Docking Station and Audio Device Issues After Fedora 41 Upgrade on Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano Gen 1

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1

Hello,

I’ve asked this on the Lenovo forum in case it’s more of a ThinkPad issue, but I wanted to reach out to the Fedora community as well. I’m currently running Fedora 41 with KDE and had the following issues after upgrading from Fedora 41.

Yesterday, I upgraded Fedora (KDE) 40 to Fedora 41 on my ThinkPad X1 Nano Gen 1 (i7, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, non-touch, non-WWAN) and I use a ThinkPad Universal Thunderbolt 4 Dock. The Discover software center prompted me for the upgrade to Fedora 41, so I proceeded that way.

Aside from some docking station issues and audio device issues, things seem to be working well. These docking station issues and audio device issues only started after the upgrade to Fedora 41 and I made no other changes, so I’m assuming they’re related.

I’ll start with the docking station issues. My Universal Thunderbolt 4 Dock will not output video to my two attached displays (a ThinkVision M14 USB C monitor and a ViewSonic monitor via HDMI) if the docking station is connected to my laptop upon initial boot or waking from sleep. Also, if the dock is connected during initial power on/boot, the mouse and keyboard input (via external USB mouse and keyboard) are very laggy and delayed. If I power on the X1 Nano without the dock attached, log into Fedora 41, and then attach the dock, everything works fine until the laptop goes into sleep and wakes up afterwards. At that point, I’ll have to unplug the docking station and plug it back in. None of those issues happened with my installation of Fedora 40.

Regarding the audio device issues, Fedora 41 seems to be forgetting my audio device preferences. I routinely switch between the laptop’s built-in speakers and an Edifier W820NB Plus Bluetooth headset. With Fedora 40, the X1 Nano remembered my preferences to automatically switch to the Edifier headset when connected and output audio to my laptop’s built-in speakers. Since the Fedora 41 upgrade, the X1 Nano is defaulting to the audio output on the dock and I have to manually connect to my Bluetooth headset each time. Also, after a reboot, I have to manually specify that the “Tiger Lake-LP Smart Sound Technology Audio Controller Speaker” device use the “Play HiFi quality Music (HDMI1, HDMI2, HDMI3, Mic1, Mic2, Speaker)” option. Otherwise, it defaults to the option that says “Headphones.” I don’t have any external speakers or headphones/headsets connected to the dock’s audio port.

Any ideas on potential fixes for this? I’ve been using dnf to check for updates, but no fixes on that side yet. I’ve also used fwupdmgr to check for firmware updates, but it hasn’t found any firmware updates yet. The issues persist after reboots and shutdowns/power-ons.

Thank you

2

I’ve done some further troubleshooting and noticed a few things that may or may not be relevant:

  • I’ve got my Fedora 41 (KDE) installation encrypted with LUKS, so after POST, it prompts me to enter the password I set for LUKS

  • If I leave the Thunderbolt 4 dock disconnected from power-on (or reboot) and after I enter the LUKS password, then connect the Thunderbolt 4 dock when prompted to enter my user’s password to log into Fedora, the dock and external monitors work fine

  • With that in mind, could there be an issue with the way Fedora is trying to load devices or drivers?

  • IIRC, my Fedora 40 installation before the upgrade was on kernel version 6.10 and it upgraded to 6.11 with the Fedora 40 upgrade, so could there be an issue with the kernel?

  • The other devices connected to my docking station (power, ethernet, USB keyboard, and USB mouse) work fine and I’m only experiencing this issue with the external monitors I have connected (USB-C and HDMI)

  • Changing the UEFI/BIOS setting to prefer external displays upon boot made no difference

3

Additional observations:

  • The issues persist after some recent updates

  • There are no video output issues with my laptop’s built-in monitor, only external monitors connected to the docking station (via DisplayPort, DisplayPort over USB-C, and HDMI)

  • Whenever the video output issue occurs, I have to physically disconnect the Thunderbolt 4 dock and reconnect it to my laptop in order to restore video output. Disconnecting the video cables between my monitors and the dock, then reconnecting them makes no difference. Power cycling the monitors makes no difference.

With the second observation in mind, it seems like my Fedora 41 installation isn’t properly handling video output through the Thunderbolt 4 dock. As I stated previously, this video output issue occurs after shutting down, restarting, or waking my laptop from sleep. If I have my Thunderbolt 4 dock disconnected while entering my LUKS password but connect the dock before entering my Linux user password, the video output works fine. I’m not sure if that may help narrow down the root cause or potential troubleshooting steps to try.

4

Good news, the docking station issue (no video output to external monitors unless I disconnect/reconnect my docking station) appears to be resolved. Immediately after I updated to the 6.11.8 kernel and rebooted my laptop, my external monitors started showing video properly.

5

Hi JL,
I have the same problem with sound when I connect an external monitor. Tiger Lake becomes crazy, creates N devices and I have to change to speakers every time the session suspends, my headphones do not work, etc… Apart from the docking station I have exactly your configuration (Lenovo X11 gen9, KDE F41, etc) and this only started with F41. Until F40 it was perfect. I think it has to do with the HDMI. Does it expects to send sound to the external monitor ?
I’m now on kernel 6.18.10 and no change. For me the problem is not terminated.

6

Hello. I ended up removing my little old HDMI monitor and just have my ThinkPad (X1 Nano Gen 1) and ThinkVision M14 USB C (I think it’s DisplayPort over USB C) monitor. I’ve got a pair of cheap Logitech speakers to connect to my ThunderBolt 4 dock since they should be louder and sound a little better than my ThinkPad’s built-in speakers.

At least with KDE, I’m not finding a way to explicitly set default audio devices. I’m manually having to select between my laptop’s speakers and my Bluetooth headset, which is slightly annoying. Maybe one day there will be a feature to select a default audio device. I should probably look into making a feature request for this if it’s not already available.