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Windows 11 does not recognize my bluetooth headset microphone

Anonymous
2023-12-04T17:47:20+00:00

My WH-XB910N headset is pairing correctly with my Windows 11 laptop, but it only recognizes it as headphones, no recording device shows up in the sound devices(except the laptop built-in microphone).

I can see in the device properties that it has only one audio endpoint attached to it, but it should have 3 of them, one for the headphone, one for the microphone and one for the handsfree telephony. On a different Windows 11 laptop, where the headphones are working, it has all 3 of them.

In the services attached to the device I can see the audio sink and Handsfree Telephony both checked - see screenshots below.

I noticed one more detail, which might help analyzing the issue:

When connecting the headset via bluetooth it takes around 20 seconds until the headset is showing up in the audio devices (and only then I hear the sound through it). Looks like a timeout to me. On the working laptop it's instant.

Things I did so far, but didn't help:

  • Update/reinstall to latest bluetooth drivers
  • Update/reinstall to latest chipset drivers
  • Delete pairing information on both laptop and headset
  • Update from Windows 22h2 to 23h2
  • Inplace Windows upgrade repair
  • sfc/dism
  • Banging my head to the wall

Audio endpoints:

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Devices and drivers

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-12-05T17:26:10+00:00

    I just figured this out for my own systems, which have been slowly seeing Bluetooth headsets stop working in this manner for weeks (actually felt like it was "spreading" from one computer to another)

    TL;DR - Your antivirus or EDR may be blocking the RFCOMM Protocol TDI device from activating or loading, which will kill headset use.

    Sequence of events

    1 - Bluetooth working fine for calls and media

    2 - Windows update (not the actual culprit, but the reboot after)

    3 - Bluetooth headset option no longer available in Teams

    3a - Bluetooth device only listed as "connected audio" and not "connected mic, audio"

    3b - Headset device shows "disconnected" in advanced audio settings

    Bluetooth driver updates, headset driver updates, all do not fix anything. Uninstalling in Device Manager and reinstalling devices does not help.

    In Device Manager, noticed an issue with the "Bluetooth Device (RFCOMM Protocol TDI)" device - the driver was "blocked from loading" or the device was disabled.

    Looking at the device's drivers and attempting to rollback/reinstall, noticed a third driver listed in the Drivers tab: "C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\SentinelOne\23.2.3.358\SentinelDeviceControl.sys"

    SentinelOne has a "device control" module, and one of the default options in the console is now "Bluetooth: Disable RFCOMM for all devices (Windows only)" - this was not present before. Disabling this option in SentinelOne's device control console, and rebooting the computer, fixed my issue. I tested further afterward by disabling the RFCOMM device in Device Manager, and immediately the microphone option was gone from Teams. Re-enabling the RFCOMM device caused the microphone to come back right away.

    RFCOMM can be used to transfer files to a Bluetooth device and may be disabled as part of a DLP policy. However, RFCOMM is also how Windows tells the headset to switch to microphone mode - the audio quality drops because there is not enough bandwidth to support both high-quality stereo sound AND the microphone. So Windows sends a message via RFCOMM to the headset to turn on the mic. Without RFCOMM available, Windows can't do that, and can't turn on the microphone.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-12-05T18:24:28+00:00

    Jeffrey, thank you for the detailed description. I checked the Bluetooth Device (RFCOMM Protocol TDI) device and it loads perfectly fine. It has just the normal rfcomm/bthenum drivers.

    In fact all drivers of all devices are loading fine, I am just missing the 2 endpoints.

    I don't have any other antivirus software installed besides MS Defender.

    I also checked the Windows events, but I don't see any hints of anything going wrong.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-12-05T10:19:50+00:00

    Btw. on the laptop where the headset is working correctly the Hands-Free device is also listed as a "System device". So I'd expect this to be correct then. But additionally, there are two audio endpoints which are missing on the non-working one.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-12-05T10:15:58+00:00

    Thank you for your reply. It doesn't show up in the recording devices.

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-12-05T09:57:40+00:00

    Hello,

    Thank you for using Microsoft products and posting to the community.

    Since the Hands-Free device is only listed as a "System device", it is possible that the microphone is disabled.

    Please press Windows+R and enter "mmsys.cpl", go to the "Recording" tab, and provide a screenshot showing the currently available recording devices.

    We look forward to your response.

    Best Regards,

    Johann - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

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