[SOLVED] A new attempt at an old thread

My thread seems to have died so I will try to be succinct.
My initial problem was bluetooth connectivity but searching came up with bugs and staleness in the kernel. Probably all connected is my guess.
My sense tells me to delete and reinstall the OS.Linux Mint Mate Victoria 221.3
What does the brains trust think? Can I repair the existing?
If so how? The first downloading was a leap of faith because I couldn't get the checksums to work. Probably because I didn't know how I thought.Is there a better explanation of how to do it?
Is my sense sensible?
Graeme

If the check sum is faulty, the download is.

You just have to use either shasum or md5sum against your download, then check it against the official sum.

(sha256sum mydownloadedimage or md5sum mydownloadedimage)

Re installing will be easier & quicker.

Also: If you download something and the checksum doesn't match, you need to try to contact the owner of the source website immediately.

And, tell us exactly what you downloaded and from where.

If "your old thread died," it's because you didn't give us enough details. And, there aren't much more details now. Yet. "The devil is in the details." Therefore: please tell us everything. Start at the very beginning and write a nice, long, detailed post.

Your current post is mostly what's called an "XY Problem." You're not telling us what (as you now see it ...) the problem is (X"). Instead, you're telling us what you've decided to do about it ("Y"), and asking us (blindly) if we agree. Of course it is quite impossible for any of us to answer that: "we're not there." But: "reinstalling the whole of Linux" is probably overkill, and your "still-undiagnosed problem" will likely still remain.

So ... start writing.

in the linux world reinstalling the OS is almost the worst option, usually we try to solve the issue. Actually the reinstall itself can be used to return to a well defined state, if it works. Otherwise issues like a bug in kernel (for example) cannot be solved that way.
Hardware related issues (like bluetooth) can only be solved if we know the device and know the problem.
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-...html#beprecise

Thank you for the heads up.
The system is on a Dell Inspiron 15 5567
Mint 21.3 Virginia 64-bit. Kernel Linux 5.15.0-107-generic x86_64. MATE 1.26.0. Intel® Core™ i7-7500U CPU @ 2.70GHz × 4 Mesa Intel® HD Graphics 620 (KBL GT2)
The presenting problem is the bluetooth failing to connect after working perfectly with an error message of br-connect-create-socket coming up.
Pan suggested dmesg which showed red lines saying bios is broken, contact vendor and also that there is a bug in the firmware. Updates there on the Dell site were windows specific and did not help.
A web search suggested sudo apt install libspa-0.2-b bluetooth which got the bluuetooth working but it soon failed again and that command failed to help when tried again.
So, I have a broken bios, buggy firmware and a bluetooth problem. Drivers update tells me that they are all up to date.
Graeme

you need to check logs (dmesg, /var/log, ...) to look for related error messages. It is not enough to tell "bluetooth failing ... with an error message of br-connect-create-socket".
Probably there are more information to work with. And it is not enough to check those messages, but would be nice to post them. We can't see your host.

Bluetooth related messages from dmesg (I don't know how to use var/log):
Bluetooth: hci0: Legacy ROM 2.5 revision 1.0 build 3 week 17 2014
[ 6.680065] Bluetooth: hci0: Intel device is already patched. patch num: 32

Bluetooth: Core ver 2.22
[ 6.488438] NET: Registered PF_BLUETOOTH protocol family
[ 6.488440] Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized
[ 6.488444] Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized
[ 6.488447] Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized
[ 6.488452] Bluetooth: SCO socket layer initialized

I will start a new thread regarding the broken bios, tainted kernel etc.
Thank you,
Graeme

So, I must have gotten it wrong again. I did read the Post on how to ask questions the smart way and took it on board.
The above are the messages regarding bluetooth in the dmesg stream (which appeear to me to show no error) and it is still not staying connected and is putting up the error message regarding the socket as above.
Graeme

yes, you are right those lines contain no errors. Would be nice to look for error messages in /var/log (it is a directory), or check journalctl or btmon or probably some other tools.

Can you refer me to a resource that will show me how to look for error messages in /var/log (it is a directory), or check journalctl or btmon or probably some other tools.
Whatever I find seems to leave something out and I get nowhere.

Graeme

For a traditional boot, errors from the kernel go into a file called kernel.log or kern.log. Those from daemons go into sys.log. There is usually a file called messages which contains both kinds of error and one called boot.log which contains kernel messages from the most recent boot. Xorg errors go into Xorg.0.log, which is not cumulative but reports only the last launch of X. Most of these are accessible only with sudo.

If your system boots with systemd, then there will be a binary journal instead of or in addition to these. You read it by using the journalctl program.

Thank you Hazel,
I used journalctl -b -1 and got a couple of thousand lines of code. Toward the end was some relevant to the bluetooth problem including 'permission denied' which I am seeing frequently in terminal (sometimes by my 'organisation') and do not understand. Code follows which I hope may suggest remedial action.

bluetoothd[717]: profiles/input/device.c:ioctl_is_connected() Can't get HIDP connection info
May 14 07:17:51 graeme-Inspiron-5567 kernel: Bluetooth: HIDP (Human Interface Emulation) ver 1.2
May 14 07:17:51 graeme-Inspiron-5567 kernel: Bluetooth: HIDP socket layer initialized
May 14 07:17:54 graeme-Inspiron-5567 systemd[998]: Reached target Bluetooth.
May 14 07:17:54 graeme-Inspiron-5567 dbus-daemon[1026]: [session uid=1000 pid=1026] Activating service name='org.freedesktop.Notifications' requested by ':1.49' (uid=1000 pid=1460 comm="/usr/bin/py>
May 14 07:17:54 graeme-Inspiron-5567 bluetoothd[717]: profiles/input/device.c:control_connect_cb() connect to 54:46:6B:EA:07:16: Permission denied (13)
May 14 07:17:54 graeme-Inspiron-5567 dbus-daemon[1026]: [session uid=1000 pid=1026] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.Notifications'
May 14 07:17:54 graeme-Inspiron-5567 blueman-manager[1866]: blueman-manager 07.17.54 WARNING ManagerDeviceMenu:145 fail : fail g-dbus-error-quark: GDBus.Errorrg.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Faile>
May 14 07:17:54 graeme-Inspiron-5567 blueman-manager[1866]: (0)

Graeme

Like many people here, I don't use systemd distros on principle, but the way to tame a program like journalctl is to pipe the output through the tail command:

journalctl -b -1|tail 20

That will give you just the last 20 lines.

Thank you Hazel,
Can you see from the error messages re bluetooth what Terminal input might correct those errors?
Best regards,
Graeme

this is just the half of an error message, hard to tell what might correct it. Probably need to deep dive into it, look for additional details. like this: https://github.com/blueman-project/blueman/issues/1513
Or probably you need to configure or install something, like this: https://askubuntu.com/questions/8014...or-protocol-no
But what you posted is not enough to diagnose it.