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Ubuntu 19.10 (Eoan Ermine)

When not plugging in anything, my internal input and outputs work perfectly. When I plug in my headphones, which do not have microphone but only speakers, my input devices look like this (using pulseaudio volume control):

  • Internal Microphone (unplugged)
  • Microphone (plugged in)

Before plugging in my headphones, my input devices look like this:

  • Internal Microphone
  • Microphone (unplugged)

Now I think ubuntu thinks my headphones contain a microphone, but they don't. Selecting the Internal Microphone does not give any sound, because it says they are unplugged.

I got my headphones and internal speakers to work yesterday by pure luck, but now plugging it out and in again doesn't fix anything. I've also tried rebooting several times and muting one channel of both microphones.

If you need any other information, I'll be happy to include it!

EDIT:

It works sometimes, which is very weird. I have no idea how to consistently get it to work. Sometimes it will not work after rebooting a lot of times and booting with headset plugged in or not. And sometimes it just works for no reason.

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  • Try yelling into your headphone speakers and see if it detects the Sound.
    – Danial Behzadi
    Mar 18, 2020 at 14:31

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
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sudo apt install alsa-tools-gui

hdajackretask

Select the appropriate sound card up top in Select a codec:

Then make the Black Mic (headphone jack) override Not connected

Lower right corner, select Install boot override

Image showing how

Then reboot and test

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6
  • This worked for me. Had to select and configure the microphone via pavucontrol - but now finally it works. Thank you for your help.
    – advance512
    Jul 16, 2020 at 13:46
  • 1
    Well, at least a microphone appears in the sound settings now, but no luck actually getting it to detect sound
    – Jack M
    Sep 15, 2020 at 13:35
  • This worked totally fine in Ubuntu 18.04. Thanks!
    – Macr1408
    Jan 6, 2021 at 20:58
  • It enabled the headset microphone alright, but now I can't get the headset speakers to work, am I the onlyone?
    – Paulin Trognon
    Feb 11, 2021 at 11:41
  • This solution worked in Kubuntu 20.04 !!! Thanks.
    – Yulio Aleman Jimenez
    Nov 1, 2021 at 16:06
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My workaround for this problem is to log-out or to sleep, then plug in my headphones, then login or wake up my computer. This keeps my input device as "Internal Microphone - Built-In Audio" while switching my output device to "Headphones - Built-in Audio". This has worked on 18.04 and 20.04, but it might work on other versions as well.

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  • Needed to find your answer again after loging out, just to upvote :D
    – Stevan Tosic
    Feb 23, 2022 at 8:32
  • No wonder I had seen memes like when a rocket does not fire up a passenger says did you try to turn off and on or something similar. This worked like charm. I had spent like 2-3 hours trying to find an answer and after all this it seems silly.
    – Nagaraju
    Jul 24, 2022 at 5:01
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I solved this problem in a quite amusing way. I used hdajackretask to tweak some settings and found that leave the settings on the page as default and press Install boot override (and reboot) solved my problem.

A screenshot of the settings I installed:

A screenshot of the settings I installed

My system info:

  • Ubuntu 20.04, kernel version 5.11.0-25-generic

I do experienced similar issue as Andrew Morris (plug anything into headphone jack, then internal microphone functions well). And sometimes my Bluetooth even don't work when tweaking some of the settings. But after some "reboot" and "log out then log back in" (actually one attempt solved my issue), every things worked out fine.

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  • thanks lol this also worked for me in Ubuntu 21.10, with pipewire.
    – Vijay Prema
    Jan 31, 2022 at 1:59
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Known bug since 2012. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/1025388

If you'd like, you can add yourself there to the number of users affected.

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