PCI/internal sound card not detected

[Loreto Farias Pavez]

Any time now, the sound card was deactivated, and it appears as a "Dummy device". I searched many forums about it, but nothing works. I'll be grateful if a program exists that I could install for sound card recognition.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 19.10
Package: alsa-base 1.0.25+dfsg-0ubuntu5
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.3.0-42.34-generic 5.3.18
Uname: Linux 5.3.0-42-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu8.6
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse: Error: command ['fuser', '-v', '/dev/snd/seq', '/dev/snd/timer'] failed with exit code 1:
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Fri Mar 20 16:13:53 2020
InstallationDate: Installed on 2020-03-19 (0 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 19.10 "Eoan Ermine" - Release amd64 (20191017)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=es_CL:es
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=es_CL.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: alsa-driver
Symptom: audio
Title: PCI/internal sound card not detected
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 08/08/2019
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 1.6.0
dmi.board.name: 054J60
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.board.version: A00
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvr1.6.0:bd08/08/2019:svnDellInc.:pnG33590:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn054J60:rvrA00:cvnDellInc.:ct10:cvr:
dmi.product.family: GSeries
dmi.product.name: G3 3590
dmi.product.sku: 0949
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.

[Hui Wang (hui.wang)]

5.3.0-42.34-generic has regression, please try with 5.3.0-43 kernel.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[David (davidoooo)]

Hello,
I'm the author of a duplicate bug Bug #1868407. Originally had this issue with 5.3.0-42 kernel. Proposed solution of using 5.3.0-43 kernel is wrong. I'm currently on 5.3.0-45 - still no sound. rolling back to 5.3.0-40 - the last working version.

[Hui Wang (hui.wang)]

5.3.0-46 is in the proposed, please try this kernel. I don't know why -43 kernel is dropped.

[David (davidoooo)]

I know that If I say that there is still no sound on kernel 5.3.0-46, you will ask me to try 5.3.0-47...and so on and so on...
But nonetheless, here we go

user@G3:~$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
user@G3:~$ uname -r
5.3.0-46-generic

Someone should really start working on it. Google suggests there is a handful of users affected by this bug with no obvious solution.

[Hui Wang (hui.wang)]

@David,

Please upload the dmesg of -46 kernel.

[David (davidoooo)]

Hi,
Requested dmesg for -46 kernel uploaded.

[David (davidoooo)]

Damn, now after nvidia driver update from 440.64 to 440.82 I can longer use -40 kernel (infinite loop at ubuntu login screen). So I'm stuck with -46 kernel with no sound. Hope it will be resolved soon.

[Hui Wang (hui.wang)]

@David,

Your machine is a coffeelake platform, there is no sof-firmware for this platform in the 19.10. you could use a workaround to let sound work with legacy hda driver: edit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf, add "options snd-hda-intel dmic_detect=0", reboot.

Or you could manually symbollink a firmware for coffeelake: cd /lib/firmware/intel/sof;sudo ln -s cnl/intel/sof-cnl-v1.3-0f73628.ri sof-cfl.ri;reboot
If it still doesn't work after generating link, please upload the dmesg and upload the output of 'ls -la /lib/firmware/intel/sof'

thx.

[David (davidoooo)]

@Hui,
First of all thanks for the response - the trick with alsa-base.conf worked fine. Sound is restored. I'm guessing I'll have to edit alsa-base.conf after every update? If so, is there a more permanent solution?
Also I'm not on 19.10, I'm on 18.04. And what happened with sof-firmware between kernels -40 and -42 (that's when sound disappeared)?

[Hui Wang (hui.wang)]

@David,
No need to change alsa-base.conf after every update.

And from -42, it enabled the dmic_detect by default. And it introduced a regression from stable patches. It is fixed in the -46.

Even in 18.04, you could still try with the symbollink. Please edit alsa-base.conf to remove the dmic_detect=0, then generate link as #10, please test it and upload the dmesg. After that, you could delete that symbollink and restore the dmic_detect=0 in the alsa-base.conf.

thx

[David (davidoooo)]

@Hui

 "And from -42, it enabled the dmic_detect by default. And it introduced a regression from stable patches. It is fixed in the -46."
As per my post #6 - it's not fixed in -46 kernel.

So I deleted dmic_detect=0 from alsa-base.conf and created a symbolic link as per post #10. Rebooted. I did get sound, but it feels like it's very quiet comparing with the legacy driver (I can't hear anything below 40% volume setting and barely can hear sound at 50% setting). Also I found that microphone was enabled by default after reboot and I don't like that. So overall I'm not happy with this solution and will get back to legacy driver (dmic_detect=0 in alsa-base.config).

Output of dmesg is attached and here is also an aplay output:

user@G3:~$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: sofsklhdacard [sof-skl_hda_card], device 0: HDA Analog (*) []
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: sofsklhdacard [sof-skl_hda_card], device 1: HDA Digital (*) []
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: sofsklhdacard [sof-skl_hda_card], device 3: HDMI1 (*) []
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: sofsklhdacard [sof-skl_hda_card], device 4: HDMI2 (*) []
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: sofsklhdacard [sof-skl_hda_card], device 5: HDMI3 (*) []
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0