Headphone Jack Sense not enabled

[Kovarththanan Rajaratnam]

I'm running Ubuntu 7.04 on a HP Compaq nc6000 and it seems that Headphone Jack Sense option in Volume Control is not enabled as default. This means that I was running into the same problem as #109838. However, enabling "Headphone Jack Sense" makes the problem go away.

It would be useful if this was enabled as default. I've attached some hardware logs (in case that would be useful).

[Dean Moreton (dean-moreton)]

can confirm the issue unfortunately still exists for Gutsy on an nc6000, and the same fix also works. Can supply any logs as above if required.

[caberg (caberg-408)]

This is not fixed in Hardy either. When can we expect that it will be ?

[Dean Moreton (dean-moreton)]

recently installed Hardy Beta and can confirm this issue is still outstanding on my nc6000. Workaround is not hard if you know what to do but would be great to have this fixed??

[Adam Niedling (krychek)]

Same issue on Fujitsu Siemens La 1703.

[m-p{3} (m-p-3)]

Issue still exist in Intrepid Ibex.

I had to go in the Volume Control applet, go into preferences and check "Headphone Jack Sense", click Ok, and then go in the Parameters tab and check Headphone Jack Sense. At that point, the speakers muted themselves automatically when plugging headphones.

[Piraja (piraja-deactivatedaccount)]

I confirm that the problem persists in 8.10. At the moment, after some recent update (I have Intrepid-proposed in my sources.lst and am running kernel 2.6.27-11 now), the "Headphone jack sense" option has disappeared from alsamixer (at some earlier point it was absent from GNOME Volume Applet and I had to use Alsamixer to enable Headphone jack sense).

[Piraja (piraja-deactivatedaccount)]

As a sequel to my previous comment: I removed linux-headers-2.6.27-11 and intrepid-proposed, edited menu.lst, updated Grub and thus reverted back to 2.6.27-9. This fixed the problem: I'm no longer getting sound simultaneously from internal loudspeakers and headphones.

Well, "Headphone jack sense" still does not show up in Alsamixer, but at least the main problem was solved.

I have 64-bit Intrepid Ibex on a new HP 6735S laptop. But the problem is not specific to HP laptops: I had simultaneous sound from loudspeakers and headphones also on an old HP Compaq Evo D510 SFF with Intrepid (not with Hardy before that!); had to use Alsamixer to enable Headphone jack sense.

I think the simultaneous sound from loudspeakers and headphones is a rather frustrating problem, especially if it tends to reappear with version and/or kernel updates and has done that for such a long time and since 7.04.

Regards,

Piraja

[Michael Nagel (nailor)]

could you please describe in more detail how
... enabling "Headphone Jack Sense" ...
works/where i can change it.

i have a computer with the exact same sympton and would like to check if it is a duplicate.

[xteejx (xteejx-deactivatedaccount)]

Sorry to hear that this is still a problem, but it seems that this is more of a feature request, or change of default usage, therefore I am marking it as a Wishlist bug. If you would like to see this in Ubuntu, the usual procedure is to make a suggestion in Brainstorm at http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/ that way it can be seen by more people and voted on - the more popular suggestions usually get incorporated quicker this way. Thank you for reporting this suggestion.

Piraja, it seems that you are having a completely different problem. I would suggest opening a separate bug report for this issue if you have not already done so.

[Krzysztof Kosinski (tweenk)]

This is not a feature request, this is a bug! The computer behaves in a totally unexpected way, and a way that is not very useful. It should be at least Medium, not Wishlist.

There are several problems:
1. The behavior of simultaneously playing sound on both the speakers and the headphones is totally confusing.
2. Headphone Jack Sense doesn't sound like something that is supposed to cure this problem.
3. It is hidden by default.

[bloo (bloo)]

I agree with Krzysztof Kosiński, this is not something that would make Ubuntu better, but a bug (if it is a "feature", it also is inconsistent with its behavior, so it should be a bug anyway).

[xteejx (xteejx-deactivatedaccount)]

"...it seems that Headphone Jack Sense option in Volume Control is not enabled as default...It would be useful if this was enabled as default. I've attached some hardware logs (in case that would be useful)."

From the above it sounds like this is a request to have the headphone jack sense option enabled by default, which is why I marked it as Wishlist. Does it cause any crashes or problems of any kind by having this option checked/unchecked, etc?
Can update your description with full information about what the problem is, how it *should* work, and how we would recreate it please, as the original does not provide enough information to be able to see what the problem is exactly.
Thank you.

[bigal50 (bigal50)]

I have a Vostro 1520 running Jaunty amd64 and have the same problem as described above. This is not the normal operation of a headphone jack. Normally when you plug headphones in the internal speakers are shutoff. I don't understand why this would have been changed so that it is not the default.

The other problem is that I can find no place to turn the headphone jack sense off and on following the directions above do not work. Is there a terminal command that will turn it on and off?

I tried Linux Mint 7 and it showed the same symptoms.

I tried this with the LiveCd of Karmic and it works as it should there, when inserting the headphones the internal speakers are turned off.

[Krzysztof Kosinski (tweenk)]

Teej: "Does it cause any crashes or problems of any kind by having this option checked/unchecked, etc?" - yes, it does cause problems: when people plug in headphones, they expect external speakers to be turned off. This is controlled by the Headphone Jack Sense preference. Default behavior before Karmic was to have it off by default, which meant that plugging in headphones did not turn the speakers off.

[bigal50 (bigal50)]

I have installed a clean install of Karmic beta and again the headphone jacks works as it should by default. Plug the headphones in and the internal speakers shutoff. Hopefully it will stay this way with the final release.

[caberg (caberg-408)]

I reinstall ubuntu karmic on my old hp-laptop and the "Headphone Jack Sense" it still disable by default.
Headphon.
lspci | grep audio
00:1e.2 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03)

[bigal50 (bigal50)]

I am now at the final release of Karmic which is now 9.10 and the headphone jack in my case works as normal with nothing done on my part. I did do a new install when I installed Karmic beta then upgraded through the channels.

Vostro 1520
Karmic 9.10 amd64

[xteejx (xteejx-deactivatedaccount)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. However, I am closing it because the bug has been fixed in the latest development version of Ubuntu - Karmic Koala.

[Jojo (kuzniarpawel)]

I think this bug needs to be reopened. It still exist on fresh 10.10 install. I had to install Gnome Alsa Mixer to enable Headphone Jack Sense on my old HP nx6110 that previously (10.04) was unnecessary.

I attach some logs below.
 2.6.35-22-generic #35-Ubuntu SMP Sat Oct 16 20:36:48 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux

[xteejx (xteejx-deactivatedaccount)]

If that is the case, please file a new bug with ubuntu-bug. Thank you.

[psl (slansky)]

Not fixed in Ubuntu 11.04!! Bug #1 will never be fixed... :-(
I cannot find an option to enable "jack sense" in sound preferences in 11.04.

My advice? Dont't remove WinXP from your NC6000. WinXP is old system but still works better than the latest Ubuntu at NC6000 (too many HW issues in Ubuntu: sound, ethernet card, serial port and sometimes display so far...).

[psl (slansky)]

Workarround, from CLI; 11.04:

nc6000$ amixer controls | grep -i sense
numid=32,iface=MIXER,name='Headphone Jack Sense'
numid=33,iface=MIXER,name='Line Jack Sense'

nc6000$ amixer cset numid=32 1
numid=32,iface=MIXER,name='Headphone Jack Sense'
  ; type=BOOLEAN,access=rw------,values=1
  : values=on

# It works as expected, headphones mute sound.

nc6000$ amixer cset numid=32 0
numid=32,iface=MIXER,name='Headphone Jack Sense'
  ; type=BOOLEAN,access=rw------,values=1
  : values=on

# 0 is the default value; internal speakers are not muted by headphone. To fix thsi bug we have to change it to 1:

nc6000$ amixer cset numid=32 1
numid=32,iface=MIXER,name='Headphone Jack Sense'
  ; type=BOOLEAN,access=rw------,values=1
  : values=on