PulseAudio does not recognize laptop microphone

Question

I was trying to tune my guitar and when I increased the microphone input volume, I went into the sound settings, changed it, and it worked.

In the connector options list, analog microphone/microphone one was selected. For some reason, I changed it to another option (analog line-in), and seeing that it didn't work (obviously, the laptop microphone was the only one "plugged-in"), I tried to change it back.

But when I did that, the connector option hopped automatically to something that isn't a microphone, line-in, input or analog video, making it undetectable.

Example: I choose Analog Video. I change input volume, it stays. I choose Microphone. When I try to change input volume, it hops to Analog Video.

Can this error be fixed somehow?

Update: Here's the information bse asked for:

Source #0
State: SUSPENDED
Name: alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.5.analog-stereo.monitor
Description: Monitor of Internal Audio Analog Stereo
Driver: module-alsa-card.c
Sample Specification: s16le 2ch 44100Hz
Channel Map: front-left,front-right
Owner Module: 4
Mute: no
Volume: 0: 100% 1: 100%
        0: 0.00 dB 1: 0.00 dB
        balance 0.00
Base Volume: 100%
             0.00 dB
Monitor of Sink: alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.5.analog-stereo
Latency: 0 usec, configured 0 usec
Flags: DECIBEL_VOLUME LATENCY 
Properties:
    device.description = "Monitor of Internal Audio Analog Stereo"
    device.class = "monitor"
    alsa.card = "0"
    alsa.card_name = "Intel 82801DB-ICH4"
    alsa.long_card_name = "Intel 82801DB-ICH4 with AD1981B at irq 11"
    alsa.driver_name = "snd_intel8x0"
    device.bus_path = "pci-0000:00:1f.5"
    sysfs.path = "/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.5/sound/card0"
    device.bus = "pci"
    device.vendor.id = "8086"
    device.vendor.name = "Intel Corporation"
    device.product.id = "24c5"
    device.product.name = "82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller"
    device.form_factor = "internal"
    device.string = "0"
    module-udev-detect.discovered = "1"
    device.icon_name = "audio-card-pci"
Formats:
    pcm                    Source #1
State: SUSPENDED
Name: alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1f.5.analog-stereo
Description: Internal Audio Analog Stereo
Driver: module-alsa-card.c
Sample Specification: s16le 2ch 44100Hz
Channel Map: front-left,front-right
Owner Module: 4
Mute: no
Volume: 0:  77% 1:  77%
        0: -6.80 dB 1: -6.80 dB
        balance 0.00
Base Volume:  42%
             -22.50 dB
Monitor of Sink: n/a
Latency: 0 usec, configured 0 usec
Flags: HARDWARE HW_MUTE_CTRL HW_VOLUME_CTRL DECIBEL_VOLUME LATENCY 
Properties:
    alsa.resolution_bits = "16"
    device.api = "alsa"
    device.class = "sound"
    alsa.class = "generic"
    alsa.subclass = "generic-mix"
    alsa.name = "Intel 82801DB-ICH4"
    alsa.id = "Intel ICH"
    alsa.subdevice = "0"
    alsa.subdevice_name = "subdevice #0"
    alsa.device = "0"
    alsa.card = "0"
    alsa.card_name = "Intel 82801DB-ICH4"
    alsa.long_card_name = "Intel 82801DB-ICH4 with AD1981B at irq 11"
    alsa.driver_name = "snd_intel8x0"
    device.bus_path = "pci-0000:00:1f.5"
    sysfs.path = "/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.5/sound/card0"
    device.bus = "pci"
    device.vendor.id = "8086"
    device.vendor.name = "Intel Corporation"
    device.product.id = "24c5"
    device.product.name = "82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller"
    device.form_factor = "internal"
    device.string = "front:0"
    device.buffering.buffer_size = "65536"
    device.buffering.fragment_size = "65536"
    device.access_mode = "mmap+timer"
    device.profile.name = "analog-stereo"
    device.profile.description = "Analog Stereo"
    device.description = "Internal Audio Analog Stereo"
    alsa.mixer_name = "Analog Devices AD1981B"
    alsa.components = "AC97a:41445374"
    module-udev-detect.discovered = "1"
    device.icon_name = "audio-card-pci"
Ports:
    analog-input-microphone;input-microphone-1: Analog Microphone / Microphone 1 (priority. 8720)
    analog-input-microphone;input-microphone-2: Analog Microphone / Microphone 2 (priority. 8719)
    analog-input-linein: Analog Line-In (priority. 8100)
    analog-input: Analog Input (priority. 8000)
    analog-input-video: Analog Video (priority. 7000)
Active Port: analog-input-video
Formats:
    pcm

Solution 1

I had the same problem you experienced. I solved it by doing these steps:

sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio
sudo apt-get purge pavucontrol
rm -rf ~/.pulse/

And then rebooted, reinstalled pulseaudio:

sudo apt-get install pulseaudio

then rebooted again.

Solution 2

often you have to use the alsamixer to select which microphone/input to use. The same thing happened to me with my desktop, which has two microphone jacks.

Start alsamixer, press F4 to look at Capture, then F6 to select the sound card to use. In some cases the microphone is a different sound card. Then use the controls to activate the microphone and adjust the gain, and possibly the boost if you want that.

Solution 3

Try Alt+F2 and pulseaudio -k. Then open the windows again, see if it'll be happier now.

Comments

[bseibold]

Could you please include the output of pactl list | awk 'BEGIN{RS="\n\n"}/^Source/{print}'?

[Julien Shepherd]

shame on me, but how could I do that?

[bseibold]

Open a Terminal (it's usually in "Accessories") and enter that line there. It will spit out several lines of information which you can select with the mouse (scroll up if necessary) and copy.

[Julien Shepherd]

I thought it was more complicated than that...

[bseibold]

Well, unfortunately(?) that looks ok, nothing out of the ordinary there.

[Julien Shepherd]

still same thing, not happier...

[Vadim Peretokin]

Alright. Try installing 'pavucontrol', it is PA's own tool for configuring things - does that work?

[Julien Shepherd]

it seems pavucontrol doesn't work either :(

[Milimetric]

Thanks Vadi, this worked for me with probably a slightly different problem. I was plugging in my microphone and it wouldn't recognize it. If I rebooted, it would be recognized, but that seemed like a very annoying thing to do each time.