A little follow up for history: I notice later that the problem was back, with both new and old firmware version. A few tests and some head scratching later, I found that the problem would only occur when the laptop is on battery power. If it is connected to the grid, it can suspend correctly. To be 100% sure, I booted an old ubuntu 18.04 from an usb key, and the behavior is the same: suspend works when on grid power, but causes shutdown when on battery. I think this very likely to be a hardware failure, and will contact the laptop vendor. Thank you for your L