How to solve Can't init device hci0. error?

Question

Hi I'm trying to work with ibeacons and a raspberry. Right now Im able to detect my ibeacons with the script of radialnetworks (found solution here Can RaspberryPi with BLE Dongle detect iBeacons?) I downloaded their image (devian OS) etc. But the problem comes after some minutes of playing with the ibeacons, turning on/off some of them, adding more, and suddenly stop working, I was working with the dongle CSR 4.0 and the I bought IOGEAR GBU521W6 because I thought maybe could be the hardware, but happened the same, start detecting ibeacon and the stop it.

I receive ERROR Can't init device hci0. error and then set scan parameters failed file descriptor in bad state.

Any suggestion about what its happening?

--EDIT--

This error is happening when you walk away from range with (https://www.gimbal.com/gimbal-proximity-beacons) and the you return into range, the bluetooth crash.

What happens if you do `sudo hciconfig hci0 reset` and then restart scanning? — davidgyoung, Jun 12 '14 at 02:50
actually return Can't init device hci0: Connection time out(110) http://bit.ly/1xPf3NZ — ncubica, Jun 12 '14 at 17:47

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 12 '14 at 21:14

4

This happens due to low-level USB problems talking to the device, which puts the device into a bad state from which it cannot recover. Once the device gets in this state and a reset does not work, you must power cycle to the USB device by unplugging it and plugging it back in.

You can make this happen much less often by telling the USB driver to use USB 1.0 speeds. Doing so, however, can reduce your networking speed and make some USB 2.0 keyboards no longer work anymore. Whether or not you should do this depends on your use case.

For instructions on changing your USB speed, see here: http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=34120

answered Jun 12 '14 at 21:14

davidgyoung

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I'm using this other script which work really cool also. Thanks for the support, I been testing it and is really stable, http://www.switchdoc.com/2014/06/ibeacon-raspberry-pi-scanner-python/ is writing in python. – ncubica Jun 14 '14 at 22:45
What about internal laptop usb devices that you cannot unplug? – Pavel Šimerda Jun 13 '15 at 14:54
That is a real problem requiring a reboot. – davidgyoung Jun 13 '15 at 18:03

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 27 '19 at 17:14

It seems like bluetooth is Soft Blocked and added in rfkill list. Execute rfkill list. If the output is as shown below, it means bluetooth is blocked.

0: hci0: Bluetooth
        Soft blocked: yes
        Hard blocked: no
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no
2: phy1: Wireless LAN
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no

To unblock bluetooth, execute

rfkill unblock bluetooth

This will unblock bluetooth. Check the status by executing rfkill list. The output should be as shown below:

0: hci0: Bluetooth
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no
2: phy1: Wireless LAN
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: no

How to solve Can't init device hci0. error?

2 Answers2