Fresh install (20.04) on NUC10 but no HDMI audio, only 'dummy output'

Question

Problem

After a fresh install of Ubuntu 20.04 (as well as LinuxMint 20.2 Cinnamon and Elementary Os 6) Intel NUC10I7FNHN, I do not have the option to select the HDMI sound output in the sound settings, only dummy as sound output.

The system is dual boot - from Windows I am able to play sound over HDMI, which ruled out issues with the different hardware components (TV, HDMI cable and port).

Things i tried to do

1. The frequent solutions

   • Reinstalling pulseaudio and alsa packages.
   • pulseaudio -k, nothing.
   • pacmd list-sinks only shows the dummy sink profile.
   • aplay -l returns no results.

2. Upgraded to the latest NUC10 BIOS(0053).

3. I tried following both fixes from Logix's Fix No Sound (Dummy Output) Issue In Ubuntu With SND HDA Intel :

   • Editing /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf by adding options snd-hda-intel model=generic at the end.
   • Editing same file with options snd-hda-intel dmic_detect=0 and /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf with blacklist snd_soc_skl at the end.

4. Debug the with the alsa-info tool Generated output

Answer 1

I have found a solution for my problem, posting here so it might help others save some time.

TL;DR

Upgraded kernel to 5.14+, as a fix has been applied for the NUC10.

Underlying problem

Found this Github issue in clearlinux related to the NUC10 and had a similar problem.
Noticed they have a similar alsa-info output.
They had a patch made and merged to alsa-devel and to the kernel 5.14.
The three OS's i tried had kernel version of 5.10 or 5.11. (ElementaryOs 6, LM 20.02 and Ubuntu 20.04)

And indeed - installing the new kernel solved my problem!
This might also be solved with installing that specific alsa package, but I have not tried that.