Ubuntu – Ubuntu 18.04 and bluetooth speaker JBL Charge 3

EDIT: also try connecting using Blueman. I don't know why PulseAudio has so much trouble but simply opening Blueman, right-clicking on my headphones in the overview, and selecting Audio Profile > Headset Head Unit (HSP/HFP) fixed it for me. I have since stopped and removed oFono and it still seems to work.

I had a similar (the same?) problem with my Bose QC35 II and fixed it by following these instructions ("Using HFP with oFono").

I'm on Debian buster so things might be a little bit different for you.

1. Install ofono and ofono-phonesim:

   sudo apt-get install ofono-phonesim
   

2. Clone the oFono Git repository (currently at cf850de632):

   git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/network/ofono/ofono.git
   cd ofono
   

3. List the available modems you have:

   ./test/list-modems
   

4. It'll probably have no modems, which is not surprising on a modern Linux desktop. But for reasons I don't really understand you really do need to have some sort of modem to get headphones to work, so we're going to simulate one now.
   Start by simulating one (you can probably pick a different port if you want):

   ofono-phonesim -p 12345 /usr/share/phonesim/default.xml
   

5. Modify /etc/ofono/phonesim.conf to use this simulated modem. My Debian version was so kind to put something in there already but commented it out. This is what it looks like for me now (without the comments):

   [phonesim]
   Driver=phonesim
   Address=127.0.0.1
   Port=12345
   

6. Restart oFono:

   sudo service ofono restart
   

7. Check that the device is now listed:

   ./test/list-modems
   

8. Enable the device:

   ./test/enable-modem /phonesim
   

   If you get an error like this, make sure your phonesim is up and running:

   Connecting modem /phonesim...
   Traceback (most recent call last):
     File "./test/enable-modem", line 20, in <module>
       modem.SetProperty("Powered", dbus.Boolean(1), timeout = 120)
     File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/dbus/proxies.py", line 70, in __call__
       return self._proxy_method(*args, **keywords)
     File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/dbus/proxies.py", line 145, in __call__
       **keywords)
     File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/dbus/connection.py", line 651, in call_blocking
       message, timeout)
   dbus.exceptions.DBusException: org.ofono.Error.Failed: Operation failed
   

   Check that the device is now powered on using ./test/list-modems.

Hopefully it works now! You may need to restart other services too (bluez, pulseaudio).

I can now pick my headphone as an input device. It will cause the device to use very low quality audio but at least it works. Make sure to switch back to "High Fidelity Playback (A2DP Sink)" when you're done with the microphone as you'll otherwise get very low quality audio output.

Ondra, there is a very long pulse audio merge request discussion that contains most of the information.

tl;dr; to get things working pulse audio, bluez and kernel need to be updated (not trivially). As well a separate daemon hsphfpd is necessary.

Kernel updates are not progressing and user input to maintainers would be helpful in pushing things forward. Think about providing such. See here.

Without the kernel patches, using headphones' mic leads to terrible audio quality (HSP/HFP mode of operation).

But there is chance that only Pulse patches (and support from your headphones) can enable A2DP bi-directional audio which should be alright for most purposes.

And that patch is progressing well at the moment. More feedback on it shouldn't hurt.

Update: THings in above mentioned pull request escalated very quickly and seems like PulseAudio may never implement proper bluetooth support. Lets hope for Pipewire which already has some patches.