Question What are all the Bluetooth services, that are presented with questionmark in Dev. Manager and when I turn them off, handsfree/headset work just fine?

[uplink-svk]

Hey there mates,

this has been haunting me for ages now. When You go to Your Control Panel and You open Devices and Printers and there You select random Bluetooth device [in my case WH-1000XM5, or WF-1000XM4, etc.], You can go to Properties of Your device and there list Services.

And they list as follows:

• Airoha_APP
• Airoha_IAP2
• BT_SAR_AP
• BT_SAR_SE
• BTFASTPAIR
• BTSPOTIFY
• GSOUND_BT_AUDIO
• GSOUND_BT_CONTROL
• Serial HPC
• Serial MC
• Unknown Service

And many others. These correlate to Device Manager unknown devices [the ones with question mark on them] and have no driver whatsoever.

My question goes as follows. The BT works well without these services, for now, but, should I leave them on? Is it safe to turn them off?

It's just my OCD, that these services always "shine" in Device Manager and are running me nuts.

This is an example of Bluetooth Services both in Device Manager and Properties of a Bluetooth Device.

Please let me know, whether I can turn them safely off, or should leave them alone, eventhough they're marked as unknown devices.

Thank You!

With best regards

uplink

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

Please let me know, whether I can turn them safely off, or should leave them alone

they could just be devices that were in Bluetooth range that were detected but never used or used and just saved for future use.

my old LG TV, old phones, and a laptop still showed in Devices/Device Manager for a year or so until i just physically removed those that i know will never be communicated with again.

 

[uplink-svk]

they could just be devices that were in Bluetooth range that were detected but never used or used and just saved for future use.

my old LG TV, old phones, and a laptop still showed in Devices/Device Manager for a year or so until i just physically removed those that i know will never be communicated with again.

Hey there mate!

Thank You kindldy for Your fast reply! Well, You'd be right ofcourse, but these aren't devices per se, but rather Bluetooth Services within a device that I use. Namely WF-1000XM4, WH-1000XM5 and Poly 5200 [Plantronics Voyager headset].

Each of these services belong to the hardware I use, it's just being unidentified, these services. Some are, some aren't.

From what I can see it's some protocols that are made for either Android, or iOS, or other devices that are able to communicate with my headsets/true wireless/wireless headphones and thus are there, but aren't identified.

But this is only my wild guess. Thus, I'd like to know from a person who already researched this, whether it's safe to turn these services off, so they won't be present in Device Manager as unknown and unidentified services/devices, as can be seen on the screenshots I attached in the first post.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

Each of these services belong to the hardware I use

determine what specific service(s) Windows needs.
anything else is irrelevant in this situation and can be disabled.

but through hundreds of Windows systems i've never seen a device's available services be shown in Device Manager this way.

even just checking now on the 3 systems in our home there are only between 2 & 6 unknown devices showing, all PCI or Bus devices.
all 3 systems have Bluetooth devices regularly used between them.

when this particular Bluetooth device is disconnected from the system do these services still show up as unknown devices?

either this/these Bluetooth devices you have connected function strangely in this manner or something is setup wrong, possibly with your Bluetooth drivers.

 

[uplink-svk]

determine what specific service(s) Windows needs.
anything else is irrelevant in this situation and can be disabled.

but through hundreds of Windows systems i've never seen a device's available services be shown in Device Manager this way.

even just checking now on the 3 systems in our home there are only between 2 & 6 unknown devices showing, all PCI or Bus devices.
all 3 systems have Bluetooth devices regularly used between them.

either this/these Bluetooth devices you have connected function strangely in this manner or something is setup wrong, possibly with your Bluetooth drivers.

when this particular Bluetooth device is disconnected from the system do these services still show up as unknown devices?

Hey there mate!

Yes they do show even when the device is disconnected. And I also found this video by luck, where a guy has the exact same issue, but with ghost devices and removes all the uncencessary services manually.

The names of the undefined/unrecognized, but named and sometimes not even that services are intriguing, or at least interesting to me. They sound like some undefined/unusable services within system.

Regarding drivers, I've tried multiple BT drivers, the ones that came with board, the ones from manufacturer of BT chip [Intel], etc. Tried multiple clean Windows installs and these "ghost services" always re-appear after some time, so I decided to study them a bit.

And thus my question what are they, where do they come from, what are they used for and whether they're safe to be removed. I mean, maybe they're being activated only in special cases, e.g. pairing, or something. And mabe they're just some residual bug, as You pointed out.

Anyway, thank You kindly for Your feedback and insight, much appreciated!

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

what are they, where do they come from, what are they used for and whether they're safe to be removed.

i've just connected a few of my devices(headphone, ear piece, & phone) to see what exact services are included.

all three are almost identical showing handsfree phone, advanced audio, mic, remote control, and a few other.
with all of these devices they are just processes that can be activated and used through the Bluetooth connection.

also these device's available services do not show up in Device Manager as those odd labeled ones on your device(s) seem to do.

i would assume why your device offers so many others is just that it either offers more functionality than your average device or there is some malfunction in the communication of these available services.

it really makes no sense why these odd services would show up in Device Manager.
an onboard Bluetooth process shouldn't be considered a separate device unless it was some sort of external wireless docking hub for multiple devices.

what type of device are the WH-1000XM5 & WF-1000XM4?

 

[uplink-svk]

i've just connected a few of my devices(headphone, ear piece, & phone) to see what exact services are included.

all three are almost identical showing handsfree phone, advanced audio, mic, remote control, and a few other.
with all of these devices they are just processes that can be activated and used through the Bluetooth connection.

also these device's available services do not show up in Device Manager as those odd labeled ones on your device(s) seem to do.

i would assume why your device offers so many others is just that it either offers more functionality than your average device or there is some malfunction in the communication of these available services.

it really makes no sense why these odd services would show up in Device Manager.
an onboard Bluetooth process shouldn't be considered a separate device unless it was some sort of external wireless docking hub for multiple devices.

what type of device are the WH-1000XM5 & WF-1000XM4?

Interesting mate! Thank You kindly for Your feedback!

Hmm, well, the XM4's are True Wireless headphones, and the XM5's are overhead wireless headphones. I mean they could have tons of weird services, that work only with Android/iOS, e.g. they are both multipoint devices [can be connected to multiple devices at once] and are updatable [have OTA FW update capability], and some others, e.g. more advanced sound codes, etc.

But I don't think that they're that different from other BT wireless headphones, headsets, etc.

I will check my notebook when I'm at work and see how the XM4's are connected to the same OS [Win 11] there, whether there are also some Ghost Services present in Device Manager.

Thank You for pointing out this now pretty obvious technique of comparing the same device on two different devices with same OS. Thank You! [I didn't think of it 😀].

 

[bingobot]

Interesting mate! Thank You kindly for Your feedback!

Hmm, well, the XM4's are True Wireless headphones, and the XM5's are overhead wireless headphones. I mean they could have tons of weird services, that work only with Android/iOS, e.g. they are both multipoint devices [can be connected to multiple devices at once] and are updatable [have OTA FW update capability], and some others, e.g. more advanced sound codes, etc.

But I don't think that they're that different from other BT wireless headphones, headsets, etc.

I will check my notebook when I'm at work and see how the XM4's are connected to the same OS [Win 11] there, whether there are also some Ghost Services present in Device Manager.

Thank You for pointing out this now pretty obvious technique of comparing the same device on two different devices with same OS. Thank You! [I didn't think of it 😀].

I have the same problem with the XM5:

lots of bluetooth services that wont install properly. Before I did a clean install of win11, the XM5 paired really quickly with my computer, but now it takes forever before it switches over from speakers to headset. Would love to have atleast the BTFASTPAIR to work..

 

[lmore377]

whether I can turn them safely off

The only 2 services you absolutely need are Audio Sink and Remote Control. If you want to be able to use the microphone in your headset you'll also need Handsfree Telephony

Would love to have atleast the BTFASTPAIR to work

BTFASTPAIR is just for the fast pair feature on android and doesn't work on other platforms/devices