Broadcom cripples HP BT Keyboard!

[jimski]

After installing and then uninstalling the Think Outside Bluetooth Mouse on my 4705 I discovered that my HP Bluetooth Keyboard would not; 1.) launch Bluetooth when activating applet, 2.) keep device on while keyboard was connected. I complained to TO and they replied with the following;

Hello Jim,

Our software is completely removed when uninstalled. We do not change the registry keys. Have you installed a Broadcom Bluetooth patch recently? We have found some users have installed this patch which adds 2 new profiles to the Bluetooth manager. Stereo Headset and Keyboard. Unfortunately Broadcom states it is unsupported. The only method to remove the patch is to hard reset your PDA.

We have found the patch prevents our keyboard and mouse from connecting successfully also. We have opened up a support issue with Broadcom.

Think Outside Support

So apparantly when I installed the software for my HP Bluetooth Headphones (weeks after installing the HP Bluetooth Keyboard) Broadcom installed something called "Connect to a keyboard" which has apparantly crippled my HP BT Keyboard. What the h*** do :twisted: KEYBOARDS :twisted: have to do with Headphones. WHAT ELSE DID THEY INSTALL 8O ON MY DEVICE THAT I DID NOT ASK OR PAY FOR. Now I am expected to hard reset and rebuild my device, and I guess NOT install the Headphones if I want to continue to have the full functionality of the BT Keyboard.

Does this make any sense? Has anyone else experienced this so I know for sure it is not an isolated problem? You would have had to install both the HP BT Headphones and Keyboard to be experiencing the same thing. I am starting to think that may Ed :bad-words: has been right all along

My humblest appologies :werenotworthy: to Think Outside for my thinking that they might have messed up my device.

[Duncan]

You installed an unsupported patch that Broadcom never intended to be out in the wild. I fail to see why this is their fault. The person who messed up your PPC, hard though this may be to realise, is you.

[applejosh]

I may be missing something here, but jimski didn't say he installed an unofficial patch from some shady site or whatnot, just the software for the HP BT headphones. So how is this his fault? If anything, wouldn't it be HP's fault for using an unsupported patch in their official software package (if this is indeed the case)? Or am I missing something here?

(I have not used BT other than for connecting my iPAQ to my PC via use of a BT dongle, but no additional BT drivers/devices were installed to the iPAQ.)

[jimski]

Thank you applejosh. All I did was put the CD (supplied by HP) in my machine and follow the instructions. Nothing more. I did not find this software in some dark alley.

Actually, I purchased both devices (Headphones & Keyboard) from HP's Website. Shouldn't HP be aware of what Broadcom is providing to them? Yes, I am ultimately to blame because I used my hard earnd dollars to purchase and install was I thought were tested (not beta) devices from a legitimate source.

[Sven Johannsen]

I'll concur here. The official HP software that comes with the BT headphones, does indeed add both the AD2P and the HID profile. It appears that is similar to the PDA2K thing that was floating about that folks used to get the HP headphones to work on other than HP PPCs.

I noticed that the TO keyboard would work with the HID profile loaded on my 3715 without any other driver loaded. That says the TO keyboard is standard HID compliant. It didn't support some of the features that were available, but those are likely not part of the standard. The HP keyboard would not work with the HID drivers that were loaded when updating the 3715 with HPs headphone update. The HP keyboard is apparently not compatible with the standard HID profile. For shame, HP.

HP has kindly offered an update to Media Player 10 for the rx3000 series. Loading that breaks some of the BT headphone features.

So you have HP providing HID profiles (with their headphones) that don't work with HP keyboards and MP10 updates that don't work with HP headphones. HP needs to get their Sh!t together.

To be honest I haven't checked to see what the HP headphone load (with HID) did to the HP keyboard situation. I don't use a keyboard on my 3715, I only checked the TO and HP keyboards out of curiosity. The HP keyboard and headset work fine on my 4155 (no TO drivers), and the TO mouse and keyboard work fine on my X50v (no HP, or PDA2K drivers).

This is one of those things were it would be nice if the manufacturers just followed the standards.

[jimski]

Thanks for the explanation Sven. Before checking your response today I deleted all references to HID in my registry. I did this in steps, cautiously as I did not know exactly what it was, but had a good suspicion as this did not exist on my test 4700 which does not have the HP BT Headphones installed. First I got this profile to disappear from my Bluetooth setup screen (in Bluetooth Manager) but my device would still turn off after three minutes (the time I have instructed my PPC to shut down for inactivity) which is a real problem for a BT keyboard, having to reconnect constantly during a meeting.

This morning, I removed every reference to HID, requiring a soft reset at one point to gain access to one key (PlugIn) that would not let me delete on the first try. Now my HP BT Keyboard works as it should, keeping my device active while connected. I also tested my HP BT Headphones, GPS, etc. and everything appears to be OK.

So, although you can't delete the Broadcom Stereo Headphone patch (that adds the HID stuff), you can delete all the HID keys. I really hope this is all behind me. I agree that HP really bungled, but don't know exactly how to take on this 800lb gorilla.

One question though. I would still like to try and connect the TO BT Mouse. Think Outside has assured me that the HP BT Keyboard and TO BT Mouse can play well together. Does Think Outside load a HID profile (different from the unsupported Broadcom version) when installing their Mouse and Keyboard? If so, will this affect the functionality of my HP BT Keyboard again?

[PDANEWBIE]

jimski - I feel your pain.

What is with this if you load this it breaks this and then that no longer works and you then have to patch that which then breaks the other thing that originally had worked fine the whole time but then when you reinstall that it gives you errors and then something completly different breaks?

/rant on

Sorry but I am getting to the point where this is not supported and we only support "our product" and nothing else attitude that most of these companies have. I mean they keep coming out with the newest and latest and greatest and then it ends up breaking 10 other things that used to work just fine! I just wish that for once a company would back their products and get things working the way that it should and offer true solutions.

Duncan I have to say that I tend to think alot of the companies out there have your type of attitude when it comes to their support and IMHO I think that's whats lacking.

A prime example - I spent 5 hours on the phone with Earthlink's reps to troubleshoot an SMTP problem that had occured at a site that was using Earthlink as their webhost and email accounts. It turns out Earthlink has in the last few months blocked their SMTP servers from logon outside their own network causing these people to retrieve their emails sent to them via pop but not be able to reply to them. Mind you Earthlink had the audacity to say their ONLY solutions were to make each of these network PC's dialup and have them log on correctly to their network and THEN they will support us not being able to log onto SMTP.

Funny thing is the block they put in place broke our perfectly working setup. Now I have to spend time finding a webhost that will allow us to send outgoing mails without being logged into their network (as we use another ISP for all of our sites).

/rant off

I just wish companies would not take the we won't support this attitude and will take a lets fix this problem and get a solution.

[Sven Johannsen]

I just wish companies would not take the we won't support this attitude and will take a lets fix this problem and get a solution.

I hear you. For Earthlink try incoming at pop.earthlink.net and outgoing at smtpauth.earthlink.net. Use the whole user address ([email protected] as the user and the appropriate password for the login at both. Don't know if that will help but that is how my PPC sends E'link mail via T-Mobile and hotspots

[PDANEWBIE]

Yeah the problem is we don't have official Earthlink accounts. Its a webhost and they had setup about 6 different emails under that with no "official" logins I.E. we got web accounts and passwords but no Dial-up logins. Its actually [email protected] not Earthlink.com. I tried that same setup on the phone with the techs and when they said you had to dial up with each one I about exploded because thats not a solution thats a workaround.

Thanks for the help but the settings you reffered to was tried on the phone with the techs and still did not work. I think it has something to do with the difference between webhosting and a full account but they won't even try to help me with the problem so I think were just gonna move ISPs to one that will.

[eMike1]

I purchased a Think Outside BT keyboard and Think Outside BT mouse a couple of months ago and had them working well with my iPaq hx 4700, although I didn't have them set up to reconnect without having to go through the enable process each time. During that time, I purchased a set of HP Bluetooth headphones and installed them. I believe that I had to obtain an updated driver, firmware I think they called it. After a volume control problem with the original set of headphones, which were quickly replaced by HP, I was having trouble installing the replacement set. I obtained the updated driver again, (the version on the installation cd wouldn't get the job done) for the headphones and they worked fine. I finally decided to contact Think Outside tech support for assistance in setting up my keyboard and mouse so they would reconnect easily each time I wanted to use them. I was having to re-enable them each time I wanted to use them and that was a hassle I didn't need. One of the Think Outside tech support people contacted me at home recently and spent about an hour helping me with the setup. By trying several workarounds, and installing an updated Think Outside keyboard/mouse driver, we got the keyboard set up with a secure connection. The problem was with the mouse setup, which wouldn't set up and it kept asking for a passkey, which is not a part of the mouse setup process. That indicated to the tech support guy that there was a conflict with another BT driver. He asked if I had installed an updated driver for the HP BT headphones and he said that he had run across this problem before, but only in the case where the Broadcom driver for the HP BT headphones was involved. To make a long story not much longer, there is a conflict with the updated driver for the HP BT headphones. It has apparently been pulled off HP's website and I assume they are working on a fix. I had to hard reset my device, and then rebuild everything I had on my PPC. But the new TO driver was installed and the keyboard and mouse were easily set up and are working very well. They reconnect very easily without having to set them up each time. I'm very satisfied with the way the keyboard and mouse connect and perform. They are working great, and I am hopeful that HP will resolve the driver problem for the headphones soon, but right now they are not useable, because if I install the updated driver that makes them work, then my keyboard and mouse won't connect without a major hassle each time. In other words, I've got a set of $100 HP headphones that aren't compatible with the rest of my setup. You'd think they would get the bugs out before they put it on the market. I hope they do soon, because they are very convenient to use.