Manjaro Thunderbolt 4 Dock Woes

Framework Laptop Linux
#1

Hello everyone,

I’m having some issues with my workflow with the Framework laptop and was wondering if anyone else was having similar issues and possible knew of any fixes.

Issue 1)
I bought a new Thunderbolt 4 dock. The CalDigit Element Hub. It’s a nice small profile dock and gives 4 USB 3 10Gb/s ports, 3 Thunderbolt 4 ports and 1 Thunderbolt 4 port with 60w power for the laptop.

I have had no issues with it and everything works as it should. However, if the dock is plugged in when I boot, it wont boot and just sits at a black screen. I then have to unplug the dock, hold the button to power off and power back on without it. Then once booted I can plug it in without any issues and everything works. Same thing for shutting down. While plugged in it wont fully shut down. It will go through a lot of the process but then hangs.

Issue 2)
When everything is booted up and I plug into the dock I can close the Framework lid and put it in the vertical holder without any issues. For the most part it works as intended. I have Manjaro set so that when it is on AC power it should not go to sleep. However it still seems to. (Not that this in itself is an issue for me.)

The issue comes after it sits overnight. If it wakes up at all there are always problems. Sometimes it will show GDM and the mouse moves but clicks and the keyboard do not work. Sometimes GDM will not show up at all. Sometimes it will show up and the reboot itself. I am not sure what is going on but it’s pretty frustrating.

I’m thinking about giving Pop OS or Fedora a try just to see if the behavior is the same but I wanted to ask on here to see if anyone else has fought these same issues.

Thanks everyone!

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Frame.work desktop setups?
Unable to wake from sleep
USB-C/Thunderbolt Dock Megathread
#2

I’m not sure if this is related to any of the problems you reported, but on the BIOS updates page I can see for the upcoming 3.03 version they list one known issue as “System cannot recognize Thunderbolt 3 devices after resuming from S4.”

I wonder if that also applies to the current 3.02 BIOS and could explain at least some of your issues?

The BIOS/Firmware update page is here:

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#3

That very well could improve some things thank you for putting it on my radar.

I have also noticed in regards to the machine going to sleep even while plugged in and having it disabled for AC, that both Manjaro and Pop OS will sometimes say the battery is 100% and the charge symbol will disappear (even though it stays at 100%) instead of showing it is still charging and saying “Fully Charged”.

I am thinking that when this happens it looks to the OS like it is now on battery and then will go to sleep.

#4

What about the linux kernel? 5.14 has some more USB4 stuff. I don’t know if it fixes any sleep issues. You might need 21.10 to upgrade to kernel 5.14.

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#5

Thank you for the idea however I do not use Ubuntu I use Manjaro. We are already on 5.14.
Just for fun I installed windows and am seeing errors there as well in regards to Thunderbolt. I’m thinking it isn’t OS dependent.

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#6

@nomb85 any developments in the last two months?

#7

I’m wondering if thunderbolt kernel modules need to also be included in early KMS / mkinitcpio MODULES config. Might try this out myself today…

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#8

I’m looking into buying the exact same dock once I have a Framework laptop (also to be used with Linux), so I’m interested in what your experiences are

#9

@D.H Please do! I’m interested to hear whether that helps.

#10

So this time around I kept it on s2idle and seem to be having less issues. I haven’t switched it over to the more efficient one yet though on this install.

The other issue I am having with this is, across multiple distros, is that while plugged in it will charge fine. But then when fully charged it switches to “Not Charging” instead of “Plugged In; Not Charging”. Sometimes it will detect it correctly and know it is still plugged in – but usually not. This is an issue because I have mine setup to not sleep while plugged in. But when it just says “Not Charging” it sleeps anyway even though it’s plugged in.

#11

I can report some general Linux experience with this dock now.

I haven’t tested power delivery or the bandwidth, but normal peripherals seem to work well. I do have a problem with my specific display adapter: I need to disconnect both the adapter and the displayport cable from the adapter and then reconnect both after having connected the hub. It’s a bit awkward, because that adapter and display do work correctly when plugging into the laptop’s TB3 port directly. This behavior is exactly the same on a recent MacBook Pro. But once I reconnect everything, 4K@60Hz does work as it should.

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#12

So I do not have a TB dock, but I do have two different TB3 eGPU enclosures at the moment. Adding the thunderbolt module to mkinitcpio’s MODULES list did not really change any behavior regarding my eGPUs. They both still really want to be plugged in at the SDDM login screen, not before, not after, especially on X11. Plugging in at any other time gives a high probability that my external monitor will not get a valid signal, won’t show up in xrandr, etc.

Looking forward to the day when either X11 or Wayland are hot (un-)plug capable, but it really does not appear to be that way right now.

#13

This dock is working quite well now on my device (I added it to the Megathread).

I recommend you update to a recent (>5.16) kernel. I used to have some of the issues described, but with some recent kernel, that improved a lot.

#14

@hCJ0t6BQ8
Can your reboot with your dock plugged in?
That is the only issue I currently have with the dock atm.

#15

I can’t (it hangs on a black screen) but it’s not more than a minor inconvenience. I just press the power button briefly, and the laptop instantly shuts down. I press it again briefly, and the laptop boots up as usual with the dock functioning as expected.

#16

@hCJ0t6BQ8

That is what mine does too but for me it’s a bigger issue because I use it mainly in docked mode closed so I have to unhook everything, take it off it’s dock, reboot, wait for the screen to show then hook everything back up.

I saw (i forget where) someone making changes to the kernel to fix this but I can’t find it now.

#17

I have the same issue, was about to write a new thread. If the Caldigit Thunderbolt 4 hub is plugged in a Restart/Cold Boot will power up the LCD but it will sit forever. If I do manage to get it to boot by pressing the power button over and over, the hub won’t work in the OS until it is unplugged and plugged back into the laptop.

#18

From what I understand it just needs kernel and/or linux os tweaks to make it work. There are other linux distros where it doesn’t hang on boot.

#19

FWIW, I have the Caldigit TS4 (so different dock) which works flawlessly under Ubuntu 22.04 (except for Laptop powers *on* after hibernate when unplugging/unpowering dock which is probably a small OS issue).