No audio when headphones are plugged in

Dear experts,

I am trying to find out why I cannot hear any sound when I plug in headphones in my laptop. Data points:

  • latest updates
  • speakers work just fine when I unplug headphones
  • alsamixer looks good
  • pavucontrol looks good (bars move when audio is supposed to be played)
  • tried clearing ~/.config/pulse and restarting pulseaudio, no luck
  • using an USB sound card also works
  • issue started last week, was not the case before. I did not do anything obvious to the system in that time frame

Sink looks OK to me (but I am not an expert):


> pacmd list-sinks
1 sink(s) available.
  * index: 21
        name: <alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.3.analog-stereo>
        driver: <module-alsa-card.c>
        flags: HARDWARE HW_MUTE_CTRL HW_VOLUME_CTRL DECIBEL_VOLUME LATENCY DYNAMIC_LATENCY
        state: RUNNING
        suspend cause:
        priority: 9039
        volume: front-left: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB,   front-right: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB
                balance 0.00
        base volume: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB
        volume steps: 65537
        muted: no
        current latency: 62.80 ms
        max request: 14 KiB
        max rewind: 344 KiB
        monitor source: 26
        sample spec: s16le 2ch 48000Hz
        channel map: front-left,front-right
                     Stereo
        used by: 1
        linked by: 1
        configured latency: 75.00 ms; range is 0.50 .. 1837.50 ms
        card: 2 <alsa_card.pci-0000_00_1f.3>
        module: 8
        properties:
                alsa.resolution_bits = "16"
                device.api = "alsa"
                device.class = "sound"
                alsa.class = "generic"
                alsa.subclass = "generic-mix"
                alsa.name = "ALC298 Analog"
                alsa.id = "ALC298 Analog"
                alsa.subdevice = "0"
                alsa.subdevice_name = "subdevice #0"
                alsa.device = "0"
                alsa.card = "0"
                alsa.card_name = "HDA Intel PCH"
                alsa.long_card_name = "HDA Intel PCH at 0x2ff2010000 irq 339"
                alsa.driver_name = "snd_hda_intel"
                device.bus_path = "pci-0000:00:1f.3"
                sysfs.path = "/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.3/sound/card0"
                device.bus = "pci"
                device.vendor.id = "8086"
                device.vendor.name = "Intel Corporation"
                device.product.id = "a171"
                device.form_factor = "internal"
                device.string = "front:0"
                device.buffering.buffer_size = "352800"
                device.buffering.fragment_size = "176400"
                device.access_mode = "mmap+timer"
                device.profile.name = "analog-stereo"
                device.profile.description = "Analog Stereo"
                device.description = "Built-in Audio Analog Stereo"
                alsa.mixer_name = "Realtek ALC298"
                alsa.components = "HDA:10ec0298,17aa224d,00100103"
                module-udev-detect.discovered = "1"
                device.icon_name = "audio-card-pci"
        ports:
                analog-output-speaker: Speakers (priority 10000, latency offset 0 usec, available: no)
                        properties:
                                device.icon_name = "audio-speakers"
                analog-output-headphones: Headphones (priority 9000, latency offset 0 usec, available: yes)
                        properties:
                                device.icon_name = "audio-headphones"
        active port: <analog-output-headphones>

What else could be checked?

Just to clarify - no audible sound evident only via headphones?

Report back with output from

amixer -c0

It may also be useful to get more comprehensive information about the audio system. The ‘alsa-info.sh’ script can capture that information, and upload to an online server. Run it using…

 /usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh

Post the URL that it provides here, so that others can review the output and advise further.

Yes, but, did you change anything in the past to have the Laptop’s speakers active when headphones were plugged in?

  • For the case of a Laptop, the default behaviour is to mute the Laptop’s speakers when headphones are plugged in …

» For some Laptop models, this is hardware feature …