Arch Linux

snek200000

Member

Registered: 2021-05-31

Posts: 10

Headphones not working

Hey all,

I recently got some nice Siennheisers and want to use them with my arch setup. I'm a pretty big n00b at audio in the first place, so its a wonder how I've had my speakers consistently work with a combination of pulseaudio and alsa (even though I'm not sure completely how).
However, my headphones won't work when plugged in! By looking at pavucontrols I can see that it recognizes the headphones, and alsamixer has auto-mute disabled. I can't figure what is going wrong.
I guess a more general question on top of that would be: what are the best ways to manage sound and sound I/O in arch?

Last edited by snek200000 (2021-07-12 22:12:24)

jasonwryan

Anarchist

From: .nz

Registered: 2009-05-09

Posts: 30,426

Website

Re: Headphones not working

Please remove the audio noob comment from your post title, it adds nothing: you are already in Newbie Corner:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … ow_to_post

Looking at pavucontrol in not enough, you need to select the headphones as the playback source.

---

Arch + dwm   •   Mercurial repos  •   Surfraw

Registered Linux User #482438

snek200000

Member

Registered: 2021-05-31

Posts: 10

Re: Headphones not working

Alright noted jasonwryan

Here is the output of

aplay -l

with the headphones plugged in:

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: CS4206 Analog [CS4206 Analog]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 1: CS4206 Digital [CS4206 Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 9: HDMI 3 [HDMI 3]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 10: HDMI 4 [HDMI 4]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

I can't make heads for tails for most of the audio stuff at this point.  I am diligently browsing the wiki now.

Also, interesting to note is that I can still switch to the speaker output when my headphones are plugged in.

snek200000

Member

Registered: 2021-05-31

Posts: 10

Re: Headphones not working

UPDATE: It seems that ALSA handles the headphones correctly. When I plug them in, it mute the speaker and unmutes the headphones. So the issue is pulseaudio...

snek200000

Member

Registered: 2021-05-31

Posts: 10

Re: Headphones not working

UPDATE: Found this great article about this issue (https://aweirdimagination.net/2018/12/1 … -troubles/). Still hasn't fixed my topic but it's definitely helping me debug.
First I disabled pulseaudio systemd services and ran

pulseaudio -vvvvv

. There was this output:

D: [pulseaudio] module-alsa-card.c: Jack 'Headphone Jack' is now unplugged
D: [pulseaudio] device-port.c: Setting port analog-output-speaker to status unknown

and

D: [alsa-sink-CS4206 Analog] alsa-mixer.c: Jack Headphone, alsa_name='Headphone Jack', index='0', detection possible
D: [alsa-sink-CS4206 Analog] alsa-mixer.c: Jack Dock Headphone, alsa_name='Dock Headphone Jack', index='0', detection unavailable
D: [alsa-sink-CS4206 Analog] alsa-mixer.c: Jack Front Headphone, alsa_name='Front Headphone Jack', index='0', detection unavailable
D: [alsa-sink-CS4206 Analog] alsa-mixer.c: Jack Line Out, alsa_name='Line Out Jack', index='0', detection unavailable
D: [alsa-sink-CS4206 Analog] alsa-mixer.c: Jack Line Out Front, alsa_name='Line Out Front Jack', index='0', detection unavailable
D: [alsa-sink-CS4206 Analog] alsa-mixer.c: Jack Front Line Out, alsa_name='Front Line Out Jack', index='0', detection unavailable
D: [alsa-sink-CS4206 Analog] alsa-mixer.c: Jack Rear Line Out, alsa_name='Rear Line Out Jack', index='0', detection unavailable
D: [alsa-sink-CS4206 Analog] alsa-mixer.c: Jack Dock Line Out, alsa_name='Dock Line Out Jack', index='0', detection unavailable
D: [alsa-sink-CS4206 Analog] alsa-mixer.c: Jack Speaker, alsa_name='Speaker Jack', index='0', detection unavailable
D: [alsa-sink-CS4206 Analog] alsa-mixer.c: Jack Speaker Phantom, alsa_name='Speaker Phantom Jack', index='0', detection possible
D: [alsa-sink-CS4206 Analog] alsa-mixer.c: Jack Speaker Front Phantom, alsa_name='Speaker Front Phantom Jack', index='0', detection unavailable

This, as the article and wiki suggests, points to the

Line Out

device as being unavailable.

However, my current issue is that it seems a property that you're supposed to change (

[Jack Front Headphone]

in the config file (

/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output-lineout.conf

) is simply not in that config. It is in

/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output-headphones.conf

, but with a different default value.

Well, back to it.

snek200000

Member

Registered: 2021-05-31

Posts: 10

Re: Headphones not working

I am still unable to solve this problem.

I uninstalled and reinstalled all pulseaudio related packages with no success. I'm unsure if this is my hardware, but I'm relatively certain that alsa/pulseaudio recognizes the headphones are plugged in.