Internal laptop audio no longer working on 6.19 kernel

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1

I recently updated packages on my laptop, causing a kernel upgrade (6.18.16 → 6.19.6). There were other packages in the transaction, but none seem related to audio.

Since the upgrade, the built-in audio hardware (both speakers and microphone) doesn’t work. The devices still show up how I would expect (visible in Plasma’s volume widget, visible in wireplumber), but no sound comes through in either direction. Recording software like OBS is still able to pick up and record sound from them.

Bluetooth sound devices still work correctly.

Booting the previous (6.18.16) kernel from GRUB works around the issue without needing any package/configuration changes, which leads me to believe the problem is actually related to the new kernel itself.

Are there any logs/config files I can grab that would be helpful in solving this? I’m a bit out of my depth, any pointers are appreciated.

2

To rule out some change needed to user config files, try creating a test user login to see if sound works there. If that fails, or to get details of the changes needed, see https://www.alsa-project.org/wiki/Help_To_Debug and https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/viewing-logs/. If you are not familiar with journalctl, there are several good introductory tutorials.

3

Tried a different (new) user account, sound is also broken there; I don’t think it’s any user-specific misconfiguration.

I went through some logs on both kernels (working 6.18 and broken 6.19). alsa-info.sh had no meaningful differences. I also tried searching for anything ALSA-related on the outputs of journalctl -b for the two boots, but again couldn’t find anything important.

4

It appears that the issue is limited to onboard audio devices. You need to provide hardware details. Start with the output from inxi -Fzxx. You can check profiles for your model in https://linux-hardware.org for the status of audio devices across distros and kernel versions. There have been recent changes to support for advanced audio configurations (“surround sound”, etc.).

Edit: typo

5

inxi -Fzxx (the relevant parts):

System:
  Kernel: 6.19.6-200.fc43.x86_64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 15.2.1
  Console: pty pts/3 wm: kwin_wayland DM: SDDM Distro: Fedora Linux 43
    (Forty Three)
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: ASUSTeK product: ROG Strix G16 G615JM_G615JM v: 1.0
    serial: <filter>
  Mobo: ASUSTeK model: G615JM v: 1.0 serial: <filter> Firmware: UEFI
    vendor: American Megatrends LLC. v: G615JM.309 date: 09/28/2025
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Raptor Lake High Definition Audio vendor: ASUSTeK
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 0000:00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:7a50
  Device-2: NVIDIA GB206 High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel bus-ID: 0000:01:00.1 chip-ID: 10de:22eb
  API: ALSA v: k6.19.6-200.fc43.x86_64 status: kernel-api
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.4.10 status: n/a (root, process) with:
    1: pipewire-pulse status: active 2: wireplumber status: active
    3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin 4: pw-jack type: plugin
Info:
  Memory: total: 32 GiB note: est. available: 30.94 GiB used: 9.6 GiB (31.0%)
    igpu: 64 MiB
  Processes: 567 Power: uptime: 7h 42m wakeups: 0 Init: systemd v: 258
    default: graphical
  Packages: pm: rpm pkgs: N/A note: see --rpm pm: flatpak pkgs: 42
    Compilers: gcc: 15.2.1 Shell: Bash v: 5.3.0 running-in: konsole inxi: 3.3.40

Checking with https://linux-hardware.org, this audio controller model appears in probes from some other ASUS laptops, though there isn’t anything about 6.19 or my exact model. Additionally, as I said before, it does work on mine on 6.18.

6

I have the same issue on Dell XPS 14 with Intel Meteor Lake IPU audio that stopped working on kernel 6.19.6 and is still broken on 6.19.8 - so I’m also stuck on 6.18.16, which works fine!

7

Still not working on 6.19.9 or 6.19.10!

8

To my knowledge, it hasn’t been properly reported anywhere, so nobody is even looking at fixing it. When I have time, I’ll go about building the kernel from source so I can bisect it and try to file a kernel regression report.

1 Like
9

@absolutewisp Can you please point me to the place to report issues like this, so I can do that properly in the future? This is not the first issue I’ve run into with my XPS 14 and might not be the last.

Thanks!

10

As far as I know, there’s the Fedora Bugzilla for Fedora-specific issues, and the kernel has a good page on how upstream kernel issues should be reported.

11

I’ve created a bug for this 2454960 – No built-in audio on Dell XPS 14 as sof-audio-pci-intel-mtl stopped working on kernel 6.19

Hopefully this will be addressed swiftly as it has been an issue now for more than three weeks!