ESP32 A2DP Sink – Windows 11 connection issue

[TomBednarHaluz]

Hi everyone,
first of all thanks for this library, it’s really helpful.
I’m using ESP32 as a Bluetooth speaker (A2DP Sink). Connecting from a phone works perfectly – pairing and audio playback are fine. But when I try from a Windows 11 laptop, the device pairs but Windows does not add it as an audio output.
When I test the clean ESP-IDF A2DP Sink example, Windows connects and streams audio without problems. So the issue only happens in my own project?
Has anyone managed to get Windows 11 working reliably with ESP32 as an A2DP Sink?
Board: ESP32-WROVER-KIT, Pioarduino 3.3.4

[RuloH]

I have the same issue. Did you find a solution? the weird part is that with the same esp32 board and same laptop, two years ago it was working fine. Something changed with the library/windows.

[TomBednarHaluz]

Hi,
Yes, I managed to track it down! It seems to be a regression or a breaking change in the ESP-IDF framework itself.

The issue appears in ESP-IDF version 5.5.2 and newer. I tested the clean A2DP Sink example from the ESP-IDF components, and it exhibits the same behavior—pairing works, but Windows 11 fails to recognize it as an audio output device.

The last version where everything works reliably with Windows 11 is ESP-IDF 5.5.1.

If you are using PlatformIO (Pioarduino), you might need to force the framework version back to one that uses IDF 5.5.1. Hopefully, this gets fixed in future IDF releases!

[RuloH]

Thank you very much! it works now.