Raspberry 4 , Picochess V3 , DGT BT Board... long delay before connected

[Dirk Sommerfeld]

Hi all, 

now at the final of my new 7"touchsreenversion I struggle a litte bit about the BT connection of my board. After a boot it needs from time to time about 5 minutes and than it is connected. I spend many time to fix the bluettoth problem but in the end I don't know the reason about the delay..  Did anyone need also some minutes to connect or have any idea to solve this?  I use the fix scripts and anything else.. the result is the same.....  With the 3B Board.. it connects on demand.

Dirk

[RandyR]

Hi Dirk,

I thought DGT was looking into the issue for you? All I can suggest is to wait until the Pi is up and running, then turn on your board.

Randy

[Dirk Sommerfeld]

Hi Randy,  the DGT issue is about the smartboard and Pi3. This issue comes from the Bluetoothboard, so it is a different one.

I will test it with starting first the pi....

Dirk

Dirk

[Dirk Sommerfeld]

After starting the Pi first, it needs 4 minutes to connect.... hmmm strange

[RandyR]

Oh, my mistake.

Are you using the Desktop image in a standalone configuration? Are you able to connect manually using bluetoothctl? What do you see when you type 'systemctl status bluetooth'?

Randy

[Dirk Sommerfeld]

Hi Randy,

first of all I use a standard V3 Version and all graphical things I install manual.

Sytemctl status bluetooth  gives the standard Bluetooth error of all pi 4 board. After a restart of the service the error is gone. That's the same that the fix scripts do after a reboot. I think that I'm follw all hints over the web now. I

A manual connect pair and trust over bluetoothctl works, but a connect gives an error.......  If you wait 4 minutes... its connect.

I don't understand how the delay from 4 minutes comes from? It connects like a ghost and than all is stable for hours.....

Dirk

[Scally]

Hi Dirk,

Here’s a link to a video of my Raspberry Pi 4’s BT connection to my Revelation II

Note my new DGT Pi “Scally Pi” base thanks to Wilhelm ….

ScallyPi-BT.mov

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3xcso41ezzt49qi/ScallyPi-BT.mov?dl=0

As you can see the connection is almost instantaneous once the RPi 4 boots …

Cheers,

Al.

[Dirk Sommerfeld]

hmm... OK.... 

research level on...

c u later

[RandyR]

It seems many users are having issues getting a reliable BT connection. It may have to do with the BT hardware in the device - some seem to have no problems at all. And there are so many guides on the Web that work for some people but not others. Very frustrating. If you haven't already, I would suggest you use a clean RPiOS32 image to get a reliable connection working, then make the changes to your PicoChess image (or add PicoChess to the working one :^) )

 

This page might also be of help.

And add pi and root to the bluetooth group.

Randy

[RandyR]

Oops, root doesn't need adding, of course.

[Dirk Sommerfeld]

hmm look at this 5 minutes..... I never seen this before

Apr 29 17:26:03 pichess kernel: [   14.821054] Bluetooth: HCI UART protocol Broadcom registered

Apr 29 17:26:03 pichess kernel: [   15.146420] Bluetooth: BNEP (Ethernet Emulation) ver 1.3

Apr 29 17:26:03 pichess kernel: [   15.146431] Bluetooth: BNEP filters: protocol multicast

Apr 29 17:26:03 pichess kernel: [   15.146448] Bluetooth: BNEP socket layer initialized

Apr 29 17:26:04 pichess kernel: [   16.028048] ICMPv6: process `dhcpcd' is using deprecated sysctl (syscall) net.ipv6.neigh.wlan0.retrans_time - use net.ipv6.neigh.wlan0.retrans_time_ms instead

Apr 29 17:26:12 pichess colord[1279]: failed to get edid data: EDID length is too small

Apr 29 17:26:13 pichess colord[1279]: failed to get session [pid 378]: No data available

Apr 29 17:31:25 pichess kernel: [  322.598928] Bluetooth: RFCOMM TTY layer initialized

Apr 29 17:31:25 pichess kernel: [  322.598962] Bluetooth: RFCOMM socket layer initialized

Apr 29 17:31:25 pichess kernel: [  322.599034] Bluetooth: RFCOMM ver 1.11

[RandyR]

Perhaps reinstall bluez? Anything obvious in journalctl -b?

[Dirk Sommerfeld]

hmm the kernels massages shows : dbus-daemon[384]: [system] Failed to activate service 'org.bluez': timed out (service_start_time

bluez is fully new installed

[RandyR]

Dirk,

Are you using the latest firmware for the board? Does a reset help (I believe you hold the board Power button for at least 10 sec) then scan/pair/trust/reboot?

[josc...@gmail.com]

Hi Dirk,

just out of curiosity: Which revision of the RasPi 4 are you experiencing the bluetooth problems with?

I have no issues with revision 1.2 but revision 1.4 only connects via bluetooth rarely. I am not sure I have been waiting for the 4-5 minutes you describe but will check that. Thanks to the friendly support of the owner of buyzero.de I was able to test two different devices of revision 1.4 and they both behaved exactly the same (i.e. no connection).

I am currently using a RasPi 3B+ but would be happy if I found a way to get the RasPi 4B rev 1.4 working.

[Dirk Sommerfeld]

Hi Thank's for your input.... I have a revision 4B 1.4 running. Good to know that I'm not alone with this prob. It sound's that the problem is the pi.

could you check please how long you need to get a connection? 

With a 3B Board everything is fine, but my new display will only work with a pi 4+  .

My DGT Board has also the latest firmware installed. I will look arround to find a pi4 with an other revision.

Best Dirk

[Scally]

Hi,

That’s a very good point you make there.

I’m using the Raspberry Pi 4 4gb version which connects every time:

Al@PicoChess:~ $ dmesg | grep 'Machine model'

[    0.000000] OF: fdt: Machine model: Raspberry Pi 4 Model B Rev 1.2

Al@PicoChess:~ $

I do have an 8gb version i.e. Rev 1.4 but I’m using that as my master machine, not for Picochess, which I do my Engine compiles etc, it also boots off a SSD drive.

Cheers,

Al.

[Dirk]

same here: all my Pi4s are Raspberry Pi 4 4GB Model B Rev 1.1 or 1.2 and connecting fast & every time.

@Dirk: Have you tried all OS updates and Firmware update (rpi-update)?

[Dirk Sommerfeld]

Hi Dirk, yes..., I did everything and much more :/

I will look arround to find a dealer who sell a rev 1.2. 

Now all is clear.. I made some debugs.... Here the situation with rev 1.4

After the booting , the fix restart bluetooth...

The the DGT Board.. isn't available after restart as a paired device... I see only two  from six other BT devices in my home after this... with a permanent discovery it takes 4-5 minutes if the pi find the dgt board, then it connects...

In the moment before the the fix restart bluetooth.. the board is available, but I can't connect.

That's the reason....  The actual fix will nor work with R1.4 ... It needs minutes to discover the DGT board what was dropped by the fix...

Best Dirk

[josc...@gmail.com]

Hi Dirk, all,

I measured the connect time several times. I saw some connects to the DGT board after about 5:30 minutes but also gave up in some cases with no connect after 8+ minutes. So I cannot reproduce the behaviour reliably.

What I can confirm however are the observations Dirk described above from my own fiddling with bluetoothctl:

• The RasPi 4B Rev 1.4 fails to detect more BT devices (not just the DGT board) after booting - even from a plain RaspiOS.
• If the DGT board appears in the list of devices I can pair it but it only connects for one second and then disconnects.

I agree that for the time being the recommendation is to get a RasPi 4B rev 1.2 for use with picochess or to connect the DGT board via USB. I would not recommend the rev 1.1 because this has the incorrectly wired USB C.

Regards

-Joscho

PS: For completeness sake

• DGT Bluetooth board with Firmware 3.01
• Raspberry Pi 4B rev 1.4 w/ 2GB
• EVICIV 7" touchscreen monitor for Raspberry Pi (see e.g. https://www.ebay.com/p/5027646452)
• image: Picochess v3 1080p version provided by Micha

[dirk.d.s...@gmail.com]

Hi Josho,

 

I can agree on all points !!!!

 

Dirk

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[Dirk Sommerfeld]

Just a small update.....

I cruised around the internet and found someone who exchanged my Rev 1.4 to a Rev 1.2. With the 1.2 my board connect now in a few second's.

All fine now.

Dirk

[Scally]

Hi Dirk,

Great news, nice swap 👍

Al.

[josc...@gmail.com]

Hi Dirk, all,

and there is also hope for those who still stick with their Rev 1.4: I got myself a bluetooth dongle (Logilink BT0015) and it solves the bluetooth issue!

Here is what needs to be done:

• edit "/boot/config.txt" to add a line reading "dtoverlay=disable-bt" to the end - this deactivates the on-board bluetooth
  The file is located on the boot partition of the SD card which you can access from any PC or Mac. No SSH to the Raspi required.
• put the bluetooth dongle into one of the USB slots - for some reason only the USB3 slots worked for me
  
• reboot the Raspi and it connects to the DGT board after a few seconds (not as quickly as in Al's video but much better than 4 minutes)

I am pretty sure this will also work with other supported bluetooth dongles. However, the Logilink is currently only EUR 5.40 at amazon.de. That is also the reason why I decided to give it a try.

Cheers

-Joscho

[Dirk Sommerfeld]

Joscho, sound's good. 

good to know that this workaround will work.

good job

Dirk