Y2Linux 1.0 Beta 9.3.12: Bluetooth pauses and skips like a phone

Release 1.0.0-beta.9.3.12, Y2Reborn 1.0.0-beta.9.3.12, kernel 6.18.56-y2linux-1.0.0-beta.9.3.12, update sequence 14500, root 2026.08-platform-v1.243. Published as GitHub release baseline-220 (test build 220). Previous release: Beta 9.3.7. Versions 9.3.8 to 9.3.11 were test builds on the developer's player and were never published; everything in them is part of this release.

This report is written for people who use the player. A short technical appendix is at the end.

In one paragraph

Beta 9.3.7 made the player keep a Bluetooth stream open while you paused, so that no headphones would be asked to stop and start again. That is a state phones never put headphones in, and it turned out to be the cause of three complaints: silence after a pause or after the second or third song (AirPods, Y2Linux #89), a dropped connection about 20 s into every pause (AirPods Pro), and Samsung Buds that "disconnected" a minute into a pause (Y2Linux #90, where the player had in fact gone to sleep). This release goes back to what phones and Beta 9.2.16 do: a pause stops the stream at once and Play starts a fresh one. On top of that a track change no longer interrupts the stream at all, and a paused player with Bluetooth headphones stays awake the 15 minutes it was always meant to.

What changed

• Pause stops the stream, Play starts a new one (as a phone does and as 9.2.16 did). Headphones that went silent

  after a pause or a skip, and the connection drop about 20 s into a pause, both came from a stream kept open without sound: the headphones play what is in their buffer, run dry, and some (AirPods) never recover until a new stream starts. Measured on the developer's player: the packets to the headphones ran on without a single gap at the skips; the silence followed every pause/resume gap inside the kept stream.

• A track change no longer interrupts the stream. Before, the player threw away the last tenth of a second of the

  old song and the stream stopped for about 60 ms per skip. Now the old song's last fraction plays out and the next song follows it without a gap. (Y2Linux #89: "the second song is laggy, the third plays without sound".)

• A paused player with Bluetooth headphones stays awake 15 minutes before it sleeps, so their play button keeps

  working (Y2Linux #90). The 15 minutes were there since Beta 8.18 but counted from the first pause after boot rather than from each pause, so after a resume the next pause slept after 60 s, and sleep ends the Bluetooth link. On the reporter's log every "disconnect" was such a sleep, and the Buds reconnected within 5 s of every wake.

• Headphones that connect with a different codec than the one you chose no longer drop and reconnect in a loop

  (Y2Reborn #94: Bose SoundLink Flex 2, Sony WF-C710N). The codec change is now sent once the link is set up, and a change that ends the link is not sent to that headset again until you pick a codec again.

• Two BlueALSA improvements for skips with a kept stream: the RTP timestamp follows real time across a gap, and the

  sender refills the headphones' buffer after one.

How it was tested

• Before release: the platform's full check (host tests, recorded outputs, contract, code-quality ratchet),

  Reborn's workspace tests (new tests for the paused-headset hold and the kept Bluetooth sink) and the 552 tests of the release images.

• On a player: the developer's player with AirPods Pro: skips in a row, pauses of a few seconds and longer, all

  with sound afterwards (test build 220, 2026-11-04). Test build 219, which still kept the stream open, was captured with btmon during the same actions: 47 packets per second without a gap at the skips, silence only after the pause/resume gaps, which is what settled the cause. AirPods Pro are the only headphones the developer has; the reports of #89, #90 and #94 were read against this build but not re-tested by their reporters yet.

Updating

Settings → System → Software Update → Update Now. Your music, playlists, settings, Wi-Fi networks and Bluetooth pairings stay. Restore Previous System (Settings → System → About, tap Version seven times, then Diagnostics) goes back to Beta 9.3.7.

Known issues

Everything listed for Beta 9.0 still applies.

• After a sleep (a pause longer than 15 minutes, or the Power button) the Bluetooth link ends; the player reconnects

  within a few seconds of waking. Buds that have meanwhile gone back to a phone must be picked again (Settings → Bluetooth, tap them).

• The Hisense soundbar of Y2Reborn #94 (SBC only, connected but silent) is not resolved; try SBC quality High in

  Settings → Bluetooth → Codec.

• Only AirPods Pro were tested here. If your headphones behave worse than in 9.3.7, send an error report (Settings →

  System → Error Reports): it contains the Bluetooth journal.

Technical appendix

• y2-radiod starts bluealsad --keep-alive=0 again (bt/supervise.rs). 9.3.7–9.3.11 used 900 s because a Suspend

  sent 10 s into an idle stream had gone unanswered one time in three (2026-11-03); the stream kept started without packets is what muted the AirPods (F43 in Beta 6 was the same effect) and made them stop answering the baseband 2 s into a pause (supervision timeout 0x08 20 s later).

• Reborn: platform::headset_hold_since (hold from paused_at, cleared while playing; F68 in the report ledger);

  playback/sink.rs keep_sink keeps a Bluetooth sink's queued audio and reuse_kept prepares it again on reuse; output.rs hold() does no device pause on a Bluetooth sink (that was a drain, a gap). F66: bt/settle.rs SWITCH_QUIET 3 s after the link came up, Codecs::kept across reconnects, Record::unset_since for the half-connected rule.

• BlueALSA patches 0007 (RTP timestamp on real time across a gap) and 0008 (refill up to 200 ms after a gap).

  0008 can only send what the ALSA plugin's io thread has delivered, which it paces per period; it is not what fixed the skips.

• Linux 31d3987e (built), Reborn d52589a (built); work commits 75b6fad2, 756c5e53, b13c1fbb, 7bd63437

  (Linux) and 33ee726, 8136838, 5fa7e23 (Reborn).