[missing firmware] ThinkPad Thunderbolt 3 Dock

[kat-co]

I'm hoping that with the recent support from Lenovo, they can also provide firmware for this. Currently the only updater is a Windows .exe :(

For missing firmware please provide the following items:

• Link to firmware update at OEM website
  https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/accessories/ACC100356

• Firmware release date (if available on OEM website)
  2017-10-31

• Link to the device page on LVFS.
  (I don't believe this exists)

[dal00]

The above link is only to the driver for windows. Here is the latest firmware update released 2019-01-14

https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/se/en/products/monitors-and-projectors/docks/thinkpad-thunderbolt-3-dock/downloads/DS506115

[joakim-tjernlund]

Yes please, firmware updates to all docks.

[A1pen]

Updates via LVFS would be very nice! +1

[joshtriplett]

Same issue here; Lenovo docks still seem to only have Windows-based firmware updates. (USB-C dock here.)

[hughsie]

I can't say anything official. It could be a long wait, but things are moving.

[joakim-tjernlund]

I can't say anything official. It could be a long wait, but things are moving.

It has been a long wait now :)

[hughsie]

This stuff takes time. We have to talk with the OEM, the ODM and then the silicon provider. Each might be coming from a Windows-centric world and quite a lot of discussion has to be done around licencing and support. In better news, check out the 100% unrelated (ish) blog from today: https://blogs.gnome.org/hughsie/2019/09/25/synaptics-cx-audio-support/

I.e. patience :)

[joakim-tjernlund]

Trying to be patient but its hard when the only updater is through Windows.

CX Audio FW support, great! I see you already have some ThinkPads in there :)

[alisianoi]

My condolences for having to remove "macros-of-macros-of-macros" abstractions as described in the blog from above.

Just another ThinkPad USB-C Dockstation 1st Gen user checking in (different from topic starter's Thunderbolt Dock). I cannot update the firmware on my dockstation because the installer is an .exe :(

Edit: Gentoo Wiki reports success when running the installer from wine (for the Thunderbolt dock). I will try to update my USB-C Dockstation the same way in the next couple of days and come back with the results.

Edit 2: I had partial success. Wine approach did not work for me (I could not figure out how to forward a USB device, the .exe was telling me it cannot detect the dockstation). The virt-manager based kvm/qemu virtual machine worked partially: it detected the Dockstation once I forwarded the hardware to it. It updated the Audio drivers but failed to update everything else because it could not detect DP Hub (Display Port, I am pretty sure)

[hughsie]

Docking station stuff is coming on now, but everyone is on holiday and hence a lot of the work has paused for a few weeks. You can see some of the most recent work here: fwupd/fwupd#1663

[joakim-tjernlund]

@alisianoi , curious w.r.t Wine
What version did you use? I see that stable Wine is fairly old.
Also, did you pull in default USE flags? These rebuilds alot.
Wonder if somthing simpler would work:

USE="-* abi_x86_64 run-exes ncurses threads" emerge -p =app-emulation/wine-vanilla-4.21

[NickeZ]

Will it work for the usb-c gen 2 dock?

[edoiks]

Is there any estimation when it will be available?

[joakim-tjernlund]

Is fwdup 1.3.8 ready for Docks now? Just waiting for Lenovo to release dock FW?

[hughsie]

Is fwdup 1.3.8 ready for Docks now?

There is one plugin waiting for a silicon supplier, but I don't think that's blocking things.

Just waiting for Lenovo to release dock FW?

Yes, it's under QA now. I can't share progress, sorry.

[joakim-tjernlund]

Is fwdup 1.3.8 ready for Docks now?

There is one plugin waiting for a silicon supplier, but I don't think that's blocking things.

Just waiting for Lenovo to release dock FW?

Yes, it's under QA now. I can't share progress, sorry.

Great, should not be long now then :)

[leahoswald]

Is there any update on this? I guess that it is delayed because of the covid19 thing :( Thanks and stay healthy!

[hughsie]

Not sure how much I can say, but the sheet looks green with the exception of one orange. I think COV19 really pushed things back a bit. Lots of people QA testing this internally now.

[joakim-tjernlund]

Seems like a bunch of USB-C dock FW just hit the LVFS, happy testing :)

[joakim-tjernlund]

Any idea if other Lenovo docks are coming soon?
We have a bunch of ThinkPad Basic/Pro/Ultra Docking Stations

[hughsie]

Any idea if other Lenovo docks are coming soon?

I have 22 docks on my desk right now. I can't share what is being worked on, but I have all this hardware for a reason :)

[joakim-tjernlund]

That is a big desk to fit all those :)
Good to hear that it is coming along, thanks.

[joakim-tjernlund]

I figured Lenovo Basic/Pro/Ultra dock would be ready by now?

[hughsie]

It turns out a global pandemic slows things down. My apologies.

[alisianoi]

@joakim-tjernlund I mean, let's face it: kvm/qemu + an unactivated copy of Windows 10 is enough to get you started. I suggest you try virt-manager as your GUI, then forwarding a USB device is a point-and-click process: Virtual Machine -> Redirect USB device -> Lenovo Dockstation. Then you can just run the .exe updater and see how far it goes.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10ISO

Of course, when you pay ~200 euros for a box, you would expect it to just work (it looks like mine has DisplayPort issues, so I just use HDMI), but at least the developer here responds :)

[hughsie]

I suggest you try virt-manager as your GUI, then forwarding a USB device is a point-and-click process

I would advise against this. Source: Bricked a USB3 hub doing exactly this.

[joakim-tjernlund]

I suggest you try virt-manager as your GUI, then forwarding a USB device is a point-and-click process

I would advise against this. Source: Bricked a USB3 hub doing exactly this.

I will wait for the real fwupd pkgs :)
Hopefully they will show u any day now...

[joakim-tjernlund]

Considering how many other FW updates Lenovo has managed to put out, I doubt that the
pandemic is the reason. Something else is holding back the dock updates.

[mrhpearson]

It got moved back to testing due to a number of update failures because of (I believe) a regression from via. I think @hughsie has fixed that now (I have the commit information somewhere in my inbox but I'm currently in mail hell due to the stupid outlook safelinks feature that Lenovo have enabled that has broken all my mail filters..)
Not sure what the process is to move it back to stable. Richard - do the firmware team need to do that or do we wait for the fixed fwupd to roll out, or something else?
Mark

[hughsie]

Yes, @mrhpearson is correct. I think we need to add a requirement of fwupd != 1.6.0 and fwupd 1.6.1 as those had a regression which caused the USB firmware to not deploy correctly. Once 1.6.2 is out (this week?) I'll do exactly that and move it back to stable.

[akostadinov]

If one already updated, will it be needed to flash again and how?

[hughsie]

No, it'll be exactly the same payload, no need to reflash.

[vwbusguy]

It looks like 1.6.2 was released a week ago but the firmware is still unavailable.

[vwbusguy]

1.6.3 hit koji on Fedora today, so I upgraded to it and enabled lvfs-testing and was able to update my dock just fine.

[TaylorPaiga]

there's a known problem with P53 and P1 laptops where the MST AUX device doesn't show up.

Sorry for rez'ing a dead issue @hughsie but I'm currently facing this issue on a P15 Gen1 which is preventing the DP firmware from updating on my USB3 Gen2 dock. Did the laptop Lenovo provided offer any insights into a workaround/solution?

[l3s2d]

@hughsie, can this issue be reopened? The firmware has not hit stable again after it was removed, and the version available on lvfs-testing is out of date as there was a new release on 2021/10/29.

[l3s2d]

Any update on this?

[roliverio]

Hi, as there is a new version on the Lenovo site from April (it was released recently as the page reported the previous with february dates just last week), i would like to know if this is going to get pushed.

[mrhpearson]

We're struggling to get the docking FW updates on LVFS...some people left and I'm figuring out how to get it going again. If you can update the dock FW from a windows machine I recommend doing that. We'll get there eventually from LVFS but it's not happening fast :(

[roliverio]

@mrhpearson Thanks, i'm going to try to find a Windows PC to do just that, i've struggling with the monitor flicker issue for years now, and it would be nice to have linux capability to do this as the dock hasn't reached EOL.

OTOH, would be nice to know how to report issues with the dock directly towards Lenovo.

[akostadinov]

Write to Lenovo support.

[roliverio]

@mrhpearson I had the opportunity to update the FW with a windows machine, give your heads-up to the people on the Lenovo site that report the release date incorrectly (you'll see that the README has a release date different from the FW file itself), thanks for your help.

[mrhpearson]

Hi @roliverio

For reporting the issue - you can call support (not sure I would write to them myself...) but reporting it to me, for Linux related issues, is probably the best as realistically most Linux issues come to my team (and this one would as it's not easily answered)

For the release date - can you point me at the specific file please?

Thanks!
Mark

[roliverio]

@mrhpearson i know, that's why i reached out to you when i saw your reply to my first inquiry, Lenovo Support always escalates internally in my country so the issue never gets to your team (believe me, i've done it more than once), and that's why i was active on the Lenovo Forums talking about this until a while ago.

In any case, if you want to see the inconsistencies between release dates you can open:

https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/DS505188

You'll see release dates differ between the fw file and the readme.

Thanks again for your help.

[mrhpearson]

Ack.

For the dates - I suspect they updated the release notes so you're just getting the date of the last file update. I don't think I'd worry too much about the date there myself. Getting the FW up on LVFS is a higher priority :)

Mark

[aagor]

Is there a workaround to get the latest firmware onto the dock in the meantime until the LVFS problem gots resolved?
I have tried to update using Windows PE and also the command prompt from the Windows ISO, but it didn't work.

[l3s2d]

Any updates? It looks like the firmware has now been removed from lvfs-testing as well.

[roliverio]

Hopefully a new version is about to come out and it will be rolled-out on LVFS as well. @mrhpearson do you happen to know about this possibility?

[roliverio]

@mrhpearson Since i've upgraded to kernel 6.x i stopped having the monitor flicker issue. Do you happen to know what could've changed?

[mrhpearson]

I missed the previous messages - I keep nagging the FW team for getting FW delivered but they seem to lurch from one issue to another. They promise me that everything is solved and it will be delivered 'in a week' and then find another last minute issue and everything is set back for months. I think it's having all the different components in a dock but....it's frustrating. I'll go and do another round of nagging.

For the flicker issue - there were a whole bunch of graphics improvements that went into 5.18 and 5.19 - I don't think I can pinpoint one in particular; but my guess is one of those would have helped. There were some improvements to increase the frequencies specifically targetted as improving dock connected displays that would be my best guess...but I am just guessing.

[pdvrieze]

Firmware is now available on lvfs testing (with the recently released fwupd-1.8.13). Hopefully going from firmware version 50 to 62 solves my issues with displayport disappearing ;-).

[joakim-tjernlund]

@mrhpearson , I see the Dock USB FW is on LVFS now but what did it fix? In Relnote it only says:

Device Firmware Version 3.0.8.5

The Docking will LED blinking while deploying FW update. Do NOT turn off your computer or remove the AC adapter while update is in progress.

New Feature support : - Support Universal Dock FW update.

[NerdyProjects]

I just want to mention that I wanted to update my Thunderbolt 3 Dock (40AC) firmware as well. fwupdmgr was not helpful, but using a live windows USB stick worked. Unfortunately, I did not safe the output before updating firmware on windows:

─ThinkPad Thunderbolt 3 Dock:
│     Device ID:          e5a8cb237d1688d9b51f8a5147fbf9a8803a00c9
│     Current version:    44.00
│     Vendor:             Lenovo (THUNDERBOLT:0x0108, TBT:0x0108)
│     GUIDs:              0f511908-5c9f-511e-9099-06823ec33614 ← THUNDERBOLT\VEN_0108&DEV_1630
│                         fab08d10-6524-5cb6-ab20-6d365c812f9e ← THUNDERBOLT\VEN_0108&DEV_1630&REV_00
│                         df675f10-53ac-59ca-bddd-0a86ee492920 ← TBT-01081630
│                         963fd29d-5e43-582e-bdc8-d7b35ef12f05 ← TBT-01081630-controller0-1
│     Device Flags:       • Updatable
│                         • System requires external power source
│                         • Device stages updates
│                         • Signed Payload

Devices with no available firmware updates: 
 • ThinkPad Thunderbolt 3 Dock
 • Thunderbolt host controller

[girante]

Firmware is now available on lvfs testing (with the recently released fwupd-1.8.13). Hopefully going from firmware version 50 to 62 solves my issues with displayport disappearing ;-).

I am having the same problem with display port monitors going dark. For me it happens after power saving display sleep and sometimes after hibernate or reboot.

The version reported for the dock by fwupdmgr is 15.00, so very far from versions 50 or 62 mentioned above by @pdvrieze .

He also says new firmware is available for testing, but i don't see it. Would it be because I am using the version from the uibuntu repositories (in this case 1.7.9)?

Hopefully updating the dock's firmware would solve my problem?

Devices with no available firmware updates: 
 • Integrated Camera
 • Prometheus IOTA Config
 • ThinkPad Thunderbolt 3 Dock
 • UEFI dbx
 • USB4 Retimer

├─ThinkPad Thunderbolt 3 Dock:
│     Device ID:          68f56643f1a371152bec72337eda87d2359c2d71
│     Current version:    15.00
│     Vendor:             Lenovo (THUNDERBOLT:0x0108, TBT:0x0108)
│     GUIDs:              fab08d10-6524-5cb6-ab20-6d365c812f9e
│                         0f511908-5c9f-511e-9099-06823ec33614
│                         df675f10-53ac-59ca-bddd-0a86ee492920
│                         a72dfcc2-0a31-5fa7-a2be-17fe74753fb3
│     Device Flags:       • Updatable
│                         • System requires external power source
│                         • Device stages updates
│                         • Signed Payload

[mrhpearson]

From your post on #94 I believe you're on the G1 dock. Afraid the TBT3 G1 dock firmware update isn't supported on LVFS and there are no plans to do so - sorry. I had hoped originally the work done on the G2 would help with the G1 but that isn't the case.
Mark

[girante]

That is unfortunate, but thanks for the confirmation anyway.