first but in the terminal as
sudo atp update
sudo atp full-upgrade
and if something was upgradable (like task camera or task rdxa) I will do it manuall one by one

I will update the thread afterward.

#10

–UPDATE–

I compared the image I downloaded previously and the one provided by @Mitchell.
They looks the same.
I went ahead and installed it on the eMMC of the zero 3W (my config is 8Gb + 64Gb eMMC onboard).

Here comes what I did differently this time form what I was doing always.
I checked first in terminal that sudo ls -l /dev/ttS* return the ttyS1…and surprise surprise it is there!
So I played around the BT configuration with a MS mouse and it works fine.

Then, as suggested, I did the very first update within the rsseup app/System Update (and not directly in the terminal within sudo apt update and sudo apt upgrade).

After that, did sudo reboot now, and I can confirm that the zero 3W still has ttyS1 and BT connectivity up&running.
I already configured 4 devices…all good!

Thumb UP!

I now ave other issues, but first I will check the forum and in case of I will rasie other topics :wink:
(in case you are curious,
the first issue is how to make it working the OTG host so to power and connect a keyb dongle via the OTG port at the same time, I enabled already the overly without luck;
the second issue I have is that I need to have a second WiFi interface…I m using a USB dongle based on Atheros AR9271…no way to make the board to recognize it as it is, will try a sudo apt install atheros-firmware, has I did already in the past when the BT was not working
the third is the GPU acceleration while in xfce…e.g. youtube video missing lot of frames etc…).

Thank you @Mitchell and @Frankie_Yuen for your help.