"Dummy Device" only option for sound playback issue on fresh install

Support Sound
1

Hello there. I have just installed manjaro 21.2.5 gnome onto my new geobook 240 laptop, and the only issue is that no sound will play. When I went under the sound settings the only option for output is “Dummy Output” with nothing else to select. I have tried searching the forums and did not find anything specific to my situation, but I saw that the following info was often requested from those trying to assist the new users.

inxi -Fazy                                               
System:
  Kernel: 5.15.28-1-MANJARO arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.2.0
    parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.15-x86_64
    root=UUID=71a6f518-5244-46ca-aca1-50266bddfaec rw quiet
    cryptdevice=UUID=6db9ddf3-8278-4025-a8fa-6512930e386b:luks-6db9ddf3-8278-4025-a8fa-6512930e386b
    root=/dev/mapper/luks-6db9ddf3-8278-4025-a8fa-6512930e386b splash
    apparmor=1 security=apparmor udev.log_priority=3
  Desktop: GNOME v: 41.4 tk: GTK v: 3.24.33 wm: gnome-shell dm: GDM v: 41.3
    Distro: Manjaro Linux base: Arch Linux
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: GEO product: GeoBook 240 v: N/A
    serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: GEO model: EM_IG218_200B_ENE_TI_V2.0 serial: <superuser required>
    UEFI: American Megatrends v: LC--038-IG218-I date: 04/10/2021
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 38.0 Wh (100.0%) condition: 38.0/38.0 Wh (100.0%)
    volts: 7.6 min: N/A model: Emdoor Li-ion Battery type: Li-ion
    serial: <filter> status: charging
CPU:
  Info: model: Intel Pentium Silver N5030 bits: 64 type: MCP
    arch: Goldmont Plus family: 6 model-id: 0x7A (122) stepping: 8
    microcode: 0x1C
  Topology: cpus: 1x cores: 4 smt: <unsupported> cache: L1: 224 KiB
    desc: d-4x24 KiB; i-4x32 KiB L2: 4 MiB desc: 1x4 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 2679 high: 2783 min/max: 800/3100 scaling:
    driver: intel_cpufreq governor: schedutil cores: 1: 2783 2: 2534 3: 2782
    4: 2617 bogomips: 8756
  Flags: ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
  Vulnerabilities:
  Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected
  Type: l1tf status: Not affected
  Type: mds status: Not affected
  Type: meltdown status: Not affected
  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 status: Vulnerable: eIBRS with unprivileged eBPF
  Type: srbds status: Not affected
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel GeminiLake [UHD Graphics 605] vendor: nCipher Security
    driver: i915 v: kernel ports: active: eDP-1 empty: DP-1,HDMI-A-1,HDMI-A-2
    bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:3184 class-ID: 0300
  Device-2: SunplusIT USB camera type: USB driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo
    bus-ID: 1-6:4 chip-ID: 2b16:6689 class-ID: 0102 serial: <filter>
  Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.21.1.3 with: Xwayland v: 22.1.0
    compositor: gnome-shell driver: gpu: i915 display-ID: 0
  Monitor-1: eDP-1 model: Najing CEC Panda 0x002b built: 2018 res: 1920x1080
    dpi: 158 gamma: 1.2 size: 309x174mm (12.17x6.85") diag: 355mm (14")
    ratio: 16:9 modes: 1920x1080
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics 605 (GLK 3) v: 4.6 Mesa 21.3.7
    direct render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Celeron/Pentium Silver Processor High Definition Audio
    driver: sof-audio-pci-intel-apl
    alternate: snd_hda_intel,snd_soc_skl,snd_sof_pci_intel_apl bus-ID: 00:0e.0
    chip-ID: 8086:3198 class-ID: 0401
  Device-2: SunplusIT USB camera type: USB driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo
    bus-ID: 1-6:4 chip-ID: 2b16:6689 class-ID: 0102 serial: <filter>
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.15.28-1-MANJARO running: yes
  Sound Server-2: JACK v: 1.9.20 running: no
  Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 15.0 running: yes
  Sound Server-4: PipeWire v: 0.3.48 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter
    driver: rtw_8821ce v: N/A modules: rtw88_8821ce pcie: gen: 1 speed: 2.5 GT/s
    lanes: 1 port: e000 bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:c821 class-ID: 0280
  IF: wlp1s0 state: up mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Realtek Bluetooth Radio type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8
    bus-ID: 1-4:3 chip-ID: 0bda:c821 class-ID: e001 serial: <filter>
  Report: rfkill ID: hci0 rfk-id: 2 state: up address: see --recommends
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 119.24 GiB used: 9.5 GiB (8.0%)
  SMART Message: Required tool smartctl not installed. Check --recommends
  ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Netac model: SSD 128GB
    size: 119.24 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s
    type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 0A0 scheme: GPT
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 118.94 GiB size: 116.52 GiB (97.96%) used: 9.5 GiB (8.2%)
    fs: ext4 dev: /dev/dm-0 maj-min: 254:0
    mapped: luks-6db9ddf3-8278-4025-a8fa-6512930e386b
  ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 300 MiB size: 299.4 MiB (99.80%)
    used: 440 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1
Swap:
  Alert: No swap data was found.
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 66.0 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info:
  Processes: 225 Uptime: 9m wakeups: 2 Memory: 7.59 GiB used: 2.19 GiB (28.8%)
  Init: systemd v: 250 tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 11.2.0 clang: 13.0.1
  Packages: pacman: 1138 lib: 300 flatpak: 0 Shell: Zsh v: 5.8.1
  running-in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.3.14


pacmd dump                                                                               
### Configuration dump generated at Thu Mar 31 13:25:31 2022

load-module module-device-restore
load-module module-card-restore
load-module module-augment-properties
load-module module-switch-on-port-available
load-module module-udev-detect
load-module module-alsa-card device_id="0" name="usb-SunplusIT_Inc_USB_camera_J20210323V000-02" card_name="alsa_card.usb-SunplusIT_Inc_USB_camera_J20210323V000-02" namereg_fail=false tsched=yes fixed_latency_range=no ignore_dB=no deferred_volume=yes use_ucm=yes avoid_resampling=no card_properties="module-udev-detect.discovered=1"
load-module module-bluetooth-policy
load-module module-bluetooth-discover
load-module module-bluez5-discover
load-module module-dbus-protocol
load-module module-native-protocol-unix
load-module module-gsettings
load-module module-default-device-restore
load-module module-always-sink
load-module module-null-sink sink_name=auto_null sink_properties='device.description="Dummy Output"'
load-module module-intended-roles
load-module module-suspend-on-idle
load-module module-console-kit
load-module module-systemd-login
load-module module-position-event-sounds
load-module module-role-cork
load-module module-filter-heuristics
load-module module-filter-apply
load-module module-x11-publish display=:1 xauthority=/run/user/1000/.mutter-Xwaylandauth.X2NTJ1
load-module module-x11-cork-request display=:1 xauthority=/run/user/1000/.mutter-Xwaylandauth.X2NTJ1
load-module module-x11-xsmp display=:1 xauthority=/run/user/1000/.mutter-Xwaylandauth.X2NTJ1 session_manager=local/home-geobook240:@/tmp/.ICE-unix/921,unix/home-geobook240:/tmp/.ICE-unix/921
load-module module-cli-protocol-unix
load-module module-stream-restore

set-sink-volume auto_null 0x10000
set-sink-mute auto_null no
suspend-sink auto_null no

set-source-volume alsa_input.usb-SunplusIT_Inc_USB_camera_J20210323V000-02.analog-stereo 0xd34e
set-source-mute alsa_input.usb-SunplusIT_Inc_USB_camera_J20210323V000-02.analog-stereo no
suspend-source alsa_input.usb-SunplusIT_Inc_USB_camera_J20210323V000-02.analog-stereo no
set-source-volume auto_null.monitor 0x10000
set-source-mute auto_null.monitor no
suspend-source auto_null.monitor no

set-card-profile alsa_card.usb-SunplusIT_Inc_USB_camera_J20210323V000-02 input:analog-stereo

set-default-sink auto_null
set-default-source alsa_input.usb-SunplusIT_Inc_USB_camera_J20210323V000-02.analog-stereo

### EOF


amixer --card=0                                                                         
Simple mixer control 'Mic',0
  Capabilities: cvolume cvolume-joined cswitch cswitch-joined
  Capture channels: Mono
  Limits: Capture 0 - 4096
  Mono: Capture 2816 [69%] [11.00dB] [on]

http://alsa-project.org/db/?f=2519c92c91bcf88a38cf253137401c8384ea0de5

2

I had a similar problem on my desktop setup, although probably unrelated to yours: – card was detected but no output device other than the “Dummy” was shown on PulseAudio Volume Control. After a while I figured out my problem: I simply did not have a speaker plugged in to the card. lol.

3

There are a lot of possible solutions if you search for Dummy Device/Output.
The most successful one was installing sof-firmware. sof-firmware

4

sof-firmware was already installed and up to date.

I have tried (with rebooting in between each step):

All with no luck and the same symptoms persisting.

5

It seems that the problem isn’t actually related to the sound card, it’s actually related to the speaker in the laptop. The built-in speaker works in Windows, but doesn’t work in any Linux distro that I’ve tried. If you attach some output device, such as headphones or a bluetooth speaker, the audio works perfectly.

Sorry for adding to this old thread, but since it is unresolved, I wanted to add what I have discovered for anyone coming across this thread. There isn’t much info out there on running Linux on the Geobook 240.

6

PulseAudio creates Dummy Output (auto_null) when it is unable to detect any audio playback devices

ALSA data shows that system is unable to detect onboard audio device correctly, No codec model number to help troubleshooting

But an online scan for a similar system shows that this system has audio codec ES8336
HW probe of GEO GeoBook 240 #f08637137c: aplay
(this is the usual codec included with chromebook systems)

There have been a number of audio issues reported with this codec during 2022
(some discussions that appeared useful at the time have been tagged: ES8336)

Latest information from Sep 2022 posted online is about how to patch kernels v6.0 and v6.1
ES8336 support · thesofproject/linux Wiki · GitHub
and that usually kills further conversation

Since OP was last seen on forum 22 Apr '22, I don’t expect this conversation to lead anywhere either

I suggest any chromebook users with audio issues should install latest kernel v6.2

If audio codec is not working as expected with latest kernel, start a new topic and post more information about ALSA

sudo alsa-info.sh --upload

Package sof-firmware has been included in Manjaro ISOs for the last 12 months

Editing ALSA system configuration to change the default card will not help if ALSA cannot detect the card correctly

Modprobe options for snd-intel-dspcfg to force legacy or alternative SOF drivers don’t work on ES8336/chromebook systems

Switching between PulseAudio & PipeWire will have no effect on ALSA
If audio codec is not ALSA is not working software sound servers cannot work around this

7

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