Headphones stopped working after use of Audacity. They are detected, but no sound is produced.

[Camsbury]

I'm running 13.10 and the latest GNOME. I've just fresh installed everything and the problem has occured again the same way. I would like to be able to use audacity, but I suppose in the mean time I will just reinstall everything.

Steps to reproduce :
1) Install audacity 2.0.3 from official Ubuntu repositories
2) Open Audacity and play something with it
3) That's it : no more headphones sound.

- alsa log created with 'alsa-info.sh' (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Audio/AlsaInfo) : http://paste.ubuntu.com/7131709/

- pulse log when I plug in my headphones, I run a MP3 file with VLC, close VLC then unplug headphones (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PulseAudio/Log) : http://paste.ubuntu.com/7131713/

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Stéphane Guillou (stephane-guillou)]

I have the exact same problem. I was not sure what it came from at the beginning but today it was clearly Audacity that stops my headphone port from working.

I was listening to music before through the same headphones, with different apps. As soon as I opened the same sound with Audacity, my headphone port stopped working whereas I can unplug them and use my laptop speakers. After that, even out of Audacity, I can not use my headphones with the apps that worked before then.
I only hear little "breathing" sounds every time a sound/song is supposed to start, or when the sound/song is supposed to finish and the app "releases" the sound system.

It takes several reboots before it eventually start working again, sometimes after a few days.

I have no idea what happens but it is an extremely disrupting problem as I can not make any music without good quality headphones.

I am using Ubuntu 13.10 64bits with Audacity 2.0.5

Please let me know if I can give you something else to help fix this.

[Raymond (superquad-vortex2)]

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Audio/AlsaInfo

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PulseAudio/Log

[Jean van Kasteel (vankasteelj)]

- alsa log created with 'alsa-info.sh' : http://paste.ubuntu.com/7131709/

- pulse log when I plug in my headphones, I run a MP3 file with VLC, close VLC then unplug headphones : http://paste.ubuntu.com/7131713/

[Stéphane Guillou (stephane-guillou)]

Hi there

The following was collected after using audacity, witnessing the bug (no sound on headphones), getting out of Audacity, trying sound with other software with no success, unplugging the headphones and getting sound out of the speakers, and testing the headphones again to no avail.

- Alsa log: http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=863719a69961d8e5d8178d5fa9e4fa3b9fbf37f9

[Raymond (superquad-vortex2)]

if your asus 1005px has only one jack for (headphone/mic in )

the jack has been retasked from headphone jack to mic jack

ode 0x1a [Pin Complex] wcaps 0x40018f: Stereo Amp-In Amp-Out
  Control: name="Headphone Playback Switch", index=0, device=0
    ControlAmp: chs=3, dir=Out, idx=0, ofs=0
  Control: name="Headphone Mic Boost Volume", index=0, device=0
    ControlAmp: chs=3, dir=In, idx=0, ofs=0
  Control: name="Headphone Mic Jack", index=0, device=0
  Amp-In caps: ofs=0x00, nsteps=0x03, stepsize=0x2f, mute=0
  Amp-In vals: [0x00 0x00]
  Amp-Out caps: ofs=0x00, nsteps=0x00, stepsize=0x00, mute=1
  Amp-Out vals: [0x00 0x00]
  Pincap 0x0000003c: IN OUT HP Detect
  Pin Default 0x0121441f: [Jack] HP Out at Ext Rear
    Conn = 1/8, Color = Green
    DefAssociation = 0x1, Sequence = 0xf
  Pin-ctls: 0x20: IN
  Unsolicited: tag=01, enabled=1
  Connection: 2
     0x0c* 0x0d

https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/tiwai/sound.git/commit/?id=ced4cefc75fdb8be95eaee325ad0f6b2fc0a484b

send email to the author that no headphone mic jack mode is created for you to retask the mic jack back to headphone jack

 control.8 {
  iface MIXER
  name 'Capture Source'
  value 'Headphone Mic'
  comment {
   access 'read write'
   type ENUMERATED
   count 1
   item.0 'Internal Mic'
   item.1 'Headphone Mic'
  }
 }

[Stéphane Guillou (stephane-guillou)]

Hi Raymond
Thank you for looking into this. It is true that my Asus F201E has only one jack port for mic + headphones.

However, I am no developer and I find it hard to understand.
- What can average users do to momentarily fix the problem?
- What should we do to get the issue fixed? Is the problem specific to ALSA? If so, has it been reported upstream?
- Was the git commit the one that broke it, or the one that is trying to fix it?

Cheers

[Raymond (superquad-vortex2)]

Have you ask the author of the patch ?

since it is not clear to user that switching "Capture Source" from "headphome mic" to "internal mic" can retasked mic to headphone

it is more user friendly to use "headphone mic jack mode" to switch between headphone and mic

[Raymond (superquad-vortex2)]

jn addition,

auto mute should be automatically disabled when the jack is retasled as mic.

internal mic should be automatically be seleected when the jack is retasked as headphone

[Raymond (superquad-vortex2)]

you also need pulseaudio know the jack is can be retasked as headphone or mic by user if the codec cannot differentiate the headphone and mic when plugged

https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/tiwai/sound.git/log/sound/pci/hda?qt=grep&q=HEADPHONE+MIC

[Stéphane Guillou (stephane-guillou)]

Dear all, thanks to Ramond's comments, I went into Audacity and changed the microphone source in the drop-down menu from "sysdefault: Headphone Mic:0" to "sysdefault: Internal Mic:0" and it fixed it.
I can now use my headphones, even when I restard Audacity.

We should still fix that because it is very confusing to the user.

Cheers

[Raymond (superquad-vortex2)]

if there is only one jack ,

why do the driver just implement headphone mic jack mode switch since it is possible to implement a jack mode switch which allow you to retask the jack as headphone, line out, mic or line in jack.

[Raymond (superquad-vortex2)]

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/pulseaudio/pulseaudio/commit/?id=7369a53ab5f606e87a3cd1cd4eebd40226bab090

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/pulseaudio/pulseaudio/commit/?id=ca4942e89cf462e5f8c36ca9b8b689879083af6b

it seem that you need to create two jack detection controls instead of one headphone mic jack control

headphone jack and mic jack detection control at same nodes

the return value of headphone jack and mic jack depends on whether the jack is retasked as headphone or mic jack

headphone jack return false whenever the jack is retasked to mic
mic jack return false whenever the jack is retasked to headphone

[Raymond (superquad-vortex2)]

you should continue your discussion if you think the fix is confusing

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/1018262

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for alsa-driver (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Ljiljan Veselinovic (ljiljan-veselinovic)]

The same happened to me today when I installed audacity. I am using Ubuntu 14.10.
The problem was solved from comment number #12:
"I went into Audacity and changed the microphone source in the drop-down menu from "sysdefault: Headphone Mic:0" to "sysdefault: Internal Mic:0" and it fixed it.!"

[Anton (feenstra)]

I just ran headlong into this same issue on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS using Audacity 2.1.2 on my Dell XPS15. When inserting a jack, I get a dialogue box asking whether I have a headphone, headset, or mic inserted (apparently an external amp with speakers should be considered 'headphones', but that's a different issue). It all works fine, until I start audacity. Also, when closing audacity, it still doesn't work.

The same workaround still works: switch the mic source to something else but the headphone. Which IMHO isn't a fix, it is a cludgy, confusing workaround.

Judging by the dialogue box, this is really more of an Audacity issue, and not so much alsa-driver, but I thought to mention it here as well.

$ dpkg -l audacity
ii audacity 2.1.2-1 amd64 fast, cross-platform audio editor
$ uname -a
Linux AF-XPS-15-9550 4.4.0-72-generic #93-Ubuntu SMP Fri Mar 31 14:07:41 UTC 2017 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[Kay (verkwer)]

I also ran into this issue yesterday on a Dell XPS13. It is nothing Audacity specific and you can easily trigger this yourself by just running 'amixer -c 0 set "Headphone Mic" cap' or starting alsamixer, switching to the capture devices and activating the "Headphone Mic" by pressing Space on it. Similarly, you can get your headphone sound back by instead capturing from the internal mic. All in all, there is no bug anywhere. It's just that Audacity handles mics in a bad (though not buggy) manner.

[adrya (adrya-stembridge)]

I just installed Audacity to make a quick edit on an a MP3 file. I installed 2.1.2 from the default Linux Mint repo, opened Audacity and selected my file. It played over my headphones just fine. I closed Audacity, then immediately opened it again to select a different file to edit. As Audacity opened I heard an audible 'click' over my headphones. I could no longer hear anything over my headphones whether in Audacity or via browser/youtube or other media player.

I discovered an AskUbuntu question with the same problem. An answer there said that we just needed to open Audacity and select Internal Mic:0. Tried that, and presto had audio over my headphones again.

Another answer on the same question recommended upgrading from 2.1.2 to the current (then) version of 2.2.0 to get around the bug in the future. I then uninstalled 2.1.2, and installed 2.2.2 from the ubuntuhandbook repo.

Opened Audacity 2.2.2, only to discover that I now have no headphone volume again, and this time changing the output to Internal Mic:0 did not work. In fact, I cannot get headphone output on any of the 10 output options. Nothing plays over headphones now, not youtube/browser, not files in VLC.

Installing Audacity has literally broken my laptops ability to listen to music over headphones.

[Lorenzo (mad-dog)]

Editing source in audacity to "pulse: Internal Mic 0" works on Ubuntu 18.04 and official audacity packager from their ppa version: 2.2.2-1build1

[Sergio (sergio.in.toronto)]

Ran into this issue with Audacity 2.2.1 on Ubuntu 18.04.
Restarting doesn't fix it. Headphones were detected but didn't work.

Steps to Fix:
* Open Audacity. Set source to "default: internal mic: 0"
* Close Audacity
* Open Audacity again. Suddenly headphones start working