Bluetooth blocked through rfkill

Question

rfkill list 1

command gives me:

1: ideapad_bluetooth: Bluetooth Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: no 

However, when I run the following command,

sudo systemctl status bluetooth.service

I get this error:

bluetooth.service - Bluetooth service  Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)    Active: active (running) since Sun 2019-01-27 13:55:21 +03; 1h 4min ago      Docs: man:bluetoothd(8)  Main PID: 950 (bluetoothd)    Status: "Running"     Tasks: 1 (limit: 4915)    CGroup: /system.slice/bluetooth.service            └─950 /usr/lib/bluetooth/bluetoothd  systemd[1]: Starting Bluetooth service... bluetoothd[950]: Starting SDP server systemd[1]: Started Bluetooth service. bluetoothd[950]: Bluetooth management interface 1.14 initialized bluetoothd[950]: Failed to set mode: Blocked through rfkill (0x12) bluetoothd[950]: Failed to set mode: Blocked through rfkill (0x12) bluetoothd[950]: Failed to set mode: Blocked through rfkill (0x12) bluetoothd[950]: Failed to set mode: Blocked through rfkill (0x12) bluetoothd[950]: Failed to set mode: Blocked through rfkill (0x12) bluetoothd[950]: Failed to set mode: Failed (0x03) 

I use Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS. When I start bluetooth, it searches for the devices, but it never finishes.

Answer 1

I currently have this problem in Mint 19.3 (kernel 5.4.0-48-generic) on an X1 Carbon ThinkPad. My rfkill showed Bluetooth as Hard blocked. No idea why the following is necessary, but it worked for me:

sudo rfkill unblock bluetooth 

I've had to do it twice in the last two weeks, which suggests something random is happening that results in Bluetooth being blocked after a restart. Random issues are always a hoot.

Answer 2

I had the same problem : rfkill did not show the device as blocked but the commands

# rfkill block bluetooth # rfkill unblock bluetooth 

worked for me.

I hope I was helpful

PS : the # means run as root (via sudo or directly logged in as the root user)