Windows 10 patch messes up Bluetooth speakers – but there’s a workaround

Windows 10 May 2019 Update users have been hit by a bug brought in by the latest cumulative update which is causing Bluetooth speakers not to work.

Specifically, this is KB4505903, a patch designed to deliver various fixes, including smoothing over issues with Windows Hello facial recognition logins, and problems with Bluetooth devices.

KB4505903 is supposed to resolve an audio bug and improve Bluetooth audio quality in some respects – when using certain audio profiles for long periods – but instead it seems to have rather broken things for PCs that have an internal speaker installed.

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On these machines, after installing the aforementioned patch, May 2019 Update users may find that their Bluetooth speaker will no longer connect to their PC, or if it does connect, the audio quality will be poor.

A third problematic scenario described by Microsoft in its support document is that the Bluetooth speaker may connect, but the sound may come out of the PC’s internal speaker, rather than the Bluetooth device.

Microsoft further notes: “Additionally, in Device Manager, you notice an entry under the Sound, video and game controllers node for Microsoft Bluetooth A2dp Source that shows a yellow bang (exclamation mark) icon.”

Suggested workaround

Presumably Microsoft is currently fixing this issue, but for now, there’s a workaround detailed in the support document.

Affected May 2019 Update users need to fire up the System File Checker tool and use that to repair missing/corrupted files, which is evidently the issue here following the cumulative update.

To do this, you need to open the command line – and if you’re not sure how to do that, simply type ’cmd’ in the search box (next to the Start button) and click on the Command Prompt app at the top.

Once that’s open, type in the following, and press enter:

You may have to wait for a number of minutes for the scan and repair to actually be carried out, but once it’s finished, reboot your PC. Hopefully everything should now be back to normal with your Bluetooth devices in Windows 10.