iOS 18 beta: nRF Connect says "Your device reports an unknown error for Bluetooth use." How to detect the issue programmatically?

[pavel.leonenko]

On iOS 18 beta we faced a random issue: creating CBCentralManager doesn't trigger BLE permission dialog. There is a thread about this on Apple forums.

Freshly installed nRF Connect app cannot request Bluetooth permission too, instead it says "Your device reports an unknown error for Bluetooth use."

I couldn't find in Nordic repositories how nRF Connect detects that there is some unknown issue.

My question is - how can I detect that there is some unknown issue with Bluetooth? How does nRF Connect decide when to show this label?

[tesc]

Hi,

nRF Connect decide like this (pseudocode):

switch cbCentralManager.state {
case .resetting:
    // blip in Bluetooth availability. Inform the user
case .poweredOn:
    // good to go. Bluetooth available
default:
    // assume there's an error
}

guard cbCentralManager.state == .poweredOn else { 
    // if not .poweredOn, we can't scan
}
cbCentralManager.scanForPeripherals()

Regards,
Terje

[pavel.leonenko]

Hi tesc , thank you.

That's strange, because when I ran a sample app on that device, I noticed that cbCentralManager.state is always .unknown, and I didn't receive any notifications from CBCentralManagerDelegate - centralManagerDidUpdateState was never called, like described here. So I thought that nRF Connect does something special in addition to your check.

I didn't check CBManager.state though.

[tesc]

Hi,

I double checked, and the "Your device reports an unknown error for Bluetooth use" message comes from the default case in the switch. In the guard, the function is just exited.

In general the nRF Connect app follows the official documentation, which means checking the state repeatedly in order to see whether or not Bluetooth can be used.

Regards,
Terje

[pavel.leonenko]

Hi,

Got it. Now I recorded my phone screen and noticed that this message is really shown from the very beginning, but it quickly gets overlapped with the Bluetooth permission.

Thank you very much!