XPS 13 9380 + TB16 Dock + Ubuntu: No external keyboard

Thank you for your message. I will be glad to assist you with this.

Is the system originally shipped with Ubuntu or with Windows 10?

Does the keyboard & mouse work if connected directly to the USB port?

Do you have BIOS version 1.1.1?

For my reference, please click on the message tab next to your avatar– click “New Message” & search for my Dell username (Sreejith R) & send a private message with the service tag, registered name & email address.

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This issue is being dealt with via another case number

Service Request Number: 

FYI. XPS 13 9380 has no usb ports.

This one is Ubuntu, and it is at Bios 1.1.1

I have the exact same issue on a newly bought XPS 13 9380 with Ubuntu. No external mouse and keyboard. Bios version: 1.1.1 with manufacturing date of 25th january 2019.

@joveha Good luck with it chap.  I'm currently waiting for Dell to refund the cost of the dock.  I did dig some more and apparently it's not so hot under Windoze either.  It's a partial fit.  Will drive screens, won't drive plain old USB.  Some success with USB/SS but it can be a bit flaky.  I've compromised for the moment and fitted the usb dongle that came with it to a USB hub.  That means two cables to connect and dock doesn't power down nicely every time when machine is switched off (by which time of course there is no Linux involved), so dock and an external USB/SS drive has to be physically disconnected to power down sometimes.  So that's 3 cables.  Hardly ideal, but better than nought given that there is no other way than Thunderbolt to connect the machine up.  Love the machine. The dock is a pile of under engineered rubbish.

As a *nix user you'll love this bit of advice from Dell, and I paraphrase.  "Run the firmware updates for the Dock from a Windows machine"! I don't have a *doze machine, and haven't had one for nigh on 20 years!  Now you may have one, so it might be worth a go.  Let me know if it does and and I'll go and consult my little black book to see if any of my friends still have a *doze machine with a thunderbolt connection. I suspect not ;-)

@chippyashThat's just extremely disappointing to hear. I bought this bundle in particular because I didn't want any hazzles with any docks. One would imagine, that a big company such as Dell had actually bothered testing it.

For additional amusement, I can tell that I did try to update the dock with a windows machine (that luckily DID have a thunderbolt port), but that the firmware exe crashed......I have to agree with you - under-engineered rubbish.

@Community,

Dell engineering has found a compatibility issue between XPS 13 9380 ( Ubuntu models ) and the TB16 dock. A new BIOS should be posted in March 2019 in order to resolve this. The new BIOS will also be cut in to the factory shortly after, for new systems that ship from Dell.

I will get back with updates in the future. Thank you for the discussion. 

Dear Community,

Thank you for your patience. New 1.2.1 <ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell> is now available for download and includes the fix.

Justin,

In the case this matters, I have Windows 10, and I installed BIOS 1.2.1 yesterday

The description says "Fixes the issue where the mouse lags when the Dell TB16 dock is unplugged or plugged in"

This is exactly what I observed (stuttering mouse and keyboard) after I rebooted after bios update.

The problem is still there, but for me it is intermittent, I can't reliably reproduce it.

@chippyash,

Thank you for the feedback. I will attempt replication of the issue and see what I can do.

@novosib,

Was your issue non-intermittent before the BIOS update then intermittent after the BIOS update?

I had a similar problem, the lagging issue seems better after updating the bios (following https://fwupd.org/lvfs/device/ce945437-7358-49f1-95d8-6b694a10a755)

However, ethernet port still doesn't work. 

ifconfig gives:

lo: flags=73  mtu 65536
        inet 127.0.0.1  netmask 255.0.0.0
        inet6 ::1  prefixlen 128  scopeid 0x10
  
        loop  txqueuelen 1000  (Local Loopback)
        RX packets 1093  bytes 107319 (107.3 KB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 1093  bytes 107319 (107.3 KB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0
  
 

syslog says:

Mar  7 14:21:17 xps13 kernel: [  406.774045] cdc_ether: probe of 2-1.2:2.0 failed with error -16

Any idea?

Actually, lagging issues are still there... 

It looks like it's due to fwupd taking all cpu.

Running fwupd in verbose mode gives this error: 

failed to add USB device 0bda:8153: invalid dock component request Query 4 0 2 2 0

Any idea @DELL-Justin C ?

Here is the answer I got from @DellCares on twitter (after proposing a bios update, which I did, leaving the issue unchanged):

"Our support for Ubuntu as OS is limited. Therefore, I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to help you on this should the issue persists. You might want to explore other options to fix this." 

I would appreciate some help here @DELL-Justin C.

Dear Justin

We are having exactly the same problem with a Dell 13 (9380) + TB16 Dock shipped with Ubuntu 18.04 (arrived this week).

Before proceeding, please may I check the BIOs 1.2.1 update is for Ubuntu -- on the link provided it's for Windows:

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@DELL-Justin C wrote:

Dear Community,

Thank you for your patience. New 1.2.1 is now available for download and includes the fix.