Are there any experts on getting a bluetooth dongle to pair with a set of bluetooth headphones ?
I have noticed a marked increase in non-responses to my help requests.
Can you maybe ask your question first?
What do you need help with exactly?
You need to provide more information about the dongle and the headphones.
Bluetooth devices communicate based on their supported bluetooth profiles. So for your headphones to work with your dongle, both have to support the same profile. Your headset for sure will support the A2DP or the HSP profile. The first includes specifications for high-quality audio streaming and incorporates also HSP. While HSP alone is a simple profile for communication between cellphones and headsets with ability to play only low quality audio. I’d wager your headphones are H2DP, since only mono earpieces tend to use just HSP.
But your dongle can be anything, with the aggravation that generic bluetooth dongles rarely support A2DP and are instead generally only used to access and transfer files. Meaning they only support file transfer profiles. You cannot use a generic dongle to command a printer, use a mouse, or on this case listen to audio on your headphones.
Laptops built-in bluetooh device (the master on a bluetooth connection. Such as your dongle would be a master) command a wide range of profiles. And that’s why laptops are able to connect to almost anything, assuming the manufacturer of the client device (your headphones are the client in a bluetooth connection) follow the Bluetooth Standard. If they don’t they will generally provide a USB bluetooth dongle that is the only think capable of communicating with the client device.
You should not assume that I am using a laptop.
I am using a desktop system.
I was told that that the IOGear GBU521 USB bluetooth dongle would solve my problem. (After buying another dongle that did NOT work.)
It did not.
My Samsung Android Phone system has no problem communicating with my Altec Lansing BLUERAY headphones.
And the sound is great. 
[quote=“marfig, post:4, topic:13097, full:true”]
You should not assume that I am using a laptop.[/quote]
I didn’t. Otherwise, likely you wouldn’t need a dongle. I was instead informing you how bluetooth works. It seems you didn’t notice.
Moving on,
I took a look at the dongle someone suggested to you and the specs page clearly states it supports A2DP and HSP (http://www.microcenter.com/product/387794/Bluetooth_40_USB_Micro_Adapter). So it was good suggestion.
Unfortunately there does not seem to be a page for your headphones on the manufacturer website. And if it did, it would probably not be of any good, since whatever products they are listing they lack the most basic technical information. Which is an unfortunate common situation for these manufacturers.
On any case, we can go back to Linux temporarily and rule out a few common issues:
First
Check that you have not accidentally disabled bluetooth by going to System Menu -> Preferences -> Personal -> Startup Applications.
Next
Check if you have the following packages installed on Linux:
bluez-btsco
pulseaudio-module-bluetooth
libsbc1
Install any package that you don’t have on the list above. If you do do end up having to install any of them, you’ll need to restart the bluetooth service or reboot your system.
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This isn’t intentional, - we’re all volunteers here and just regular members. If we can help, we will. But please provide as much information as you can in order to help us help you.
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Thanks for your help.
First
Check that you have not accidentally disabled bluetooth by going to System Menu -> Preferences -> Personal -> Startup Applications.
I did find that it was disabled.
What do I do next ?
Linux does see the device. Altec Over Ear BT.
I get this message Connection failed: blueman.bluez.errors DBusFailedError Host is down.
have you checked that you have the packages installed I told you above?
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I did everything you said.
“Failed to add device.”
Alright. It’s possible that pulseaudio is not loading the bluetooth module.
So try this:
-
If the device is showing on the bluetooth devices list, delete it. Don’t skip this step. Click the bluetooth icon on the panel bar and delete the device if it is showing under
Bluetooth Settings... -
Open a terminal window and run the following command to load the pulseaudio bluetooth plugin:
pactl load-module module-bluetooth-discover
Let me know if the devices finally pair. We are not done yet, even if they do and it starts working.
I deleted the bluetooth device.
I can find non Bluetooth Settings under the bluetooth icon.
I don’t understand you answer.
What was the response to the pactl command? Did it give an error, did it not? Do you still get the same error when pairing?
andy@7:~$ pactl load-module module-bluetooth-discover
Failure: Module initialization failed
This message at this point can only mean one of two things:
Either you have bluetooth disabled again on System->Preferences->Personal->Startup Applications, or that command needs to run with sudoer privileges (which I was not aware to be the case).
If that is not the case and Bluetooth is indeed enabled and even after running the command with sudo you still get the same problem, then I am afraid I’m stumped and this problem overcame my ability to help you. My sincere apologies.
Bluetooth is not disabled.
Thanks for your valiant effort.
I bought a 3rd BT dongle.
Ubuntu Mate 16.04 LTS will NOT allow ANY BlueTooth dongle to work. !! 
andy@7:~$ lsusb | grep -i bluetooth
Bus 006 Device 002: ID 0a12:0001 Cambridge Silicon Radio, Ltd Bluetooth Dongle (HCI mode)
You should be able to use bluetoothctl with the pair and trust commands followed by the MAC address of the headphones
bluetoothctl
pair C8:69:CD:87:91:60
trust C8:69:CD:87:91:60
exit
Attempting to pair with C8:69:CD:87:91:60 Failed to pair: org.bluez.Error.AuthenticationFailed
I was told that BT works on Ubuntu Mate 16.10.
But I am wary of using it since it is not a LTS distro ??
Should I put it on another partition ?
I defer to your wisdom.
I had a quick look at the main Ubuntu forums, one of the moderators there offered a quick guide for setting up devices by command line, - it worked for other users, so it may be worth a look. (Looking at Launchpad, historically there were a few bugs with bluetooth, but the overall consensus is that it does work, albeit with a few painpoints.)
Just for info.
I have tried every version of UM.
None have a functional BT capability.
It may be my AMD64 system.
But it needs to be fixed.