Dummy audio no matter what I do

Hello
I’m new to linux, specifically xfce and I’ve been using it just fine for the past few months now but recently my audio cut out and won’t come back after messing with updating some things. Now my audio is completely gone even after reset and removing and reinstalling pulse audio. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

please post system information

inxi -Fazy

and

sudo dmesg | grep snd

and PulseAudio card information

pacmd list-cards
System:
  Kernel: 5.8.11-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A 
  parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.8-x86_64 
  root=UUID=3365dd8b-7fb2-4916-a71c-b3204b79c76b rw quiet apparmor=1 
  security=apparmor udev.log_priority=3 
  Desktop: Xfce 4.14.2 tk: Gtk 3.24.20 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm4 
  dm: LightDM 1.30.0 Distro: Manjaro Linux 
Machine:
  Type: Convertible System: HP product: HP Spectre Folio Convertible 13-ak0xxx 
  v: Type1ProductConfigId serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 31 serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: HP model: 8503 v: 14.49 serial: <filter> UEFI: Insyde v: F.30 
  date: 11/20/2019 

Battery:
  ID-1: BAT1 charge: 49.0 Wh condition: 52.4/54.3 Wh (97%) volts: 8.4/7.7 
  model: COMPAL PABAS0241231 type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: Discharging 
  Device-1: hid-0018:04F3:263D.0001-battery model: ELAN2514:00 04F3:263D 
  serial: N/A charge: N/A status: N/A 
CPU:
  Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core i7-8500Y bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Amber Lake family: 6 model-id: 8E (142) stepping: 9 microcode: D6 
  L2 cache: 4096 KiB 
  flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx 
  bogomips: 12805 
  Speed: 700 MHz min/max: 400/4200 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 700 2: 701 3: 700 
  4: 700 
  Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled 
  Type: l1tf 
  mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable 
  Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable 
  Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
  Type: spec_store_bypass 
  mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
  Type: spectre_v1 
  mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, 
  IBRS_FW, STIBP: conditional, RSB filling 
  Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode 
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics 615 vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: i915 
  v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:591c 
  Device-2: Chicony HP Wide Vision FHD Camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo 
  bus ID: 1-9:3 chip ID: 04f2:b634 serial: <filter> 
  Display: x11 server: X. Org 1.20.9 driver: intel unloaded: modesetting 
  alternate: fbdev,vesa display ID: :0.0 screens: 1 
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.0x11.2") 
  s-diag: 582mm (22.9") 
  Monitor-1: eDP1 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 168 size: 290x170mm (11.4x6.7") 
  diag: 336mm (13.2") 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics 615 (AML-KBL) v: 4.6 Mesa 20.1.8 
  direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard 
  driver: snd_soc_skl v: kernel alternate: snd_hda_intel bus ID: 00:1f.3 
  chip ID: 8086:9d71 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.8.11-1-MANJARO 
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Wireless 8265 / 8275 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: 3040 
  bus ID: 6d:00.0 chip ID: 8086:24fd 
  IF: wlo1 state: up mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 238.47 GiB used: 129.83 GiB (54.4%) 
  SMART Message: Required tool smartctl not installed. Check --recommends 
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: MZVLB256HAHQ-000H1 
  size: 238.47 GiB block size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 31.6 Gb/s 
  lanes: 4 serial: <filter> rev: EXD70H1Q scheme: GPT 
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw size: 238.17 GiB size: 233.43 GiB (98.01%) 
  used: 129.83 GiB (55.6%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 
Swap:
  Alert: No Swap data was found. 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 29.8 C mobo: 29.0 C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:
  Processes: 173 Uptime: 2h 45m Memory: 7.66 GiB used: 3.61 GiB (47.1%) 
  Init: systemd v: 246 Compilers: gcc: 10.2.0 Packages: 1222 pacman: 1206 
  lib: 368 flatpak: 16 Shell: Bash v: 5.0.18 running in: xfce4-terminal 
  inxi: 3.1.05 

2nd

[    3.418781] snd_hda_intel 0000:00:1f.3: DSP detected with PCI class/subclass/prog-if info 0x040100
[    3.418787] snd_hda_intel 0000:00:1f.3: Digital mics found on Skylake+ platform, using SST driver
[    3.821560] snd_soc_skl 0000:00:1f.3: DSP detected with PCI class/subclass/prog-if info 0x040100
[    3.821565] snd_soc_skl 0000:00:1f.3: Digital mics found on Skylake+ platform, using SST driver
[    3.970154] snd_soc_skl 0000:00:1f.3: bound 0000:00:02.0 (ops i915_audio_component_bind_ops [i915])

3rd

0 card(s) available.

I added a space on the x. org because it counted as a link and it says I can’t post those

And to be clear, this still happens when I plug in headphones

dmesg data would normally show detected audio connections
but data is only showing internal digital microphone is detected

0000:00:1f.3: Digital mics found on Skylake+ platform, using SST driver

Skylake systems have recently had support added for internal digital microphone
but it requires the development version of PulseAudio v13.99 pulseaudio-git installed from AUR

HP Envy - Sound does not work in Manjaro 20.1 PLASMA
kernel 5.8 together with pulseaudio-git (v13.99) made it - sound and microfone work now

P.S.: I had first to remove libao, fluidsynth, lib32-fluidsynth and manjaro-pulse - after that I could install pulseaudio-git - having installed pulseaudio-git I added libao, fluidsynth, lib32-fluidsynth and manjaro-pulse

So essentially something is wrong with my laptop’s audio connection, not any program

The problem is that the internal digital microphone array (Intel SST) was added to laptops for Cortana support and were not supported on Linux. sof-firmware support was added to Linux kernel earlier this year, but most laptops did not have any working audio. The workaround for most users was to disable the digital microphone to continue using the rest of the the audio system until the bugs were patched

Your system can detect the digital microphone
Digital mics found on Skylake+ platform, using SST driver
but it cannot load the driver correctly, so all the onboard audio fails to be initialised

to get a working system you need the latest version of PulseAudio that has the patches for sof-firmware

A new version of PulseAudio (v13.99) was included in [Testing Update] 2020-10-16 so installing pulseaudio-git from AUR is no longer needed

You can either switch to testing branch now to get packages needed for working audio
Switching Branches - Manjaro Wiki
or else wait for a week or two for new packages to be released in a stable update

Update to previous post

PulseAudio v13.99 is in latest stable branch update - [Stable Update] 2020-11-04

so changing branches is not needed now - just update all stable packages