Earbuds suddently stopped working on Dell xps 13 Linux Mint Sonya
 

Hello friends, :newbie: here. I have been using the system for a month and there are no huge problems. One minor issue is that when I plug my earbuds (Panasonic Ergofit with mic.) in it plays a faint static sound. A few days later, while I was listening to music, my laptop played a loud CRACK sound, and the music is gone. Even the static back noise is gone from my buds. After a few moments digging around, Here are some clues I found:

• The speakers works fine and play when they are supposed to
• The speakers won't play when the earbuds are supposed to play
• My earbuds are not damaged since they work on my phone
• My sister's buds also won't work on my computer
• I have used PulseAudio to check, the headphone option is on and not muted
• Various output sources (Rhythmbox, chrome, etc.) doesn't change the outcome
• restarting the computer didn't work

Here are the stats of my lappy:
https://gist.github.com/anonymous/e2...354f70abfaf4d7

Thank you so much for helping!:hattip:

It sounds like a hardware problem, either directly with the audio jack or the wiring to it. If it were a desktop, you could open it up and inspect it, but, as it is a laptop, it probably needs a mechanic.

One way of testing this diagnosis would be to boot to a Live CD of some other distro, preferably not Debian based (Mageia? OpenSUSE?); if the sound still doesn't work, it's almost certainly nothing to do with software.

If you want to tackle it yourself, a Youtube search turns up a number of tutorials. One of them might be relevant. (Once you get past the kittens and egoists, you can find some really good tutorials on Youtube. And some really bad ones.)

Oh, and welcome to LQ.

I was messing around with the sound menu and I think I fixed it (somehow). Apparently, the mic was muted and that rendered the earbuds useless???? As soon as I turn it back on I hear the static again. I tried to switch to the default mic on the laptop and the earbuds stopped producing any sound. I guess this problem is solved but is that normal?

No, this is not normal. Muting and unmuting the mic should not affect the audio output in any way.

I sometimes get static with my external speakers and can usually make it go away by adjusting the jack in the port, but I think that's because the plug is a bit worn or maybe needs cleaning. My instinct tells me you most likely have a loose or intermittent connection, but, if it's working, just keep an eye (ear?) on it.

It still might be worthwhile to boot to a LiveCD of something or other rule out software.

I agree about a live cd or two.

About the only way I know of to get the mic to affect the speaker output is to have some program running that may use both like a webcam or audacity or such.