I’m running Fedora 39 on a Dell XPS. There was an update tonight (2024-09-14) and now I do not have any sound. When I click on the sound key I just see “Dummy Output.”
How can I get my sound back? When I try googling the problem, there seem to be lots of highly technical suggestions (above my pay grade), none of which seem to solve the problem.
I did check that alsa-firmware.noarch is installed.
Processor: 12th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-1250U × 12
Kernel version: Linux 6.10.9-100.fc39.x86_64
Firmware 1.22.0
If only the kernel was updated and that causes the issue, you could choose to boot from a previous kernel at the grub menu (system startup).
If you want to dig deeper, you can look at the package transaction log to get an overview of recently updated packages:
$ dnf history | less
It will show you a numbered list of package transactions, it might give a clue which package was updated that causes your issue. You can get more information about a specific transaction number by using this command:
$ dnf history info [number]
If you want you can then rollback to a previous point in time like this:
$ sudo dnf history rollback [number]
Or if you know which specific package you want to downgrade, you can use this command:
$ sudo dnf downgrade [packagename]
Fedora 39 is nearing end-of-life, so it might also be a good idea to upgrade to Fedora 40 so you get the latest versions of all packages.
Edit: here is a recent thread about a similar issue:
Aaargh.
I tried the rollback–failed because RPMs couldn’t be found. So I upgraded to Fedora 40. And I still do not have audio, still get “Dummy Output.”
In the other thread Olivier mentioned, Harry ten Berge says, “This is not a pipewire issue, but a (known) kernel issue. It regressed with 6.10.8; 6.10.7 is still working. Unfortunately, even in the latest 6.10.10 this is not resolved.”
What am I supposed to do? This is my work machine and I don’t have time to try 90 different possible solutions, and many of them seem above my pay grade.
If you upgraded to Fedora 40 then you can’t rollback anymore at this stage, it’s probably best then to wait for a kernel update that fixes the issue. With a little luck kernel 6.11 fixes it which will be available soon, it’s currently in testing.
As a temporary workaround, perhaps you can use a bluetooth speaker or headphones to still get audio?
OK. It’s a week later. Fedora just did an update. I’m now on a new kernel:
6.10.10-200.fc40.x86_64.
Still no sound. I just checked with my live Fedora 39 USB and the sound is fine. (Kernel 6.5.6-300.fc39.x86_64.)
If it ain’t broke, why “fix” it? I don’t understand. Sound is not something new and gimmicky, so why should there be a problem with a 39 update that continues into fedora 40? Earphones work as a kludge, but they are not always very convenient.
