Watch does not automatically reconnect to GadgetBridge after turning airplane mode on and off

[GithubUser5462]

InfiniTime version: 1.0.0 RC3
Gadgetbridge version: 0.56.1

Steps to reproduce:

1. Pair InfiniTime with Gadgetbridge, enable the "Reconnect automatically" setting in GB
2. While the two are connected turn airplane mode on and then off after the watch is disconnected
3. GB tries to reconnect, first with status "Connecting" and then gets stuck with "Waiting for reconnect"

The workaround I have found is to fully disconnect in GB - status "Not connected" and then pair the watch again.
Restarting the watch or Gadgetbridge did not seem to help.

I don't know if the problem is with GB or IT but it would be nice if the two could automatically reconnect in this scenario if possible.

[petterhs]

hmm I'm not able to reproduce this issue running same versions. Do you experience the same if you toggle Bluetooth off/on on the phone?

[GithubUser5462]

Yes, exact same result.
If it works for you I guess the problem could be with the phone or the watch.
I'll try with another phone.

[JF002]

This kind of issue is really hard to debug, and is probably caused by a mix of PineTime HW, InfiniTime, phone HW and software stack.
InfiniTime does advertise itself automatically as soon as it's disconnected during 3 minutes. It also restarts advertisting every time the display is switched on. Then, it's up to the companion app to receive these advertising messages and reconnect to the watch.

[pfeerick]

Not knowing that behaviour is most likely the 'cause' of the problem... i.e. I would probably have had a similar complaint if I didn't know that turning the screen on wakes up advertising. But only the OP can answer that question.

InfiniTime does advertise itself automatically as soon as it's disconnected during 3 minutes. It also restarts advertisting every time the display is switched on. Then, it's up to the companion app to receive these advertising messages and reconnect to the watch.

Maybe a future thought could be have periodic advertising... say once every five minutes or so, for 10 seconds or whatever (I'm sure there's some convention that can be followed - or not!) ... i.e. try and make itself available if the phone wants to reconnect.

[GithubUser5462]

I made a couple more tries to try to understand what is happening.
It seems that it is not limited to Gadgetbridge since it also happens with nRF Connect.

In nRF Connect when I disable/enable bt the "bonded" tab in nRF Connect gets wiped, but the scanner does detect watch - as not bonded.
If i try to manually connect sometimes it connects, but most of the time it timeouts/errors - logger says Error 133 (0x85) GATT ERROR. Which is probably not very helpful.

[pfeerick]

Whether the device is bonded or not has no impact on the device appearing in the scanner tab. It is merely a list of all the devices which are currently advertising, with greyed out entries for those devices that have recently advertise, but not presently advertising (Bluetooth advertising of presence). Disabling and enabling bluetooth should also not lose bonding or pairing... that suggests there is something wrong with your configuration. Can you try this... Start a scan (in NRF Connect), wait for a few seconds and confirm the InfiniTime is not active. Then whilst NRF Connect is still scanning, press the button on the pinetime momentarily so the screen comes on. Does it show up then? If so, it is working as intended.

…

On Thu, 22 Apr 2021, 1:27 am github user, ***@***.***> wrote: I made a couple more tries to try to understand what is happening. It seems that it is not limited to Gadgetbridge since it also happens with nRF Connect. In nRF Connect when I disable/enable bt the "bonded" tab in nRF Connect gets wiped, but the scanner does detect watch - as not bonded. If i try to manually connect sometimes it connects, but most of the time it timeouts/errors - logger says Error 133 (0x85) GATT ERROR. Which is probably not very helpful. — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#302 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABJ66KKSSXGTJEWYYJZ56UDTJ3VFVANCNFSM43III6HQ> .

[diegosolor]

I have the same unstable connection problem with gadgetbridge, only workaround is unpair/repair the pinetime

[jjrugui]

I can confirm the same issue with reconnection as @diegosolor . Connections gets lost and some times pinetime does not appear in gadgetbridge. Only solution in that case is to restart the watch.

For reference I'm using a Oneplus Nord with A droid 11. I'm a bit lost with how to debug it but let me know if I can do anything to provide help/info about the reconnection issue.

[pfeerick]

Sometimes I have to tell gadgetbridge to connect twice... I.e. connect, press and hold to disconnect after a few seconds of no activity, and then connect again. With the pinetime screen on to ensure it is actually advertising. If you need to restart the watch, you could be running what seems to be a time-related issue when the bluetooth locks up at somewhere around 20 hours of uptime, and the watch needs restarting.

[blaueente]

Independent of airplane mode: Mine (1.0.0) disconnects sometimes from gadgetbridge, and then does not appear on the nRF scanner, and then can only be reconnected by restarting the pinetime AND re-pairing. This also happened after a very short time, not 20h.

[jjrugui]

I'm having the exact same behaviour as @blaueente . I get multiple disconnects per day and I need to restart the pinetime in order to be able to pair it again.

In gadgetbridge it is not enough to click reconnect since it seems it does not manage to reconnect, so only option is: remove pinetime from gadgetbridge -> restart pinetime -> pair again.

[Anyil89]

I am on arch Linux arm danct12s Image. I’m using it on my pinephone, when I restart my phone like when I update the Bluetooth says it’s disconnected. But it was connected before the reboot. (my PineTime) But sometimes rarely it will reconnect itself after a while but 80% of the time I have to restart my watch to make it reconnect or disconnect from amazfish and then reset that back up. For it to register.

[jjrugui]

Today I upgraded Gadgetbridge to latest version 0.58.0 and so far I had a way more stable connection and automatic reconnect working. I'll give more info after testing it for a couple days but I highly recommend the upgrade.

[NCLI]

On the latest version of Gadgetbridge. I pretty much have to restart the PineTime every 20 hours to connect, but it does then reconnect immediately after booting back up. Quite annoying, and I often miss calls because it takes a while for me to realize that the connection has dropped.

[1989gironimo]

I can add, that not only activating airplane mode causes this behavior. Disabling bluetooth for a while triggers this issue as well, even on the newest firmware (1.2 at this time) and newest gadgetbridge (0.58.1) on GrapheneOS (RQ3A.210705.001.2021.07.07.19)

I even have to remove it from gadgetbridge first, restart the phone AND the Pinetime to get a working connection, so this might be somewhat related, but not the same issue..