Not getting an "Enter Pin" prompt when pairing with BLE device

Question

I have a custom board that uses BLE to get Wifi credentials. I'm trying to pair with the board using my Pi.

I'm using bluetoothctl. Here's what I get when I try to pair:

[bluetooth]# agent on
Agent is already registered
[bluetooth]# default-agent
Default agent request successful
[bluetooth]# pair f8:f0:05:75:5a:bf
Attempting to pair with F8:F0:05:75:5A:BF
[CHG] Device F8:F0:05:75:5A:BF Connected: yes
Failed to pair: org.bluez.Error.AuthenticationFailed
[CHG] Device F8:F0:05:75:5A:BF Connected: no
[bluetooth]# 

When I connect to this bluetooth device using the BLE scanner app on my phone, I'm prompted for a Pin, which I enter and it pairs no problem.

Do you know why I'm not getting prompted to enter a pin on my Pi?

Answer 1

What has worked for me:

agent on
default-agent
power on
connect [mac-addr] (instead of pair [mac-addr])

The missing steps for me were power on and using connect instead of pair. Now it's working and my life is peachy.