Intel 9260 bluetooth controller not visible if VM is running as a service

[madbrain1976]

I am running VMWare 17.6.1 Pro on a Windows 11 Pro host.

My guest is Home Assistant OS.

I have been able to successfully attach multiple USB devices to my HAOS, which I'm running as a service. They work through the GUI, using the VM -> Removable devices menu option. I got 2 APC Back-UPS Pro 1500M working, as well as a Zooz series 800 Z-Wave stick. I found the USB vendor and device IDs in device manager, and was able to add them to my HAOS.vmx file as follows :

usb.autoConnect.device0 = "0x1a86:0x55d4"
usb.autoConnect.device1 = "0x051d:0x0002"
usb.autoConnect.device2 = "0x051d:0x0002"

I would like to also share the Intel 9260 bluetooth device with my VM. Device manager shows it as 

Ie. 8087:0025 .

I am able to successfully connect this device to the VM if I manually use the GUI. HAOS is able to use it just fine.

So, I added the following to my HAOS.vmx :

usb.autoConnect.device3 = "0x8087:0x0025"

Then restarted the HAOS VM as a service. Unfortunately, this did not work. The VM fails to see the Bluetooth controller. The other 3 USB devices still work. If I shut it down and restart it under the GUI, all is fine.

How can I get this device to work when the VM is running as a service ?

[madbrain1976]

Bump. Anyone here reading this ?

[Morc001]

Did you enable this?

[madbrain1976]

I don't have it on. The bluetooth controller just stopped working completely - as in, it's no longer showing in Windows device manager, or in VMWare workstation, regardless of running it as a service or not. I'm not quite sure if an update to the latest motherboard BIOS broke it, or if it is a hardware failure. Going to try a Linux live USB stick to check if it sees the hardware at all.

[madbrain1976]

So, I got the hardware Bluetooth controller working again. Very weird issue with the Asus TUF Gaming X570 Plus Wifi. It required powering off, unplugging the PSU, waiting a while, plugging the PSU back on, holding the power button, which reset the CMOS. At which point I restored the previous BIOS settings from my USB stick. And voilà, Bluetooth controller is showing again in Device Manager.

And the controller still works in my VM if I start it from the GUI. But it does not show anything about Bluetooth in the USB controller screen.

Despite the absence of this Bluetooth setting, it shows up just fine in my HAOS VM, as long as I start it from the GUI. If I start it from the VMWare autostart service, it doesn't get attached to the VM.

I monitored the Device Manager while the service was starting. I saw the Bluetooth category completely disappear, then reappear, then disappear agian, and on and on. It seems like the VM is trying to attach to use the controller, but failing, and it is releasing it back to the Windows host. And then the VM gets it back, and keeps trying again, and it gets released, and so on. That is my theory, anyway.

I know I can use the startup folder to start the VM from the GUI instead of the service, and the Bluetooth will then just work. I don't like that option, because Windows has a tendency to run updates that will sometimes prevent the desktop from coming up without user input. My HAOS VM runs a lot of automation in my home, and I don't want it to go down because of an update, especially if I am away, as I use HAOS remotely for monitoring. So, the Windows service is the way to go for me, as it runs before the desktop. I have also configured all my other daemons as Windows services, even those that didn't support it, using NSSM.

Maybe I need to switch OS and run all this on Linux instead of Windows, but it will be a lot more work to reconfigure everything. And I have a nearly full 5x4TB (20TB) NTFS stripe that will need to be backed up and restored onto a ZFS stripe instead. My NAS has enough space, and the network is 10 Gbps, but it is still a PITA. I would much rather solve this Bluetooth problem and not have to go through all that trouble.