Headset mic not working on 18.04 on desktop with Realtek ALC1220 chipset

Question

Summary

I have a headset whose mic input isn't working on my desktop running Ubuntu 18.04. The headphones work fine, but the mic doesn't work - in sound settings and in pavucontrol, I'm getting no signal when I speak.

Hardware

• Shure SE215 with "RMCE-Universal Remote and Mic Compatible Universal Cable ", which has a built in mic. This is what I'm calling the "headset".
• The headset plugged into front audio port of a Lian Li Lancool 215, which according to the manual is a TRRS port.
• Motherboard: Gigabyte B550 AORUS Pro AX (for Ryzen processors), which has a Realtek ALC1220.
• I do also have an nVidia RTX 3070 that I think also has its own audio codec.

Symptoms and clues

• The headset (phones and mic) are definitely working - tested on my laptop (Dell Latitude 5480, also running Ubuntu 18.04). I've checked the headset mic is working and I'm not just using the inbuilt laptop mic.
• The mic signal seems to track the output volume (i.e. what's coming through the headphones). I suspect something might be trying to use the mic as a line out.
• alsamixer and pavucontrol and the "sound" tab in settings look fine - it's unmuted, and the levels look fine: alsamixer picture Also, the microphone is clearly detected in the sound settings "input" tab - the entry disappears when i unplug the headset, and reappears when I plug it in: sound settings tab
• Not sure if this is normal or a problem, but the audio device listed in lspci is AMD, not Realtek:

lspci | grep -i audio
0a:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation Device 228b (rev a1)
0c:00.4 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1487

• Selected output of cat /proc/asound/card1/codec#0 is below. I've only shown nodes that have the string "front mic" in them:

Codec: Realtek ALC1220
Address: 0
AFG Function Id: 0x1 (unsol 1)
Vendor Id: 0x10ec1220
Subsystem Id: 0x1458a0c3
Revision Id: 0x100101
No Modem Function Group found
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Node 0x0b [Audio Mixer] wcaps 0x20010b: Stereo Amp-In
  Control: name="Front Mic Playback Volume", index=0, device=0
    ControlAmp: chs=3, dir=In, idx=1, ofs=0
  Control: name="Front Mic Playback Switch", index=0, device=0
    ControlAmp: chs=3, dir=In, idx=1, ofs=0
  Control: name="Rear Mic Playback Volume", index=0, device=0
    ControlAmp: chs=3, dir=In, idx=0, ofs=0
  Control: name="Rear Mic Playback Switch", index=0, device=0
    ControlAmp: chs=3, dir=In, idx=0, ofs=0
  Control: name="Line Playback Volume", index=0, device=0
    ControlAmp: chs=3, dir=In, idx=2, ofs=0
  Control: name="Line Playback Switch", index=0, device=0
    ControlAmp: chs=3, dir=In, idx=2, ofs=0
  Amp-In caps: ofs=0x17, nsteps=0x1f, stepsize=0x05, mute=1
  Amp-In vals:  [0x95 0x95] [0x80 0x80] [0x80 0x80] [0x80 0x80] [0x80 0x80] [0x80 0x80] [0x80 0x80] [0x80 0x80]
  Connection: 8
     0x18 0x19 0x1a 0x1b 0x1d 0x15 0x16 0x17
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Node 0x19 [Pin Complex] wcaps 0x40058f: Stereo Amp-In Amp-Out
  Control: name="Front Mic Boost Volume", index=0, device=0
    ControlAmp: chs=3, dir=In, idx=0, ofs=0
  Amp-In caps: ofs=0x00, nsteps=0x03, stepsize=0x27, mute=0
  Amp-In vals:  [0x02 0x02]
  Amp-Out caps: ofs=0x00, nsteps=0x00, stepsize=0x00, mute=1
  Amp-Out vals:  [0x80 0x80]
  Pincap 0x0000373c: IN OUT HP Detect
    Vref caps: HIZ 50 GRD 80 100
  Pin Default 0x02a19050: [Jack] Mic at Ext Front
    Conn = 1/8, Color = Pink
    DefAssociation = 0x5, Sequence = 0x0
  Pin-ctls: 0x24: IN VREF_80
  Unsolicited: tag=02, enabled=1
  Power states:  D0 D1 D2 D3 EPSS
  Power: setting=D0, actual=D0
  Connection: 5
     0x0c* 0x0d 0x0e 0x0f 0x26
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Things I've tried

• I tried adding a line options snd-hda-intel model=dual-codecs to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa.conf, informed by the kernel audio web page. That was suggested here
• I tried hdajackretask, but I couldn't get it to work - I went down another chain of AskUbuntu threads on how to kill pulseaudio, but wasn't successful. hdajackretask

Plea

Any help would be greatly appreciated, especially given how many zoom calls we're all doing during this pandemic.

Answer 1

Microfones can be disabled on some pc on BIOS. So its possible the nicrofone are disabled on your BIOS or not. So check this point of configuration of your pc.

Other Troubleshooting approaches:

• Check the microfone of your headset by on other pc or so on
• Check the microfon connector and autio hardware of your pc by one other microfone
• If your microfone and the audio hardware of your mainboard are working, think about replacing or updating your ubuntu to a more actual one like 20.x or higher if available.
• For driver questions, how to configure and so on, pls. check Headset microphone is not working in ubuntu 20.04