This does’t happen to me on laptops (e.g. Dell) with onboard bluetooth controllers (well not nearly ALL the time, anyway) - just my main desktop machine (AMD Phenom II X6, 16 GB DDR3, 256 GB SSD, NVidia GTX1650Ti) - where Bluetooth is only available via a dirt cheap shonky Targus USB BT 4.0 dongle (I’ve got three - same symptoms with all of them)…
I’ve got a BT Microsoft Surface Mouse (same as the old “designer mouse” series) - that only stays connected for an hour or so - then I have power it off - removed the crappy Targus dongle, re-insert it (usually with great vigour and gusto - i.e. borderline violence) and then power up the mouse again (don’t need to re-pair)…
Been considering getting one of those PCIe adaptors for a desktop PC PCIe slot on a motherboard, that can host a laptop style PCIe WiFi and BT controller card… anyone got any recommendations? Or is this just a further detour on the road to hellfire and damnation?
Ive not had troubles with my logitech mouse but my microsoft keyboard and mouse - never could keep them working. Internal BT modules with more power and better antenna work far better than the dongers. Unless the port is on the right side of my laptop with one of those micro bt dongles for the mouse, I dont use them.
I put a BT in my shuttle and its been far better for things overall
Well - I switched the Targus dongle to my USB 3 hub/sound card, and yeah - it (Microsoft Surface Mobile Mouse) dropped out again, and again… but I was “watching” it in an interactive “bluetoothctl” session in a terminal - and re-paired (i.e. paired again) it in bluetoothctl and it’s still connected and never dropped out in the last 16-18 hours (it stayed connected overnight). Dunno why I didn’t do this before, because I’ve been doing that (bluetoothctl) to pair a similar Microsoft BT mouse (designer mouse) since at least 2015 in Ubuntu and/or elementary…
I’ve also still got a couple of “REAL” optical 3-button mice from Sun, but only one specific mousepad (these needed a specific dedicated metallic mouse surface) - but these use a Sun proprietary connector (pins look a bit like an ADB Apple connector, but they’re not - but like older Apple ADB keyboards- the mouse would daisy chain via the propietary keyboard connector).
update edit :
Been 24 hours now since I used “bluetoothctl” to re-pair the mouse and it hasn’t dropped out… so there’s my answer… why didn’t I try this again recently? Maybe 'cause I haven’t had to do this with any of the Dell Laptops I run Ubuntu on with their onboard BT controllers…
Maybe I won’t get a PCIe BT solution - as this seems to be working (fingers crossed)…
“bluetoothctl” is a neat little “thing” in a terminal - it runs its own “shell” - and if you’re not sure what to type - just type “help”… it’s all there in black and white (or neon colours depending on your terminal)…
Most of it I hardly ever turn on, and it’s buried under boxes of assorted cables and dongles etc… but it doesn’t take up a huge amount of room (75% in my home office)… I’ve still got about 5 CRT’s - now they’re chunky, including 2 Sun branded 20" CRT’s, a “generic” 21" CRT for “workstations” (e.g. with RGB connectors and not VGA), a Silicon Graphics 19" CRT, and a teeny tiny 12" IBM VGA… my missus is always harping on about getting rid of stuff, but I’ve already gutted my hoard over the last ~5 years…
Trouble is with things like Sun Sparcstation 5’s (2), Silicon Graphics Indy’s (2), and 1 RU rackmount boxes like Sunfire V210 (4), is they’re just too damn noisy to keep powered on (especially the SCSI HDD’s n the Sun SS5s).
Just about the only “thing” I ever turn on is my SunBlade 2500, as it’s the only box I have capable of running Solaris 10 for sparc - it’s still pretty “beefy” (dual ultra Sparc III with 16 GB RAM) - but even so - that’s too noisy, so I only boot it when I need it…
nineteen days ago I used “bluetoothctl” just once to keep my bluetooth Microsoft Surface Mouse paired, and since then, has NEVER unpaired… it goes to sleep (power saves) but a quick wiggle (an Australian technical term, given the Wiggles are Australian) and it wakes up and is still paired to my Targus USB BT 4.0 dongle hooked up to my desktop machine… joy… rapture… all that pain 'cause I didn’t want to have to resort to “bluetoothctl” (which seems like black magic and occult juju)…
