!!Be Careful!! read this fully and see the unsucessful final resolution of this thread, leaving it up for reference not guidance!!
I connected a bluetooth headset I have used before on L5 and it seems(but not sure) after an unusual connect-disconnect-connect cycle multimedia playback is somehow stuck. I get the pop-pop sounds for volume+/-, front left/right tests OK but if I try to use anything which calls the play/pause/skip UI the player just is stuck, it will not play any multimedia, not even shortwave web radio player. I am not sure where to hunt down this issue, if it were sound I would look at alsomixer, but we can see that sound works, just not multimedia playback.
In my experience there is usually a way to reset something like the multimedia system, but this remains through multiple reboots so seems to be a stuck setting.
!!Be Careful!! read this fully and see the unsucessful final resolution of this thread, leaving it up for reference not guidance!!
Bug report: Multimedia media controls (play/pause/skip) get stuck after connecting BP-S210, while system sounds still work
Device
Librem 5
OS / Kernel
PureOS Crimson
Kernel: Linux pureos 6.12.0-1-librem5 #2 SMP PREEMPT 6.12.94pureos1~cri1 2026-07-01 04:02:34 UTC aarch64 GNU/Linux
Bluetooth device
Multimedia A2DP Bluetooth clip-on device: BP-S210
Clips to shirt has a 3.5mm TRRS jack for a wired headset, multimedia controls on device
Preconditions
Normal system audio works on the phone (speaker/left-right test sounds and volume-change sounds).
Multimedia apps can normally start playback and respond to play/pause/skip.
Steps to reproduce
Start from a state where system audio works.
Connect the BP-S210 via Bluetooth.
Open any app that uses multimedia media controls (play/pause/skip; media session).
Press play/pause/skip using the app’s media controls.
Actual result
Multimedia apps’ media controls become stuck after connecting BP-S210 in unusual paired-unpaired-paired situation, several attempts to pair resulting in pair-unpair errors continuing through reboots.
Play/pause/skip (and multimedia control actions) do not work properly.
System sounds continue to play (including left/right speaker and volume-change sounds).
Expected result
After connecting BP-S210, multimedia apps’ play/pause/skip controls should work normally.
Logs / diagnostics (captured during the broken state)
wireplumber[xxxx]: SPA handle 'api.alsa.enum.udev' could not be loaded; is it installed?wireplumber[xxxx]: PipeWire's SPA ALSA udev plugin("api.alsa.enum.udev")missing or broken. Sound Cards cannot be enumerated
wireplumber[xxxx]: SPA handle 'api.bluez5.enum.dbus' could not be loaded; is it installed?wireplumber[xxxx]: PipeWire's BlueZ SPA missing or broken. Bluetooth not supported.
wireplumber[xxxx]: RTKit error: org.gtk.GDBus.UnmappedGError.Quark._g_2dio_2derror_2dquark.Code0wireplumber[xxxx]: could not set nice-level to -11: Input/output errorwireplumber[xxxx]: RTKit error: org.gtk.GDBus.UnmappedGError.Quark._g_2dio_2derror_2dquark.Code0wireplumber[xxxx]: could not make thread xxxx realtime using RTKit: Input/output error
Check the following outputs from the moment the multimedia controls are stuck:
Terminal A:
bash
wpctl status
Terminal B:
bash
systemctl --user status wireplumber.service --no-pager
Terminal C:
bash
journalctl --user -b --no-pager | tail -400
wireplumber[xxxx]: RTKit error: org.gtk.GDBus.UnmappedGError.Quark._g_2dio_2derror_2dquark.Code0wireplumber[xxxx]: could not set nice-level to -11: Input/output errorwireplumber[xxxx]: RTKit error: org.gtk.GDBus.UnmappedGError.Quark._g_2dio_2derror_2dquark.Code0wireplumber[xxxx]: could not make thread xxxx realtime using RTKit: Input/output error
Resolution / what fixed it
After applying the following changes, multimedia controls worked again, removed and then paired BP-S210 to Librem5 multimedia works in system speakers and in BP-S210 headset when paired:
I just noticed that now the audio for phone calls is dead, I did a bunch of troubleshootng to try to get the modem audio to reset but I feel like I am moving colors around on a rubiks cube and messing other stuff up.
This is probably a reflash situation, I don’t love that a failed bt pairing was able to do this much collateral damage.
Pretty sure it wasn’t “failed bt pairing” that made this damage. You’re showing that you have messed around with WirePlumber and PipeWire, which aren’t being currently used for audio on PureOS, so you likely ended up making them conflict with PulseAudio during your troubleshooting attempts.
When it comes to multimedia buttons, some headsets may incorrectly expose multimedia status and effectively take over that widget in Phosh. I have one Bluetooth speaker that does it. Getting rid of that should be simply a matter of stopping the mpris-proxy service.
I may have gone the wrong direction in my troubleshooting but I got the multimedia playback back though at the expense of in-call audio, so your fix is likely better than anything I tried. In the end I decided to wipe and reinstall. unfortunately I was not able to replicate my Bluetooth PAN access point mode, I must have missed something in my documentation here on the forum.