I recently picked up a pair of QC35s and have had issues as well, either pairing but not working or more commonly failing to pair with an AuthenticationFailure error code.

It seems that these headphones do not work with LE when pairing, though they seem to behave properly once paired.

In order to pair properly I disabled LE: (requires dev mode)

sudo btmgmt le off
sudo restart bluetoothd

[ pair with headphones, ensure audio is working ]

sudo btmgmt le on
sudo restart bluetoothd

After this the headphones continue to work properly with LE enabled.

It looks like bluez has a subtly different stack for android, which may explain why it works there.  I did some quick looking but couldn't easily identify what to change in the non-android stack.  Either something is off in the LE pairing setup or there needs to be some sort of retry on failure for this specific condition.  I don't really know much about bluetooth internals so this is as far as I got.

Which Chromebook did you try this with Duncan?

The LE off method does not seem to work on my computer. Behavior upon pairing is the same; for less than a second the computer says "connecting..., then it swithces to say "authentification failed.... Sometimes though it connects making the text Bose Quietcomfort 35 in the bluetooth device list bold and checkmarked, and upon swithching the headphones on and off this text changes from bold to normal. Thus the computer appears to have connected to the headphones. But the headphones on the other hand does not acknowledge the computer as connected. Sound always come through the computer speakers. 

Can also add that I have exactly the same problem on my Toshiba Chromebook 1. Thus headphones are not working with two different Chromebook's; Toshiba Chromebook 1 and Acer Chromebook 15

I've got the headphones and managed to repro the issue. There are two issues here.
a.) The headphones don't pair. I've had some success with getting them to pair with LE off, but I've also managed to get them to pair with LE on (just a lot less often), I am not very sure what is going on here.
b.) The headphone isn't recognized as an audio device.

I am investigating both issues.

I remember a while ago a BLE mouse didn't work because we weren't reading
it's appearance. Someone added a method to read the appearance for HID
devices. Maybe you just have to add audio devices to that list. I'm not
near a computer right now so I can't get you the exact method.

I suspect b will be the much easier problem to solve. Usually we're just not reading a value or haven't categorized a class of devices correctly.

I am worried about a.). It looks like with LE enabled, we completely skip certain steps like negotiating levels of encryption and getting the link key.

Note that the Pixel LS has the same issue with the Bose QC 35.  Pairs and connects, but the Pixel LS (and my Toshiba CB 2 (2015)) does not recognize the headset as an audio device.  Bose QC 35 pairs, connects, and has audio routed to it on my Acer c720 and c740.

Add me to the list of QC 35 pairing issues. I've had authentication errors on 2 CB's:

1. Acer c720
2. HP 13 G1 <<A newly released CB model

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=615111

This looks like another example of BLe headphones not working on Chrome OS.

I got my QC35 to pair to my chromebook flip by following the steps from this reddit comment:


https://www.reddit.com/r/chromeos/comments/4nzygw/bose_bluetooth_headphones_will_pair_i_think_but/


Connect the headphones using the regular bluetooth settings, it will show up as connected but wont work. Then use bluetoothctl to manually connect to your headphones. It most likely wont work the first try, it takes me 3-4 connects to work. 

after connecting, it seems the headphones is able to store the information and everything will work properly from now on.

I was able to finally get my QC35's to connect and work with my CB by using
developer mode, a terminal screen and bluetoothctl commands....

QC35, Pixel LS.
Pairing failed repeatedly, but after clearing the paired devices from the QC35 I was able to finally achieve pairing with the Pixel on the stable branch. I then hit issue b (not recognized as an audio device). I tried moving to the dev branch and repeated these steps, also trying bluetoothctl but that command doesn't seem to be available to me (perhaps enterprise restricted).
Keenly following this bug for a fix, as I really want these pricey QC35s to work for hangouts. Happy to help troubleshooting if needed.

The only way I was able to pair was by putting my CB in developer mode and
then using terminal commands for the bluetoothctl function.  I've actually
been able to do this twice, so I know it works.  You can find the
procedures online or I can tell you what I specifically did.

Unfortunately I cannot do that:
crosh> bluetoothctl
ERROR: unknown command: bluetoothctl

Aah.. you must do the command: "shell" <<< no quotes... then do the bluetoothctl command.

The pairing issues of the QC35 seem unrelated to the issue of it not being recognized. I can get the pairing issue to repro with LE turned on and off, and I can also pair when it turned on and off, apparently randomly.

I also have problems pairing it with Android, just lesser. Out of 10 times I tried, it did not pair 4 times with Android too. This 'could' be an issue with just the headphones.


The headphones not showing up in the UI is a definite issue that I have made some headway on. Since we have another issue already covering this, merging into it.

also have this problem.
tried with 3 Chromebooks.
1 Toshiba CB35-A3120 and 2 Acers: CB3-111 and C720.
works ok with old Sony Vaio VPCSC laptop and Samsung Galaxy S2 cellphone.
if anyone feels like it, would they please tell me step by step instructions how to make the Bose QC35 work with my Chromebooks?

I did the update on my chromebook to Chrome OS v53 yesterday and the problem is solved. :-)

are you serious?
that is freakin cool.
thanks for letting me know!!

I don't think the update fixed the issue on my CB

its working on my Toshiba CB now.
very yay!!!!!!
thank you Stephane!!!!!!!!

ok, it connects to Toshiba CB.
but not to Acer CB.

Toshiba CB does not work either now. :(

now it does work with the Toshiba CB again.

Still observing this issue with QC35s and a Pixel 2. Have tried clearing the paired devices list from the QC35s and re-pairing, no joy. I can't enable developer mode since it's administered by my company.

bummer.
just checked with my Toshiba CB.
works.
but glitchy. thinking Chromebook and this Bose..........well, I'll just say I am not holding my breath for it to work really good.
more like, giving up.

This is also happening to me. QC35 with Pixel 2.

still very sketchy here as well.
now I just use the cable with the Chromebook. (ie, not bluetooth.)
c'est la vie.

This issue was marked a duplicate some time ago, to an issue that was also marked duplicate to  issue 636078  which was only recently fixed (impacting Chrome 56 at my quick look). Constructive comments should go there.

The patches mentioned at https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=636078#c19 fix this issue. Fixes have landed in M-56 9000.74.0 and M-57 9199.0.0.

The bose soundlink headphones now works with the chromebooks.