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Bluetooth default profile

Every time I disconnect and reconnect my Bluetooth headphones, my Ubuntu 22.04 switches the default mic from my headset to some other device.

I know I need to change it but sometimes I forget and join a meeting with no audio. In any case, it is really annoying.

Fortunately there is an easy fix. But first, a bit of background.

A Bluetooth profile specifies the services, features or capabilities that a given Bluetooth device supports. Of course you can read a Wikipedia article with the details.

There are multiple Bluetooth profiles but my Jabra headset supports at least two of them:

  • A2DP sink. This is a specific profile to stream audio from a device (laptop, phone…) to a headset
  • HFP (Hands-Free Profile). This profile is commonly used for communication between hands-free sets and mobile phones to facilitate phone calls. This is the mode that the wireless headset uses when using Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet or any other similar video conferencing software.

Turns out that Ubuntu sets up the connection with my headset to A2DP by default.

But it is easy to change: just update the pulseaudio configuration file (mine is /etc/pulse/default.pa) to add the following argument to the load-module module-card-restore file:

# load-module module-card-restore
load-module module-card-restore restore_bluetooth_profile=true

This way, the next time the device connects, it remembers the last profile and will no longer default to A2DP.

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