Need to select speaker to get output to headphone

Ubuntu
1

This is a recent problem. Internal speakers and mic are fine. External mic is fine. Plug headphone in and all system recognise I’ve inserted it but no sound. Go to System Settings and select output as Speaker and it works. Repeat process after headphones withdrawn or system restarted.

Kubuntu 18.04 LTS on HP Elitebook 8440p dual boot. No such issues under WIn10 and everything works as expected.

I’m still learning Linux and don’t yet have the knowledge to ascertain what settings appear to be sticking the wrong way.

2

I probably do this like 35 times a day, sometimes more…

I normally have “regular” headphones hooked up to a USB sound device via 3.5 mm audio jack - for music / movies etc… Sometimes I jack them into the HDMI sound output, instead…

Whenever I’m about to go online / VOIP (teams, webex, bluejean etc), I plug in my Logitech “universal” (nothing universal about it at all!) tranceiver USB dongle, so I use different headphones (Logitech) with a boom microphone for “talking”…

Each time I do any of the above, I have to fire up Ubuntu’s “Settings” app and select the out and in settings…

Settings > Sound Output

Settings > Sound Input

And I always pick “test” right after that - to ensure it’s working (like I didn’t do earlier today in a WebEx meeting, and chatted away for 90 seconds, not realising none of the other parties could hear me!).

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3

Thanks but I shouldn’t have to be setting to Speaker to get Headphone output.
No headphone connected, device == internal speaker which is correct and works
Headphone connected, device == Headphone, which is correct but doesn’t work
Headphone connect, device == Headphone, change to Speaker and works
That is plain wrong and not how it was a month ago.

== means it shows in Alsamixer, Audio Settings (under System settings) and Volume settings.

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4

My friend, an avid Kubuntu user for many years, told me this is fixed in newer versions of Kubuntu. You could also fix this in alsa settings, but you’d have to use its CLI for that.

5

I’m not quite ready for 20.04. But it was all working a few weeks ago anyway so some settings have since got corrupted.

A bit more of a pointer re the CLI would be handy.

1 Like
6
7

Thanks but as I’ve said I’ve got Alsamixer. Alsamixer shows the Headphones being plugged in. But I still get no volume until I go to system settings and force it to use Speakers instead of Headphones. There is a configuration issue and I don’t know how to get to it. I’ve removed all other devices so the only Audio device is the internal sound card.

1 Like