Bluetooth device will not connect with SLED 11

SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11

SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 system with either a built-in bluetooth interface or bluetooth dongle.  Using the bluetooth applet the bluetooth device (usually a mouse or keyboard) can be seen, but when adding the device a connection appears to be made but the device never switches out of discovery mode and does not work.

All of the following commands must be run as the root user.

For the following instructions a Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000 is used but the same procedure can be used for any bluetooth device.

1.  Turn the bluetooth device on and place it in discovery mode.

2.  Determine the address of the BT device:

hcitool scan

The results should look similar to this:

00:1D:D8:91:41:62    Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000

3.  Pair the device with the hci0 device identifier by using the following command (be sure to use the correct hex ID from the previous step):

simple-agent hci0 00:1D:D8:91:41:62

You will be asked for a 4 digit PIN number.  The device instructions will identify the number to use.  Typically a mouse or keyboard will use "0000" or perhaps "1234".  In this case with the MS Mouse "0000" is correct.

After entering the PIN number you should see the new device displayed.  The transaction should look similar to this:

# simple-agent hci0 00:1D:D8:91:41:62
RequestPinCode (/org/bluez/2742/hci0/dev_00_1D_D8_91_41_62)
Enter PIN Code: 0000
Release
New device (/org/bluez/2742/hci0/dev_00_1D_D8_91_41_62)

4.  Use dbus to connect to the device using the device path indicated in step 3:
(The following is a single command line with a space between "--print-reply" and "/org")

dbus-send --system --dest=org.bluez --print-reply
/org/bluez/2742/hci0/dev_00_1D_D8_91_41_62 org.bluez.Input.Connect

You should get a result similar to the following:

method return sender=:1.4 -> dest=:1.838 reply_serial=2

Your device should now be working.  If you would rather not enter these commands every time you reboot you can set this device to be trusted and to connect each time the system starts up by running the following command (be sure to use the hex ID identified in step 2):

test-device trusted 00:1D:D8:91:41:62 yes

With the release of SLE 11 SP1 the bluez-test package was removed due to supportability of the package.  This is the package that provides simple-agent and test-device.  This package can be downloaded from the opensuse.org site for SLE 11 but it is provided by a third party and is not supported.  Here's the link (click on Show other versions):

http://software.opensuse.org/package/bluez-test?search_term=bluez-test

With the release of SP2 the bluetooth connectivity works much better and should no longer require this procedure.  Work with the support department for any new issues that are encountered.