bluetooth is not working after kernelupdate 7.0.7-arch1-1 (64-bit)
sudo systemctl status bluetooth
● bluetooth.service - Bluetooth service
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service; enabled; preset: disabled)
Active: active (running) since Fri 2026-05-15 10:09:28 CEST; 3h 9min ago
Invocation: 0167262f964644ec8f8fddc4b5c9c0d1
Docs: man:bluetoothd(8)
Main PID: 878 (bluetoothd)
Status: "Running"
Tasks: 1 (limit: 113138)
Memory: 2.3M (peak: 3.4M)
CPU: 28ms
CGroup: /system.slice/bluetooth.service
└─878 /usr/lib/bluetooth/bluetoothd
Mai 15 10:09:27 slimbook-evo15a8 systemd[1]: Starting Bluetooth service...
Mai 15 10:09:28 slimbook-evo15a8 bluetoothd[878]: Bluetooth daemon 5.86
Mai 15 10:09:28 slimbook-evo15a8 systemd[1]: Started Bluetooth service.
Mai 15 10:09:28 slimbook-evo15a8 bluetoothd[878]: Starting SDP server
Mai 15 10:09:28 slimbook-evo15a8 bluetoothd[878]: Bluetooth management interface 1.23 initialized
rfkill list
0: hci0: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: no
Hmm, I’m no expert with bluetooth problems but I would try reinstalling the bluetooth software which can reset settings screwed up by the update, If all else fails, you can try downgrading the kernel again, or using the LTS (run sudo pacman -Syu linux-lts linux-lts-headers
It’s the same for me with a mediatek chip (or an AMD branded card, they are typically mediatek as well I believe). They also backported the regression to a bunch of other kernels unfortunately, including the newest LTS one (6.18.30). It only upgraded the mainline kernel when I did my upgrade, so I am somewaht lucky since I am still on 6.18.29 and that one still works.
The regression comes out of one of the 7.1 RC versions and was backported to 6.12.88, 6.18.30 and 7.0.7 from what I can see from the kernel mailinglist.
I have a feeling this won’t be fixed super quickly though, so I might have to downgrade to 7.0.5 or 7.0.6 as I have read that people doing so got it back to work again. But I also have a USB bluetooth adapter somewhere, which might work as well (but that would involve coupling a bunch of things to the new adpter).
There don’t seem to be issues with Intel bluetooth adapters, it might be an issue with mediatek adapters only from what I have found, so that’s why you don’t see an issue.
It’s not the first time either, I believe a year or two ago a similar thing happened with my mediatek adapter as it wasn’t recognized any more after a kernel upgrade back then either. But I don’t think it spread to other kernel than the mainline one back then.
I’ve encountered the same issue on a clean Arch install. I haven’t found a solution yet, but it’s not down to the kernel. It doesn’t work with the LTS version either. My AMD RZ616 Wi-Fi 6E (MT7922) chip $ sudo dmesg | grep -i ‘bluetooth’ [ 15.769382] Bluetooth: Core ver 2.22 [ 15.769400] NET: Registered PF_BLUETOOTH protocol family [ 15.769402] Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized [ 15.769405] Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized [ 15.769408] Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized [ 15.769412] Bluetooth: SCO socket layer initialized [ 15.838552] Bluetooth: hci0: HW/SW Version: 0x008a008a, Build Time: 20260224103448 [ 15.992826] Bluetooth: hci0: Failed to send wmt func ctrl (-22) [ 15.993121] Bluetooth: hci0: HCI Enhanced Setup Synchronous Connection command is advertised, but not supported.
In other words, I wanted to point out that the issue is not universal and as far as I see (perhaps I missed it) you didn’t post the specific of your hardware so that we could narrow it down to hardware related issue and not a kernel issue in general.
It IS down to the kernel, but they backported the regression in LTS kernel 6.18.30, going to 7.0.6 or lower for mainline and 6.18.29 should work (6.18.29 still works for me as I upgrade before the LTS kernel released on Arch).
I wouldn’t recommend that.
That version is not patched against the latest discovered vulnerabilities.
I would install for the time being the latest LTS. But that’s me. You do you
This issue isn’t limited to the vanilla kernel; it’s also present in the latest release of ZEN and in the LTS version. linux-zen 7.0.7.zen1-1 linux-lts 6.18.30-1
