Puck.js bluetooth issues windows 10

[Peekayy]

Hi,
i'm comming here after spending hours trying to solve pairing issues with my Puck.js board.
It was working perfectly until it crashed due to code I uploaded. Thus i had to hard reset it.
Since then, I cannot use the Web IDE to connect though it is still scanned by Web Bluetooth popup.

So I went to the vative IDE route which manages to connect to the board but fails to detect its info.
I dug into IDE source and found that parsing "process.env" fails.
I modified the IDE code slightly to retreive the error:
try { json = JSON.parse(result); } catch (e) { Espruino.Core.Notifications.error("JSON parse failed - " + e + " in " + JSON.stringify(result)); }

And this is what comes of process.env on my windows 10 PC :
{\"VERSION\":\"2v28\",\"GIT_COMMOARD\":\"PUCKJS\",\"RAM\":65536,\"FLASON\":1,\"STORAGE\":40960,\"SERIAL\":\",\"CONSOLE\":\"Bluetooth\",\"MODULES\"atshrink,crypto,neopixel\",\"EXPTRCE\":140}"

=> JSON is broken :/

To make sure I tried with a Linux laptop : Web IDE works perfectly and process.env is:
{ VERSION: "2v28", GIT_COMMIT: "37bd20827", BOARD: "PUCKJS", RAM: 65536, FLASH: 524288, HWVERSION: 1, STORAGE: 40960, SERIAL: "a6497e56-5f80746a", CONSOLE: "Bluetooth", MODULES: "Flash,Storage,heatshrink,crypto,neopixel", EXPTR: 432208, SOFTDEVICE: 140 }

So it really seems to be a bluetooth issue on my windows desktop but unfortunately I couln't fix it.
I've tried: reinstalling BT adapter driver, manually clear any reference to the MAC address in regedit, deleting BLE devices in device manager, ...
Gemini wasn't very helpful either !

BT adapter is a UGREEN 80889 based on rtl8761b.

Does anyone have any clue about what's going on here ?
Many thanks

[gfwilliams]

Hi! I think the issue you're hitting is specific to the Native IDE, which is quite old now and has problems receiving more that the ~20 byte packets that you get over basic Bluetooth LE. For a few years now Espruino devices have been sending more than that if it can be negotiated with the PC, and so some of it gets lost.

I think you'd be better seeing if you can go back to using the in-browser IDE rather than the native one. It's entirely likely that what happened is your PC paired with the Puck.js, but in the hard reset to the Puck deleted that pairing info. So now the PC tries connecting with the old pairing info but it's rejected because the Puck doesn't understand.

I believe this usually happens if you've paired in your Windows OS Bluetooth menu (not just the Web Bluetooth one). So if you can find the Puck listed in Windows' Bluetooth menu and then click 'Forget' I think it should all start working just fine with the Web IDE in the browser again (you don't normally end up pairing with Windows to use the Puck, but maybe it's something you were working on that caused the pairing)

[Peekayy]

Hmm thanks for that info about 20 byte limit. It absolutely makes sense !
Back to the web IDE then.
Unfortunately, BLE devices don't appear at all in windows OS BT menu. And in device manager, deleting devices won't work, they keep reappearing with a simple refresh. My guess is that the driver isn't 100% compliant with windows BT stack...
I'll try again to hard delete devices and keys in regedit.

[gfwilliams]

Ok, that's really strange - I can't think I've come across that before at all.

You could try long-pressing the Puck.js button while inserting the battery (same as the hard reset) and see if that helps to clear out pairing data again (in case somehow something got corrupted).

As it seems you can connect on Linux, maybe you could try running the command NRF.setAddress("e6:29:46:1d:33:a2 random"); which will temporarily change the Puck's address, and then see if Windows picks it up.

If that works you can do:

require("Storage").write('.boot0','NRF.setAddress("e6:29:46:1d:33:a2 random");');

Which will write code to the Puck which always runs at boot and sets the address to the new value, allowing windows to connect

[gfwilliams]

Actually, can you paste chrome://bluetooth-internals/#devices into Chrome's address bar?

You may have some success forgetting the device using that?

[Peekayy]

I had it work again !
Again I deleted everything related to my puck's mac address in regedit. And most notably a group of keys under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Bluetooth\Gatt which still kept track of services and attributes uuids I defined on my puck before hard reset. (Deleting this one wasn't easy, I had to run regedit as Sytem user and take ownership on the keys)
Removed the bluetooth driver.
Rebooted and reinstalled BT and voila web IDE can pair !

Thanks for the mac and bluetooth-internals tips anyway ! I didn't know about these.

PS: I'm not pairing it again to the OS bluetooth