Headset microphone not working on Ubuntu 20.04

Question

When I'm speaking with my internal microphone and I connect my headset, it's not detecting the microphone on it. Thing that does not happen in Windows, also didn't happen in Ubuntu 18.04

Any suggestion to fix it?

Solution 1

So, trying various stuff I am not sure which step was effective. Ubuntu 20.0.4 using Cinnamon (no Gnome/KDE) on Dell XPS 9340:

1. rm -rf ~/.config/pulse/
2. Log out
3. Log back in
4. go to desktop settings/'sound'
5. insert headphones
6. Go to 'input' section
7. Do microphone audio test on each available device

Headphones start working...

Solution 2

So after having this issue with beautiful, but already annoying, 20.04, I found a solution in another post at SuperUser. In my case what helped me was:

1. Use the following command to get the Audio Codec for your machine's model:

   cat /proc/asound/card*/codec* | grep Codec
   

   In my case I saw the following audio and video codecs:

   Codec: Realtek ALC233
   Codec: Nvidia GPU 94 HDMI/DP
   

2. Go to www.kernel.org, look up the version of the codec, and get the full name of it. In my case, for Realtek ALC233 it's alc233-eapd.

3. Create/update the /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf file, and add this line, replacing the model with your own:

   options snd-hda-intel model=alc233-eapd
   

4. Reboot the machine.

Solution 3

What fixed this for me was running pulseaudio -k in Terminal.

Solution 4

I am using Ubuntu 20.04 on my Sony Vaio VPCEH28FN with intel-hda-sound card. Output of cat /proc/asound/card*/codec* | grep Codec is Codec: Conexant CX20590 Codec: Nvidia GPU 1c HDMI/DP .

What worked for me was --

1. I did sudo apt install alsa-tools-gui on my terminal.
2. Then I ran the command hdajackretask on my terminal.
3. Then selected Conexant CX20590 -- Red Mic--> Tick Override; from the dropdown select Microphone.
4. Then selected "Install Boot override" and entered sudo password.
5. I then restarted my pc and thankfully it worked !!
6. Also, I remember adding the line "options snd-hda-intel model=laptop" to the file "/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf" .

Solution 5

My laptop is ACER E5-573G-74Q5. My codec is Realtek ALC255.

I did Yurii S’s solution, but it didn’t work. Then Soundar gave me the idea of putting more than one codec in /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf, where I added the following line:

options snd-hda-intel model=alc255-acer,dell-headset-multi

Putting just one or the other didn't work, but putting both worked. Strange, but putting Dell codec on my Acer worked.

View more solutions

Comments

[Eric Burel]

I seem to be able to detect the headset mic into "pavucontrol". I see sound captured, but the device is shown as "Headset Stereo Microphone (unplugged)". This device do not appear in the sounds parameter, but only in pavucontrol. That's a first step but I don't know how to fix from there. This answer sounds interesting: askubuntu.com/questions/1243768/…

[Eric Burel]

I've found a ticket in PulseAudio tracker with a similar behaviour: gitlab.freedesktop.org/pulseaudio/pulseaudio/-/issues/941

[Nate T]

@EricBurel You should have started your own question and ran the bounty from there. It is hard to help if we cannot see output from your machine.. Try unplugging /replugging 10 /15 times and see if any of them give a different result. What does the command pactl list sources give?

[Eric Burel]

Ah sorry, that's because it's most probably the same bug under the hood that I encounter and some answers are just palliatives to an underlying bug.

[Greg G]

any chance that this question will be solved? I have the same problem with Asus ux501 and it looks like I'm not the only one with this problem.

[Gursharan Singh]

worked for me on Ubuntu 20.04 GNOME.

[Sergio]

I confirm, this worked on Lubuntu 20.04

[Jack M]

Wait, what exactly am I looking up on kernel.org? My codec is "Realtek ALC298", what am I looking for and where?

[Yurii S]

In the case of 'Realtek ALC298', it seems that the codec would be either alc298-dell1, or alc298-dell-aio. Just do a global search on that page for 'Realtek ALC298', and you'll see.

[jenda]

This worked for me on Kubuntu 20.10

[Kostanos]

Mine is ALC289, and there is no one in kernel.org with this model. I'm trying the closest one, to see if it works. will keep you updated. Thank you!

[Promise Preston]

This worked for me. But a safer thing to do will be to move it to another directory say you run sudo mv pulse pulse_old . Then you restart your machine. If everything works fine, you can delete that pulse_old directory.

[bmaupin]

I really want to upvote this answer; now every time I plug in my headset I get a popup asking me to choose headphones or headset as a source, but clicking Headset doesn't actually set my input device and I still have to do it manually: askubuntu.com/q/1294950/18665

[bmaupin]

while this may work, I don't want to log out every time my microphone isn't working.

[Eugene Gr. Philippov]

This didn't work for my Sennheiser BT headset. However I was never able to use its mic yet.

[Eugene Gr. Philippov]

@Kostanos there is one. It has ALC28x for your codec, look up ALC22x/23x/25x/269/27x/28x/29x.

[Eugene Gr. Philippov]

For my BT headset problems, there is a bug (at some ubuntus/hardware fixed, at some not, as of Dec 7, 2020) referenced from askubuntu.com/questions/1265894/…

[Mahsa Seifikar]

This doesn't work for me my laptop model is asuspro

[crysman]

not working for me on Ubuntu 20.10 :( $ cat /proc/asound/card*/codec* | grep Codec Codec: Realtek ALC295 Codec: Intel Icelake HDMI any hints what could I try? It is not working neither in USB live session... I've unresolved Q here askubuntu.com/questions/1305942/…

[crysman]

Please, @soundar, where have you found out exact model to put into alsa-base.conf? I'd like to try your solution.... I have this cat /proc/asound/card*/codec* | grep Codec Codec: Realtek ALC295 Codec: Intel Icelake HDMI -

[crysman]

not working for Ubuntu 20.10 with Realtek ALC295 on ACER SPIN 5 :(

[Anshuman Kumar]

This is not working on Ubuntu 18.04. The Sound settings is detecting my headphone but Chrome cannot. It does not allow me to use my microphone on Google Meet or any other website despite me giving it access to.

[user2225804]

@bmaupin Shouldn't be necessary to log out, actually. If you rename the pulse directory, it'll be recreated when you open an app like OBS Studio.

[Mike666]

pulseaudio -k && sudo alsa force-reload would also do instead of log in & log out.

[Videophysique]

It worked for me too (acer swift SF 314-42), but sound from mic is pretty low quality with lots of background noise. Moreover, I cannot register and play the sound correctly on Audacity :/

[Fran Marzoa]

that's not how the sound preferences in Ubuntu 20.04 look

[vineeshvs]

Not working in Ubuntu 20.04

[sancho.s ReinstateMonicaCellio]

thomasventurini.com/articles/…

[Cherik]

You saved me :)) Thanks.

[111]

nope, broke the audio, too.

[Eric Burel]

Not working for me :/ headset mic is working fine on my laptop with Ubuntu 20, but not my tower

[Eric Burel]

Not working for me either with Realtek ALC233

[Nate T]

@EricBurel answer added. Let me know if you have any questions. If pactl list sources has a source for your mic, then your issue is not alsa.

[Eric Burel]

Hi, thanks for the synthetic explanation. I'll trigger the bounty before it expires if there is no other answer, because a better understanding of what happens helps greatly.

[Nate T]

You can always start a chat room to use for troubleshooting. If I could see command output, I could most likely gife you exact instructions as to how to fix it. You cn run pactl list * where * represents the four terms above. run in this order: sources source-outputs sink-inputs sinks. This is the flow of the signal. Find out where it stops, where the device is first missing from output. That is why I wanted to see the output. let me know the result.

[Eric Burel]

Device is listed in sources, in sinks, but source-outputs and sink-inputs are empty. We might follow up on this link: gitlab.freedesktop.org/pulseaudio/pulseaudio/-/issues/941 this is the issue I've opened directly in Pulse Audio ticket tracker, because there is certainly a bug somewhere (though I cannot tell yet if Pulse Audio is directly responsible or can provide a fix even if the bug is somewhere else). Right now, I've bought a 10€ jack to USB C converter from a famous fruit-named brand to bypass the issue, works perfect.

[Nate T]

At least it works now. Thanks for the link. Ill keep my eye on the issue, as I am interested in hearing the response from pa devs. Hopefully it will contain info that I can apply to helping people here. Let me know if /when you get a response, in case I miss it.

[Steven]

This worked perfectly for me after trying other answers.

[Andrew Starlike]

worked for me, thanks a lot!

[Dinari]

The same, on Zorin OS (based on ubuntu 20.4)

[Sarath Ak]

worked on msi laptop

[Anand Jose]

After this command, it started to showing new audio profile HSP/HFP against headset, i choose it instead of high fidelity playback (A2DP Sink)

[Antonio Sesto]

It did not work for me on Ubuntu 20.04.

[Viraj Amarasinghe]

Thank you! this works.

[Admin]

Worked for me, thanks a lot! But I had to check "Show unconnected pins" first, and try all of them one by one. Additionally, have found similar instructions on YouTube - youtube.com/watch?v=yx33W-c4Cmg