Output to ALSA Bluetooth

[trickartt]

Hello Mike,

I wonder if you could help with a little question I've hit a brick wall on. I'm trying to use my Raspberry Pi as something of an Airplay to Bluetooth bridge - I'm an Airplay household, but I have a Bluetooth speaker I'd like to add to the multi-room setup.

I've got Shairport-Sync running beautifully (thank you for your work on it!) on my Raspberry Pi via a cable, and have Bluetooth audio working via ALSA on the Pi too, but I can't seem to join the two ends together.

I can play music files from the Pi using the command mplayer -ao alsa:device=bluetooth audiofile.mp3, and to allow that to happen, my .asoundrc file looks as so:

pcm.!default {
        type hw
        card 0
}

pcm.bluetooth {
        type bluetooth
        device 00:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx // my actual mac address is here, but you know
        profile "auto"
}

ctl.!default {
        type hw
        card 0
}

I figured that changing the output_device to "bluetooth" and uncommenting the line in the shairport-sync.conf file should make it work, but I get nothing.

Is there anything I'm doing wrong for this to not work? I feel like I'm missing something really obvious (I admit I'm a complete newbie at this!) that's stopping me from getting anywhere.

Thanks for looking, if you have any ideas they would be appreciated!

[mikebrady]

Thanks for the interesting question. I have not tried Bluetooth and I'm away from my machines for another 10 days or so.

Is there anything in the log file? It might help to turn the log verbosity to 1.

[trickartt]

No worries, thank you for replying!

I turned the log verbosity to 1. outputting via the default (as in over a cable) works and doesn't log much. Setting the output_device to bluetooth fills up the log file with a lot of

Jan 12 16:55:16 raspberrypi shairport-sync[3095]: Lost sync with source for 4 consecutive packets -- flushing and resyncing. Error: -5078.

The error number changes on each line (apparently randomly), between approx. 5000-5100 and 5400-5500.

[cre8dojo]

#-----------------------------

bluetooth speaker setup

#-----------------------------

sudo apt-get install libdbus-1-dev
sudo apt-get install libglib2.0-dev

apt-cache search libasound
sudo apt-get install libasound2-dev

wget http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/bluetooth/bluez-4.101.tar.xz
tar -xvf bluez-4.101.tar.xz
cd bluez-4.101
./configure --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share/man --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var --libexecdir=/lib
make
sudo make install

sudo cp /home/pi/bluez-4.101/test/simple-agent /usr/bin/bluez-simple-agent
sudo cp /home/pi/bluez-4.101/test/test-device /usr/bin/bluez-test-device
sudo cp /home/pi/bluez-4.101/test/test-audio /usr/bin/bluez-test-audio
sudo cp /home/pi/bluez-4.101/audio/audio.conf /etc/bluetooth/

sudo apt-get install python-dbus
sudo apt-get install python-gobject
sudo cp /usr/lib/alsa-lib/libasound_module_pcm_bluetooth.so /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/alsa-lib/

sudo nano /etc/bluetooth/audio.conf

add in [General] section:

Enable=Sink,Socket
#uncomment [A2DP] section header and add:
Maxconnections=4

sudo systemctl enable bluetooth

sudo reboot

hcitool scan

#example devices found from scan
#FC:58:FA:56:4C:AC Jam Classic
#FC:58:FA:07:9B:F7 CANZ 808

sudo nano /etc/asound.conf

add:

pcm.bt_canz {
type plug
slave {
pcm {
type bluetooth
device XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
profile "auto"
}
}
hint {
show on
description "BT CANZ Speaker"
}
}
ctl.bt_canz {
type bluetooth
}

sudo bluez-simple-agent
ctrl+c

sudo bluez-simple-agent hci0 XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
sudo bluez-test-audio connect XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

aplay -L
speaker-test -c 2 -D bt_canz

sudo bluez-test-audio disconnect XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

sudo reboot

in /etc/shairport-sync.conf
specify output_device = bt_canz from example above.

I had to reduce ALSA audio_backend_buffer_desired_length = 3192 in /etc/shairport-sync.conf

[trickartt]

That's amazing @cre8dojo, it works! Thank you! I'd love to know what specifically in your code causes it to work, as most of it seemed like what I had done myself?

Now I'm trying to adjust it so it stays in sync.

I've adjusted audio_backend_latency_offset, but once I bring it beyond -2000 it really struggles to even play music. If I keep it below -2000 it'll take a few seconds to figure itself out, then it'll play consistently, but it'll drift pretty quickly. Is there another setting in the config I should be adjusting to make this more robust, or is this drifting just a reminder of why I always preferred AirPlay over bluetooth?

Thank you both for your work on this!

[yfgeek]

@cre8dojo It's amazing. Thank you!

[biogerm]

@cre8dojo It seems rPi Jessie preinstalled Pi 3 with Bluez 5. I tried to reproduce your steps to over write bluez 5 with bluez 4 files. But it cause shairport to report

ALSA lib dlmisc.c:252:(snd1_dlobj_cache_get) Cannot open shared library /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/alsa-lib/libasound_module_pcm_plut.so

Don't know what else I can do. Somehow Alsa on my Pi 3 doesn't have this plut.so file...

[francoismartin]

Hi @biogerm

Do you have found a issue to your problem ?
Because I have the same problem.

Thanks

[biogerm]

@francoismartin Unfortunately not. I am considering downgrade the FW to a lower version than Jessie where ALSA support was still there. I think it might work but since there might not have BT/Wifi support, you might see problem on that side.

[francoismartin]

@biogerm Thanks, so you have installed wheezy with bluez4 ?

[biogerm]

I wanted to but haven't got time to make it happen.
francoismartin notifications@github.com于2016年10月26日 周三下午1:49写道：

@biogerm https://github.com/biogerm Thanks, so you have installed
wheezy with bluez4 ?

—
You are receiving this because you were mentioned.
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub
#200 (comment),
or mute the thread
https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AFUfFKQC_D-VQ52z9J9l6BnKYjYEWTBNks5q3z4rgaJpZM4HDIEC
.

[DimaVIII]

@biogerm && @francoismartin
It's working with the RPi 3 and Raspbian Jessie, just installed as @cre8dojo described! (Biiiiiig THX).

I bought the Bluesound Pulse Flex and it was really almost useless with app from this company...

@cre8dojo Would this setup also work with a dongle like this?
http://www.avantree.com/product-bluetooth-usb-audio-adapter-avantree-dg50-828.html

The dongle has Linux support (http://support.avantree.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000119103-How-to-use-Leaf-Bluetooth-audio-transmitter-with-Linux-)
And as I understand this dongle will appear as a sound device under "aplay -L" and I can just add it as output_device in /etc/shairport-sync.conf?

My speaker support AptX and you can really hear the difference between bluetooth and AptX.

My Config with Raspberry Pi 3 and Jessie (May help someone)

sudo apt-get install build-essential git xmltoman

sudo apt-get install autoconf automake libtool libdaemon-dev libasound2-dev libpopt-dev libconfig-dev

sudo apt-get install avahi-daemon libavahi-client-dev

sudo apt-get install libssl-dev libsoxr-dev

• Don’t work with Raspbin:
  sudo apt-get install libmbedtls-dev

• So:
  sudo apt-get install libpolarssl-dev

Apple ALAC decoder

https://github.com/mikebrady/alac

cd src/
git clone https://github.com/mikebrady/alac.git
cd alac

autoreconf -fi

./configure

make

sudo make install

sudo ldconfig -v

pkg-config --list-all

pkg-config alac

Shairport (AirPlay)

git clone https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync.git

cd shairport-sync/

autoreconf -i -f

./configure --sysconfdir=/etc --with-alsa --with-soxr --with-stdout --with-pipe --with-avahi --with-ssl=openssl --with-metadata --with-systemd --with-apple-alac

make

sudo make install

getent group shairport-sync &>/dev/null || sudo groupadd -r shairport-sync >/dev/null

getent passwd shairport-sync &> /dev/null || sudo useradd -r -M -g shairport-sync -s /usr/bin/nologin -G audio shairport-sync >/dev/null

sudo usermod -a -G lp shairport-sync

sudo make install

sudo systemctl enable shairport-sync

Start

sudo systemctl start shairport-sync
sudo systemctl status shairport-sync
sudo systemctl restart shairport-sync

Install Bluetooth Speaker

sudo apt-get install libdbus-1-dev

sudo apt-get install libglib2.0-dev

apt-cache search libasound

sudo apt-get install libasound2-dev

sudo apt-get install python-dbus

sudo apt-get install python-gobject

cd src/

wget http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/bluetooth/bluez-4.101.tar.xz

tar -xvf bluez-4.101.tar.xz

cd bluez-4.101

./configure --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share/man --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var --libexecdir=/lib

make

sudo make install

sudo cp /home/pi/src/bluez-4.101/test/simple-agent /usr/bin/bluez-simple-agent

sudo cp /home/pi/src/bluez-4.101/test/test-device /usr/bin/bluez-test-device

sudo cp /home/pi/src/bluez-4.101/test/test-audio /usr/bin/bluez-test-audio

sudo cp /home/pi/src/bluez-4.101/audio/audio.conf /etc/bluetooth/

sudo cp /usr/lib/alsa-lib/libasound_module_pcm_bluetooth.so /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/alsa-lib/

sudo nano /etc/bluetooth/audio.conf
//ADD:
Enable=Sink,Socket

// #uncomment [A2DP] section header and add:
Maxconnections=4

sudo systemctl enable bluetooth

sudo reboot

Service

sudo systemctl restart bluetooth
sudo systemctl status bluetooth

hcitool scan
(XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX = Speaker)

sudo nano /etc/asound.conf
// ADD:

pcm.bt_bluesound {
        type plug
        slave {
                pcm {
                        type bluetooth
                        device XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
                        profile "auto"
                }
        }
        hint {
                show on
                description "BT Bluesound Speaker"
        }
}
ctl.bt_bluesound {
        type bluetooth
}

sudo bluez-simple-agent
exit> ctrl+c

sudo bluez-simple-agent hci0 XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

sudo bluez-test-audio connect XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

aplay -L

speaker-test -c 2 -D bt_bluesound

sudo bluez-test-audio disconnect XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

sudo reboot

sudo nano /etc/shairport-sync.conf

// Change
output_device = "bt_bluesound";

rfkill blocked Bluetooth issue

rfkill list

// IF
1: hci0: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: no
// Run
sudo rfkill unblock 1:

[biogerm]

@DimaVIII Thanks a lot for the command list. I tried it with a fresh installation of Jessie and it works on some of my devices. I have a range of BT devices. So far, only one of them works with bluez 4... which is a in-ear headset. The speaker I want to use doesn't work fully, lagging a lot while playing music. I tried profile a2dp and auto but it doesn't seem to have difference.

[DimaVIII]

@biogerm May your problem is the Range? Try to put them very close together.
I also made the experience, that other BT devices in range interrupting each other (like my apple mouse) may try to turn off all other devices.