Running Mint 20 'Ulyana' on a Dell Inspiron 5567 i7 laptop, I get no audio through the headphones, but the speakers work normally.

The "Sound Settings" pop-up menu has the headphones recognized, and shows them selected, but clicking the Left and Right "Test Sound" buttons gets silence through the headphones,but those buttons work normally through the speakers.

With a video playing,there is no sound with headphones, but when I unplug the headphones, normal audio comes through the speakers, but plugging the headphones back in, the silence returns.


Mint ver 18.2 is also installed on this computer, and has no problems; headphones work normally, without issues.

I think some little, random bug crept into the works - perhaps a line of code or something needs to be edited....

Have you installed pavucontrol (the Pulse Audio mixer)? It's in the repos.

It gives you more granular control than standard volume control applications.

haven't tried that one , but I'll check it out. This Ulyana install is new, and I did a lot of apt package updates, but it's always tough to be sure everything is done that should be.

I eventually found the issue though:

For some reason, it's no longer enough to select "Headphones, Built In Audio" from the "Output" menu of "Sound settings", NOW, I also have to go to the "Input" menu of "Sound Settings" and DE-select "Microphone Built In Audio", (A selection I NEVER made in the past, and a device I've NEVER used and do not even own) in favor of the "Headset Microphone Built In Audio" selection.

Why the system now defaults to that "Input" is beyond me, but I have to redo the "Inpt" and "Output' after each shutdown of the machine.

Thanks for the tip!

Have you checked Terminal: alsamixer for a muted headphone output?

Interesting.

Thanks for that tip, I'll file that reply for future use when a similar problem crops up, as they have tended to do in the past with this machine (I think it's a software issue).....

I don't know if there's a connection, one never does in these situations, but the problem cleared up on its own about the time I did some updates and installs from an article "20 Things to do When

Installing Mint 20".

But it could also be coincidence.....