Bluetooth Classic AVRCP Target: missing TX cleanup on disconnect permanently stalls vendor-dependent responses and leaks them to the next peer

Overview

The AVRCP Target role in subsys/bluetooth/host/classic/avrcp.c keeps its vendor-dependent response transmit state in a per-connection object selected by connection index (get_avrcp_tg()), with the per-transfer context (tid, sent_len, and the BT_AVRCP_TG_FLAG_TX_ONGOING flag) stored in the user_data of the queued response net_buf. The AVCTP teardown handler avrcp_disconnected() did not cancel tg->vd_rsp_tx_work and did not release the buffers still queued on tg->vd_rsp_tx_pending, so a link drop in the middle of a fragmented response left the buffer on the list with TX_ONGOING still set.

A remote AVRCP Controller can trigger this deterministically: it issues a vendor-dependent command whose response exceeds one AVRCP fragment (for example GetElementAttributes or GetCapabilities), lets bt_avrcp_tg_vendor_tx_work() emit the START fragment, and then drops the ACL link instead of sending REQUEST_CONTINUING_RESPONSE. The AVCTP control channel requires an encrypted BR/EDR link (BT_SECURITY_L2), so the attacker must be a paired peer within radio range; no user interaction is needed.

Because the Target objects are static and reused, the next connection landing on the same connection index finds the stale buffer at the head of vd_rsp_tx_pending. Every run of the TX work sees TX_ONGOING and returns immediately, so all further vendor-dependent responses queue behind the stale head and are never sent — a persistent loss of AVRCP Target function that no timeout clears and only a reboot recovers. Each cycle also leaks one response buffer from a shallow application pool, and a new peer that sends REQUEST_CONTINUING_RESPONSE clears the stale TX_ONGOING via bt_avrcp_tg_process_continuing_cmd(), causing the un-sent remainder of the previous peer's response to be transmitted to it.

The fix cancels tg->vd_rsp_tx_work and unrefs every buffer on tg->vd_rsp_tx_pending in avrcp_disconnected(); since the TX context lives in the buffer user_data, releasing the buffers also resets the TX state machine. There is no memory corruption: the pre-fix buffer is leaked with a live reference, so no use-after-free arises.

Affected

• zephyr >= 4.4.0 < 4.5.0

Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.