Fremantle Unsupported Bluetooth profiles

There are several Bluetooth profiles officially missing/unsupported in Fremantle that are however supported by the upstream BlueZ project or can be made to work with some simple hacks.

Contents

DUN server

There's a tool called pnatd (short for PhoNet AT Daemon) which can act as a proxy between the cellular modem PhoNet interface and a TTY device.

Example script

sdptool add --channel 1 DUN
while true; do
        rfcomm -S --listen -1 1 /usr/bin/pnatd '{}'
        sleep 1
done

There is one known issue: Most likely due to a bug in the way that the Bluetooth and TTY subsystems in the kernel interact in this use case data can be lost if the DUN client starts immediately sending AT commands when the connection is created. This can e.g. be worked around by adding a 1 second delay to the chat script on the client side.

HID host (i.e. support for Bluetooth keyboards and mice)

Fremantle comes with the bluetoothd input plugin installed but disabled through /etc/bluetooth/main.conf

As shown by Johan Hedberg at the Maemo Summit 2009:

Your main.conf should look like:

[General]

#List of plugins that should not be loaded on bluetoothd startup
DisablePlugins = network,input,hal
...

As root change it to:

[General]

#List of plugins that should not be loaded on bluetoothd startup
DisablePlugins = network,hal
...

After saving, do a

stop bluetoothd [RETURN]
start bluetoothd [RETURN]

Note that editing the bluetooth/main.conf file will conflict with SIXAXIS(TM) Support, the controller will not connect to the device until this is reversed.

Bluetooth Keyboard

Bluetooth keyboards should pair like any other bluetooth device.

You'll need to complete some extra steps to get the layout working properly. See Fremantle Bluetooth Keyboard Layout.

Bluetooth Mouse

For a bluetooth mouse, extra steps are also required. By default, mouse sensitivity is unusably high. There are some modified versions of the evdev_drv.so driver (and bluetooth.ko module) available in this talk.maemo.org thread that will fix this problem.

Depending on the mouse, you may also need to install the bluez-compat package from Debian and libxmuu1, then run "hidd --search" in order to pair. See this post for more details.

PAN

Fremantle comes with the bluetoothd network plugin installed but disabled through /etc/bluetooth/main.conf - to use your N900 as a PAN server for other clients (such as N8x0) just enable this.

If you want to connect to another device over PAN, see Bluetooth PAN for more detailed information.

Phone Book Access Profile (PBAP) and IrMC Sync

The following is a summary of those two threads on talk.maemo.org:

"Car kit can not access contact information" and

Announce - Bluetooth PBAP and IrMC / Carkit support is coming to N900....

For further information you might want to check these threads.

Please post to the second one to get support and share your experiences with this solution there as well!!!

General Information

--- PBAP ---

The Bluetooth Phone Book Access Profile (PBAP) allows to exchange Phone Book objects between carkits and mobile devices. Or in other words, PBAB profile gives your car unit read access to your mobile phone book... (to be exact: to both, the phonebook stored on SIM card and the phone book stored on internal memory. But for N900 only second one is relevant).

Described in a more specific way, whenever a connection between your carkit and your PBAB enabled phone is established, your phone book will be transfered to your carkit automatically. What happens from now with the transfered phone book of course depends on the features of your carkit. Usual use cases are browse and dial (voice-dial if supported by carkit) your contacts and show caller names for incoming calls. With an integrated In-Car Infotainment/Phone/Navigation/Whatever system it is even possible to use the contacts addresses as target for the navigation system.

By default N900 does NOT support PBAP and thus the in-car use cases described above are either not possible or require manual workarounds as the in other threads described "Petrovich workaround" (manual sending of vCards via Bluetooth) or OPP (Object Push Profile - A Bluetooth profile that enables a Bluetooth device to transfer (push) an object (e.g. contact) to another Bluetooth device).


--- IrMC ---

This project also aims to provide IrMC support. IrMC is another method to transfer the phone book to e. g. a car kit via Bluetooth which is by default not supported by N900.


Here comes the good news:

NOW YOU CAN HAVE PBAB and IrMC ON YOUR N900 !!!

Credits

Credits for the achieved so far go to those who contributed in the old thread "Car kit can not access contact information" as well as the new thread Announce - Bluetooth PBAP and IrMC / Carkit support is coming to N900...:

Especially the developers: drdrewusaf, tuxy, jarmo2, hschmitt, Ossman, mirakels..., but of course also all the others who helped with testing and troubleshooting!


Disclaimer

!!! CAUTION !!!

This project is still in development stage, which means there are still some risks, downsides and issues to be solved before PBAB on N900 is ready for the average user...(see below).

Please read this summary carefully and evaluate the risks involved for yourself! (Keep in mind that this can cause problems for the phone. Backup your data, backup your config (apps > system > backup) and know how to reflash)

Whatever you do, you are doing it at your own risk!

However, if you want to have PBAB / IrMC and want to help out here -

You are more than welcome as a tester or even developer.

Of course, before you start playing with your phone, you should check if your carkit does support PBAP / IrMC.

If it does not, this solution can not help you - Sorry!

(Note: Carkits older than 2007 probably do NOT support PBAP)


Current Project Status:

--- Successfull phonebook transfers were reported for the following carkits ---


(If you are able to successfully transfer your phonebook to any carkit not listed here, please let us know or just add to following list!):


Via PBAP:

  • 2008 BMW 120d
  • 2008 BMW 318d
  • 2008 BMW 320d with Business Navi
  • 2008 BMW 535d Touring with Navigationsystem Professional
  • 2010 BMW X1
  • 2007 BMW X5 E70
  • 2010 Audi A3 with RNS-E and bluetooth preparation
  • 2009 Audi with RNS-E
  • 2010 Peugeot 5008 Connect Nav carkit
  • Bury AD9060
  • Bury C9056
  • Parrot MKi9100
  • Vauxhall (Model unknown)
  • Citroen (Model unknown)

Via IrMC

  • Citroen C4 picasso


Known issues / problems

  • Broken PC Suite connectivity
  • False Maemo 5 update announcement in App Manager
  • In some cases broken file transfer via BT to certain devices
  • Lists for outgoing/incoming/missed calls are not supported (some carkits maintain own lists)
  • Installing/Removing requires manual steps in xTerm


Installation Guide

Step 1)

Download the following 3 files and copy them to your phone (provided by drdrewusaf):

Openobex 1.5-2 libraries

Openobex 1.5-2 apps

obexd


Step 2)

Open a root terminal and navigate to the folder you saved the 3 files in (where "/path/to/files" is the real path to your downloaded files):

cd /path/to/files


Step 3)

Install the packages. As root run:

dpkg -i libopenobex1_1.5-2_armel.deb openobex-apps_1.5-2_armel.deb obexd_0.28-0maemo3_armel.deb


Step 4)

Download the latest version of obexd zipped binary provided by mirakels from here

obex download

This version provides:

  • PBAP support (actually the plain PBAP that is in the 0.29 repo)
  • IRMC sync support (only full phonebook retrieves)
  • extra CR/LF between contacts
  • support for multiple phone numbers per contact
  • PC-Suite support (based on the patch test from hschmitt)

BUGS: pbap sends phonebook twice.


Step 5)

Replace the current obexd in /usr/lib/obex/obexd with the new one from mirakels, as root run:

mv <where your new version is> /usr/lib/obex/obexd

Make sure that it is excecutable

chmod a+x /usr/lib/obex/obexd


Step 6)

Edit the obex start command in /usr/share/dbus-1/services/obexd.service:

  • for PBAB include the option --pbap (already added after previous steps),
  • for IRMC include the option --irmc (both is possible too),
  • for PC Suite connection add --capability !/usr/bin/gen-obex-capability.sh


Step 7)

Reboot, test and ENJOY - hopefully ;-)

-> Please share your results !!!

Troubleshooting

For troubleshooting install and use hcidump and/or syslog


Download and install hcidump

First you need to add the developer repository, see Wiki page.

After adding the repository, run the following command as root:

apt-get install bluez-hcidump

OR if the above fails, try the following steps:


Step 1)

Download the deb-package containing hcidump from here: hcidump download


Step 2)

Unpack it (alien on Linux, 7-zip on Windows)


Step 3)

Copy /usr/sbin/hcidump to the N900


Step 4)

In xTerm as root:

chmod a+x /usr/sbin/hcidump


-- Usage of hcidump --


For testing/debugging with hcidump, run the following command (where "/some/path/somefilename" is a real path and any name you choose for your output file.)

hcidump -w /some/path/somefilename

right before turning your head unit/car on. Then, do what you would normally do to get contacts to show up and wait for it to finish/fail. Then, press ctrl+c on the phone to exit hcidump. Finally, you can view the output/dump file with Wireshark or upload your dump files so we can see what's going on.

-> Please share your results !!!


Install syslogd and enable obexd debug option

For further troubleshooting information you may also want to try to enable obexd syslog debugging messages:


Step 1)

Install syslogd: As root run

apt-get install sysklogd


Step 2)

Kill running obexd process As root run

killall obexd


Step 3)

Restart obexd with enabled debug option As root run

/usr/lib/obex/obexd --debug --opp --ftp --pcsuite --pbap --symlinks --root .obex-root --root-setup /usr/bin/obex-root-setup --capability !/usr/bin/gen-obex-capability.sh


Step 4)

Sysklogd will create a file /var/log/syslog

After your test copy this file to some other location (do not delete the original) and edit out the relevant part and post it here.


Downgrade to Original State

To reinstall the original packages:


Step 1)

Download these 2 .deb packages:

libopenobex1 1.4

obexd 0.18


Step 2)

Place them in a folder on the N900, say /home/user/mypackages


Step 3)

As root run (replace /home/user/mypackages with the path to the folder where you placed the files):

apt-get remove openobex-apps
cd /home/user/mypackages
dpkg -i *.deb


Step 4)

Reboot the phone.

OR run as root

apt-get install libopenobex1=1.4-0maemo3+0m5
apt-get install obexd=0.18-0maemo5+0m5

Reboot the phone.

OR run as root

apt-get update
apt-get install --reinstall obexd libopenobex1 openobex-apps

Reboot the phone.