Sound card not discovered since upgrade to Zorin Lite 18.1

[rdenbak]

Hi, on my Medion E3222 laptop, running on Zorin Light 17.3, my sound was happily working. But since upgrading to Zorin Light 18.1, it is persistently giving: "dummy output" . No matter whether I upgrade from a working 17.3 or do a fresh install.

I've tried all available advises given in other threads on this Forum, but to no avail yet. I've included underneath the outputs of aplay, lshw and journalctl.

At this moment Alsamixer fails to start and Pulseaudio's Configuration tab is empty (which makes sense).

I hope you guys can help me, cause I've run a bit out of options. Let me know if you need any additional info. Thanks in advance

$ uname -a
Linux ronald-E3222-MD62450 6.17.0-29-generic #29~24.04.1-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Mon May 11 10:30:58 UTC 2 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ aplay -l
aplay: device_list:277: no soundcards found…

$ sudo lshw -C multimedia
[sudo] password for ronald:
*-multimedia
description: Audio device
product: Celeron/Pentium Silver Processor High Definition Audio
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: e
bus info: pci@0000:00:0e.0
version: 03
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=snd_soc_avs latency=0
resources: irq:134 memory:a1110000-a1113fff memory:a1000000-a10fffff
*-usb:1
description: Video
product: USB 2.0 Camera
vendor: Alcor Micro Corp.
physical id: 6
bus info: usb@1:6
version: 6.00
capabilities: usb-2.00
configuration: driver=uvcvideo maxpower=200mA speed=480Mbit/s

$ journalctl -b -k | grep -E1 'snd|sound|audio|codec|hda|hdmi|sof-'
mei 17 20:43:26 kernel: intel_telemetry_core Init
mei 17 20:43:26 kernel: snd_soc_avs 0000:00:0e.0: i915 init unsuccessful: -19
mei 17 20:43:26 kernel: Invalid pltconfig, ensure IPC1 device is enabled in BIOS
mei 17 20:43:26 kernel: snd_soc_avs 0000:00:0e.0: bad FW version 9.22.3.4908, expected 9.22.1.4323 or newer
mei 17 20:43:26 kernel: snd_soc_avs 0000:00:0e.0: invalid firmware data: -22
mei 17 20:43:26 kernel: snd_soc_avs 0000:00:0e.0: firmware boot failed: -22
mei 17 20:43:28 kernel: Bluetooth: hci0: Waiting for firmware download to complete

[Nourpon]

Hi, you can try to install or update firmware, ALSA and Pulse packages

sudo apt update
sudo apt install --reinstall linux-firmware sof-firmware alsa-base alsa-utils pulseaudio pavucontrol
sudo update-initramfs -u
reboot

[rdenbak]

Hi Nourpon, thanks for your immediate response! Much appreciated.
The install command is responding with: "E: Unable to locate package sof-firmware". The initramfs update went OK, rebooting now....

[rdenbak]

Well, that was unexpected, I had to bring out another computer because the Medion is now frozen at the Zorin Logo. First reboot went as far as the switch to the Zorin name and then froze, and when I restarted it did not come further than the logo. Can you advise what to try next?

[Nourpon]

So your computer don't boot now ?

[rdenbak]

Nope, still looking at a Medion logo and the Zorin logo.

Btw: this is a Zorin only laptop, no Secure Boot or Fast Boot active.
And this was a fresh install since I tinkered so many things trying out all the suggestions on the forum, that I thought: better start afresh.

[Nourpon]

OK we will try to repair all of this, restart computer and go to GRUB
Boot in recovery mode (GRUB > Advanced options > recovery)

• Choose "root — Drop to root shell prompt".
• Remount root writable: mount -o remount,rw /

Repair initramfs and packages

• Run:

apt --fix-broken install dpkg --configure -a apt update apt install --reinstall linux-firmware sof-firmware linux-image-generic linux-image-$(uname -r) initramfs-tools update-initramfs -u -k all 
update-grub

reboot

[rdenbak]

Am I correct in assuming that the "Repair initramfs....." command is to be given in Terminal once the system starts up again? Or should it be inside the root shell?

[Nourpon]

in root shell

[rdenbak]

Ok thanks
Is this really one line or a sequence of individual commands?

Because it says: "--fix is not understood in combination with the other options"

[Nourpon]

line 1

apt --fix-broken install dpkg --configure -a apt update apt install --reinstall linux-firmware sof-firmware linux-image-generic linux-image-$(uname -r) initramfs-tools update-initramfs -u -k all

line 2

update-grub

[Nourpon]

if it doesn't work try it separate like this
Run these as separate commands (or join with &&). Do them in recovery root shell or chroot.

1. Fix packages

sudo apt --fix-broken install 
sudo dpkg --configure -a

2. Update repos and reinstall firmware/kernel packages

sudo apt update 
sudo apt install --reinstall linux-firmware linux-image-generic initramfs-tools

3. Rebuild initramfs for all kernels and update grub

sudo update-initramfs -u -k all 
sudo update-grub

4. Reboot

sudo reboot

[rdenbak]

I had to do them as separate commands indeed, but the result is unfortunately still the same: reboot freezes.

It's 23:00 here, need to get some sleep, work is calling again tomorrow early.
I will do a fresh install tomorrow, let all updates run (for some strange reason the installer does not acknowledge the fact that a network connection has been made, and will subsequently not update during the install) and then report back again in this threat.

Thanks a lot for your help so far!

[Nourpon]

OK sorry to broke you install, if with a fresh install you have no sound card you can try this (less invasive), it blacklist AVS Driver to fall back to audio drivers HDA Intel

Open a terminal and create a new blacklist file:

sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-avs.conf

Add this line:

blacklist snd_soc_avs

Save the file (Ctrl+O, Enter, Ctrl+X)

Rebuild the kernel module list:

sudo update-initramfs -u

Reboot your system:

sudo reboot

[NickS]

Have you tried going back to an older kernel? It could be the newer kernel in 18.1 won’t play with your sound card. Choose the advanced options option in the grub menu and select whatever kernel you were using under 17.3

[Forpli]

I'd suggest toinstall kernel 6.8 and try it with that if the other way above won't work:

sudo apt install linux-image-6.8.0-110-generic linux-headers-6.8.0-110-generic linux-modules-6.8.0-110-generic linux-modules-extra-6.8.0-110-generic

With a fresh install of Zorin 18.1 Lite you only have the 6.17 kernel and can't select 6.8 at advanced options during boot.

After the installation reboot and select the kernel 6.8 in grub menu at advanced options for Zorin and test if it works.
If the sound works then you can set this kernel as default to boot from.

[HOW TO] set an older kernel to default boot

You may need to use an earlier kernel than the current kernel used by Zorin. This method allows you to set the kernel that you will boot into by default. To set the new kernel to default: Boot into the kernel you wish to be Saved. Open terminal and run: sudo nano /etc/default/grub Change GRUB_DEFAULT=0 to GRUB_DEFAULT=saved Hit enter to drop down a line. Add GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT=true ctrl+x to exit, then the y key to say yes to save, then the enter key to save as current configuration. Ru…

[rdenbak]

No worries at all. The things I'm learning in this process are valuable as well

[rdenbak]

I did indeed, but as @Forpli indicates the possibilties the new Zorin Light 18.1 gives are sub-versions of kernel 6.17. I will start a reinstall, and try out both advises of @Nourpon and @Forpli/yourself

[rdenbak]

OK, unexpected development. I did a fresh installation of 18.1 Light and let the Software Updater run first so that I was working from an up-to-date installation, before I was going to try the suggestions of @Nourpon and @Forpli.

Well, that was exactly what causes the boot-freeze. The machine was working fine until Software Updater had run and now the Medion & Zorin logo is frozen again. So @Nourpon you can rest assured: , your commands did not break the installation.

But apart from the original problem I've got a bigger one now, how am I going to solve this?

[sglbl]

Keep pressing shift while restarting the pc, that should bring the grub menu. there select advanced options and select a older kernel version from there.