Android BLE Gatt Server with multiple services - onCharacteristicWriteRequest() no char for handle

Question

I am trying to build a BLE Gatt Server with multiple custom services and multiple characteristics.

To begin with I used the Google Example: https://github.com/androidthings/sample-bluetooth-le-gattserver/tree/master/kotlin

This was straight forward and worked very well. I modified the UUIDs to fit mine and I could receive notifications and write to the chars with no problem.

This is where I define the services and chars:

fun createTimeService(): BluetoothGattService {
        val service = BluetoothGattService(TIME_SERVICE,
                BluetoothGattService.SERVICE_TYPE_PRIMARY)

        // Current Time characteristic
        val currentTime = BluetoothGattCharacteristic(CURRENT_TIME,
                //Read-only characteristic, supports notifications
                BluetoothGattCharacteristic.PROPERTY_READ or BluetoothGattCharacteristic.PROPERTY_NOTIFY,
                BluetoothGattCharacteristic.PERMISSION_READ)
        val configDescriptor = BluetoothGattDescriptor(CLIENT_CONFIG,
                //Read/write descriptor
                BluetoothGattDescriptor.PERMISSION_READ or BluetoothGattDescriptor.PERMISSION_WRITE)
        currentTime.addDescriptor(configDescriptor)

        // Local Time Information characteristic
        val localTime = BluetoothGattCharacteristic(LOCAL_TIME_INFO,
                BluetoothGattCharacteristic.PROPERTY_WRITE,
                BluetoothGattCharacteristic.PERMISSION_WRITE)

        service.addCharacteristic(currentTime)
        service.addCharacteristic(localTime)

        return service
    }

    fun createSerialService(): BluetoothGattService {
        val service = BluetoothGattService(serialPortServiceID,
                BluetoothGattService.SERVICE_TYPE_PRIMARY)

        val serialData = BluetoothGattCharacteristic(serialDataCharacteristicID,
        BluetoothGattCharacteristic.PROPERTY_WRITE,
        BluetoothGattCharacteristic.PERMISSION_WRITE)

        service.addCharacteristic(serialData)

        return service
    }

And here I am applying them to my server:

 private fun startServer() {
        bluetoothGattServer = bluetoothManager.openGattServer(this, gattServerCallback)

        bluetoothGattServer?.addService(TimeProfile.createTimeService())
                ?: Log.w(TAG, "Unable to create GATT server")

        bluetoothGattServer?.addService(TimeProfile.createSerialService())
                ?: Log.w(TAG, "Unable to create GATT server")

        // Initialize the local UI
        updateLocalUi(System.currentTimeMillis())
    }

I would expect that everything would be working like before after adding the second service. But now if I try to write/subscribe to any of the characteristics (doesn't matter in which service) I just receive this:

W/BluetoothGattServer: onCharacteristicWriteRequest() no char for handle 42
W/BluetoothGattServer: onDescriptorWriteRequest() no desc for handle 43

Answer 1

I found what was going wrong. Apparently you cannot just add all services at once like I did. Adding the second service before the first one was confirmed lead to an Exception setting the services to null.

In the end I solved this by adding only one service initially. Then in the onServiceAdded() Callback of the BleGattServerCallback() I started one after another.