Bluetooth headset shown as connected, but is not available to play audio

Blargius said:

I just tried unpairing, turning Bluetooth off and on again, and repairing it, but it still doesn't work. The headphones are (were) able to connect to both my laptop and phone at the same time but only play audio from one at a time. I have unpaired them from the phone and repeated the process now with the same result. I have attached a screen snip of the devices settings page if that is relevant. Usually, where it says Connected, it also says "Voice, Audio."

Click to expand...

Blargius said:

I also have the latest firmware and am using the Sony Connect app on my phone; I don't think it is available for Windows.

Click to expand...

OK, you've done due diligence there with the unpairing and such.

What do you see listed under System --> Sound for devices? Also, under System --> Sound --> All sound devices?

If you see your WH-1000XM4 listed under all Sound devices, click on it and see if it is marked with an Allow button, and if so, click it. It's been marked as 'Don't allow' and that should fix it.

I would suggest, with the device in question, completely Remove it from Devices, not just un-pair..., remove it from other devices, then pair it freshly with the PC again.

jeffbeish said:

No iPhone nor phone connect. Will snoop some more, it takes time to put PC to sleep, wake and check.

Click to expand...

I guess updating the driver cured it. Thought one of the recent updates took care of it.

Well, it's back! After my PC wakes up from sleep the headset driver is gone. Nothing brings it back except reboot. Something must be set wrong in Power Options, but not sure what. Any suggestions?

Dell Inspiron 15 3510 Intel® Celeron® N4020 Win-11

If it is sleep causing the issue, see if you have hybrid sleep enabled or disabled.

Whichever it is set to, try using the other value.

I rolled back the Realtek driver then found the prior one and installed it, so when I plug in the headset it loads the correct driver and indicates headset plugged in. Oh well.

I had this problem today and ended up looking into this conversation. I tried one of the ideas (remove my wireless headphone Jabra from my Dell laptop and disconnecting the headphone from other device, and then connecting the headphone to Dell laptop and amazingly it works!!!!). Thank you.

Blargius said:

I just tried unpairing, turning Bluetooth off and on again, and repairing it, but it still doesn't work. The headphones are (were) able to connect to both my laptop and phone at the same time but only play audio from one at a time. I have unpaired them from the phone and repeated the process now with the same result. I have attached a screen snip of the devices settings page if that is relevant. Usually, where it says Connected, it also says "Voice, Audio."

Click to expand...

Did you find a resolution to this? I have the exact same headphones and am seeing the same issue and have tried all the same things.

thetdeck said:

Did you find a resolution to this? I have the exact same headphones and am seeing the same issue and have tried all the same things.

Click to expand...

You could try
PS code to remove faulty bluetooth pairings - KeithM - TenForums
At least one of the other posters in that thread said it worked for them.

Or the very successful
Bluetooth command line tools - BluetoothInstaller
This was praised many times in
Steps to completely remove a belutooth device so pairing can be done again [post #9, xzion] - TenForums


Best of luck,
Denis

Neither of those options work for me. Couple things to add here - when the device is disconnected, I see it as as playback device in this list:


As soon as I connect them, they disappear from that list and can't find them anywhere (also not in the recording list). show disabled devices is enabled so they should show up even if they were disabled somehow.


I also noticed that when I go to "all sound devices" and look at this device - it looks like the setting for "allow apps and windows to use this device" is disabled, but clicked the button to allow it does nothing. I click it and it just doesn't enable.

It's not showing any drivers?



Try reinstalling the Bluetooth driver via device manager. Right click your Bluetooth and select update driver, browse my computer....,
let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer and select the driver then next.

To solve headphones being connected but not being seen in playback devices. Bluetooth & devices --> Devices --> More devices and printer settings -->selecting your headset-->services-->turning off " Hands free Telephony". (It might be called something different in your settings.)

JoelJoel said:

I had this problem today and ended up looking into this conversation. I tried one of the ideas (remove my wireless headphone Jabra from my Dell laptop and disconnecting the headphone from other device, and then connecting the headphone to Dell laptop and amazingly it works!!!!). Thank you.

Click to expand...

Yeah Ive run into this a few times in the last year maybe. If I connect a pair of wireless earbuds to say my pc or phone, in order to use that same headset on a different device I have to Unpair the to the one in order to be able to Pair them to the new device or else it doesnt even see them.

imanlien2020 said:

I have to Unpair the to the one in order to be able to Pair them to the new device

Click to expand...

Many devices still don't support Multipoint, but it's getting better..., my old Jabra's would only make one connection at a time, I think my new one's can do 3.

jimmy2time said:

To solve headphones being connected but not being seen in playback devices. Bluetooth & devices --> Devices --> More devices and printer settings -->selecting your headset-->services-->turning off " Hands free Telephony". (It might be called something different in your settings.)

Click to expand...

THIS WORKED! I've been searching for a solution to my bluetooth headphones not being seen as an audio device since I had to switch to windows 11 three months ago, and this is the first thing that has actually worked!! Thank you!

jimmy2time said:

To solve headphones being connected but not being seen in playback devices. Bluetooth & devices --> Devices --> More devices and printer settings -->selecting your headset-->services-->turning off " Hands free Telephony". (It might be called something different in your settings.)

Click to expand...

Thank you so much @jimmy2time !!! I've been dealing with this issue for months, and this is the only thing that's worked. I'm not sure why 'Hands free Telephony' was a issue, but I won't look the proverbial gift-horse in the mouth. TY, TY, TY!

Hands free Telephony was created because Bluetooth 4.x and lower could not handle both stereo audio for speakers and a microphone at the same time. Enabling Hands free Telephony solved this by changing it to mono audio for speakers which allowed a microphone to be used at the same time. I haven't tested it yet by I suspect Bluetooth 5.0 may have solved that problem.