Sound card doesn't work anymore

last week suddenly my teams said, that there is no sound card. But it worked for years. In journald I find the message “unmet condition check (ConditionPathExists=/etc/alsa/state-daemon.conf)”. Is my soundcard broken? Or what could it be?

some more information. As soon, as I plug in my USB headphone, or a docking station, sound works find. If I type inxi -Aa it gives:

Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Tiger Lake-LP Smart Sound Audio vendor: Dell
    driver: sof-audio-pci-intel-tgl
    alternate: snd_hda_intel,snd_sof_pci_intel_tgl bus-ID: 0000:00:1f.3
    chip-ID: 8086:a0c8 class-ID: 0401
  API: ALSA v: k6.4.0-150600.23.17-default status: kernel-api with: aoss
    type: oss-emulator tools: alsactl,alsamixer,amixer
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.5 status: n/a (root, process) with: wireplumber
    status: active tools: pw-cat,pw-cli,wpctl
  Server-2: PulseAudio v: 17.0 status: active (root, process)
    with: pulseaudio-alsa type: plugin tools: pacat,pactl

Ok, so audio is working then. Just a profile issue perhaps?

Review the output of

pactl list cards

and check available and active profiles. You can use ‘pavucontrol’ to adjust if necessary.

Connection failure: Connection refused
pa_context_connect() failed: Connection refused

Hi,
I got on the forum to post a query for solution to the same problem. The issue at hand is that the latest Kernel doesn’t have the module for the Tiger Lake-LP sound card. If you go back to a previous kernel, your sound will work again, as previous kernels have the module.

I went into yast and removed the latest kernel, and downloaded the previous two kernels. Sound works fine when I use them. You will have to be careful not to download an update to the kernel for the time being until this is resolved. I haven’t been able to identify something in Yast that will add that module to the kernel. I was going to post a question asking how I can get the module for the sound card added into the kernel.

Since this question effects us both, maybe the gurus can come up with a solution, since I have identified the issue causing the problem?

@Munguasafiwe The OP has the following driver loaded…so it is present, but maybe broken?

Device-1: Intel Tiger Lake-LP Smart Sound Audio vendor: Dell
    driver: sof-audio-pci-intel-tgl

I noticed that you ran the inxi command as root. Did you also do the same for pactl? Please run again as user.

if I run pactl list cards as ordinary user nothing happens. No output at all.

Hmmm. I tried the command on my laptop (regular user account) and get about 80 lines of output.

Might try this: create a new user account. Log in as that user. Then try the command again … and see if sound works (?)

Please show the results of
systemctl --user list-units | egrep -i "wire|pulse"

At the ALSA level show
aplay -lL

@ triessner - have you had any luck yet?

Note as already indicated above, a number of users with Tiger Lake sound hardware on their laptops are having issues with the kernel and sound-firmware combination. Its possible an updated firmware and/or kernel may have fixed your issue, and possible has not.

Have you had any success?

I have a TigerLake sound hardware on my Lenovo laptop, and sound is working currently, although I have had as recent as a few days ago (possibly with different kernel) had to do multiple reboots to get the sound working (or simply boot to an older kernel where sound worked). I believe the developers are currently working on (or have recently solved) this issue.
.

I had posted on this thread previously, and have occasionally checked back to see if the kernel has been fixed yet. When I installed kernel version 6.4.0-150600.23.17.1 after reading your post that said you thought it’s fixed, there is still no sound. So apparently the problem with the kernel still hasn’t been fixed. If I use yast2 to configure the audio card,it reports there is no Tiger Lake kernel module and can’t configure the audio. When I boot using kernel 6.4.0-150600.23.14.2 audio works fine. Running Leap 15.6. Not trying to steal the thread, just thought you might want this information.

That makes me think it’s related to Intel DSP, SOF, firmware, and/or the kernel; I’m not sure why it might suddenly stop working but maybe something got updated related to any of that causing the audio device not to load.

How do problems get fixed? Well that is based on somebody flagging the problem. It looks in this case you (and maybe @triessner) found a problem (“no Tiger Lake kernel module”) but it has not been reported by anybody else so it is not fixed.

I suggest you to open a issue for this at https://bugzilla.suse.com

It helps to check existing ones before creating dups…
https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1230236

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There has been no reply from the OP ( [triessner] ) as near as I can tell. I note on my lenovo laptop (with Tiger Lake sound ) that the new kernel : “6.4.0-150600.23.22-default” may have fixed the issue.

When the issue was present (on an older kernel) I note that adding a line to the etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf file would restore the audio:
options snd-intel-dspcfg dsp_driver=1

However on my Lenovo that had a side effect resulting in the Lenovo’s digital mic not being recognized.

With the latest kernel I have removed that ‘option’ line, and both sound and mic work ok.

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latest kernel update (6.4.0-150600.23.22-default) fixed my sound problem. Sorry for not answering the latest questions :-/

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