Headphone jack woes on Samsung Notebook 7 Force
 

Guys, I'm having some issues with my new laptop, but the more urgent of them all is the headphone jack sound output, which doesn't work.

Whenever I plug a headphone, all I got is a very faint and distorted sound, even with the volume at 150%. It's kinda hard to describe the distortion not being a native English speaker, but it is like a buzzing effect applied on top of the sound to the point you can't really discern what is playing.

I don't really know where to begin to debug this, so I ask for help! I can't stay on Windows any longer.

For more context:

I'm running Kubuntu 19.10 with every thing up to date
Tried with different headphones to no avail
Everything works on Windows 10
Using a dongle through USB-C works, but it is far from ideal
Bluetooth is not really an option: it works, but it gets confused with the 2,4 GHz Wi-Fi signal - thanks Intel - so I can either use Bluetooth or the Wi-Fi

A search reveals numerous articles related to headphone failure and PulseAudio settings/configs. This may be what you're experiencing.

Try the fix on this fellow's post:

https://pricklytech.wordpress.com/20...gged-in-fixed/

Oh thanks for the reply, I have been struggling with this for some time now. I forgot to mention that I've tried finding out if the
headphones were muted in alsamixer and pulseaudio and a bunch of other stuff, but nothing seems to work.

In the link that you posted, the autor explains that in his case, the alsamixer didn't detect the headphone plugin event. Here it does: it unmutes the headphone output as soons as I plug it.

In any case, I followed what the link suggests, but my analog-output-headphone.conf is different from his, it seems: he suggests commenting the line:

Which doesn't exist on mine (maybe due to the fact that this tip seems to be related to a much older version?). On mine, the structure is as follows:

Plus, there is a bunch of "Element" fields that seems to be related with headphone settings. I have also noticed that I got a analog-output-headphone2.conf file.

Hmm... well, I've never used headphones on a lappy, so...

I'm not at all sure what advice to give you at this point. Be patient, though. I'm sure other's will pop in here with some suggestions for you.

Oh, and another quick search using "Ubuntu 19.10 no headphone on laptop" provided this:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1204...eadphone-sound

Might help to look at details on your gear.

so.

inxi -v8 -z output:

aplay -l output:

I have also generated a alsa-info report which is available here.

Thanks for the attention.

Followed the tip but I'm not sure if it applies to my setup, since the author inserted an entry related to Dell hardware on his alsa-base.conf. In any case, the returned the following:

Thanks for the reply!

Breaking it down

Kernel is recent

I see nothing exotic in aplay

So if me. I'd run whatever player <small one > kubuntu uses. Run it from command line. Plug in headphones.

For me. It would be

Leave that terminal open

Then open another terminal and see what

spits out for headphone errors while music is playing. The other terminal you used to open a music player might mention something also.

ALSA INFO REPORT LOOKS KOSHER

oopz ,cap locks on

You might wanna try this trick

type in terminal

and turn off automute. It is shown being turned on in your alsa report.

So, did both things. First, setted the automute to disabled. It was indeed "enabled".

Then, tried running the Elisa player through the Terminal and following it with dmesg, this is what I got:

elisa output:

The bolded lines showed as soon as I hit the play button.

dmesg | tail output:

I think your bolded error is just a red herring.

dmesg said nothing to me. Shucks.

Late here. So bye and good luck.

Yeah, figured that much, but surely it'll help narrow it down.

Getting late here too. In any case, thank you for your time!

Hi

I have to disagree with some facts asserted so far

Issue one. It has been suggested to disable auto mute
Please enable it for analog headphones. When enabled its purpose is to ato mute sound from laptop speakers to headphones when headphones are detected or inserted.

EDIT hdmi codec is OK....see post 29

Now for a possible solution or two but I need to know how you play sound.
Do you need only laptop speakers or 3.5 mm headphone Or
Do you also need hdmi cable to play sound to monitor or TV or surround sound?

If you hsve other options please state them

Leaping ahead I need auto mute ENABLED

and a modprobe config file that Alsa will use on reboot to force sound to PCH and not HDMI

Done!

Preferably, I need speaker/headphones working fine. With this sorted, I can get back to Linux as my daily driver.

Since it seems to be HDMI related, it's probably worth mention that another hardware issue I've been getting with this laptop is HDMI related. Whenever you conect a cable into it, the system detects the event and shows the dialog to select the video output, but nothing gets displayed on the monitor/TV, no matter what you choose.

I don't use HDMI that much, so I decided to let this one for later, but maybe it could be relevant.

Where did you see that the HDMI codec is active? I ask because I'd like to learn more about the inner workings of Linux.

Oh, and thank you for the reply!

Post 6
Codec: Realtek ALC256
Codec: Intel Kabylake HDMI

I am not home yet later I will give you screenshots.

Are you trying to displsy both laptop screen and a monitor?

Some lsptops have hardware function keys to help swap. Maybe check your motherboard or laptop manual


EDIT post 29 changes this comment

Oh, I see. I thought it was supposed to show both codecs available in the system, nice catch.

I'd use the HDMI mainly to watch movies on my TV, maybe as a second monitor. I tested it both with the Intel GPU and with the Nvidia card and none of them works.