The fact that Pulse Audio can detect it means that there is a hardware connection; saying it is unplugged means that Pulse Audio cannot detect any input from it. At one time 3.5 mm headphone and microphone ports were separate; now one 3.5 mm port is used for both input and output. I wonder if there is a switching problem caused by a combination of other input and output devices causing the 3.5 mm port to be switched to output (ie. headphone) only.
This is what happens in my HP Envy x360, even with kernel 5.11 rc4:
I plug the jack till the end and it is reported as unplugged.
If I then very slightly pull out the plug, between 1/3 and 1/2 mm, it’s suddenly reported as plugged-in and mic signal is ok.
If from that position I push it till the end again, it stays reported as plugged-in but signal becomes uncorrelated to mic input. It’s like a repeated and noisy pattern of amplifying for a bit and suddenly dropping.
It indeed seems that when the jack is fully plugged-in it’s taken to be a 3 pin jack. In 1 it’s reported as unplugged, in 3 maybe the plugged-in state is preserved from 2, but the input -whatever it is- is not from the mic.
Possibly, just curious as to what could be causing this switching issue as I have nothing else plugged in. Still interesting that it works on the same machine with windows.
Well YaST has nothing to do with loading the drivers (and the sound utility is deprecated anyway). You can show the sound card configuration using inxi -SAa
For more comprehensive diagnostic information, run the alsa-info.sh script as explained here https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Audio_troubleshooting#Script_to_run_to_obtain_detailed_information
and share the link that it provides so others can see the results.
A quick glance of the diagnostic output shows the microphone is off
Simple mixer control 'Mic',0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 31
Mono:
Front Left: Playback 0 [0%] [-34.50dB] [off]
Front Right: Playback 0 [0%] [-34.50dB] [off]
Fire up alsamixer via a terminal, press F6 to choose the appropriate card, check/adjust the mic levels, then test again. Any difference?
I believe I did find the correct sound card and the mic bar was all the way down.
I raised it up and also disabled the auto mute feature.
Nothing seems to have changed.
When selecting the sound card is it normal for there to be 3 options?
The default seemed to be something called pipewire and I wasn’t able to change it from defaulting to it.
There is another one that had HDMI in it and then finally the third option is the Realtek audio which I know as the correct option as that is what appears when using the mic on windows
That really depends on the particular system. You have two sound cards, and I think the first option is for ‘default’ which as you say points to the ‘sound server’ layer, (in this case PipeWire).
