Ubuntu 14.04 headphones not working

Question

I understand that there have been several fixes to this exact problem in the past, but I have tried them all and nothing has worked. The external speakers output sound just fine but the headphones do not. Interestingly enough, they do play a bit of static when I plug them in. That's about all that I can tell you except that I'm running Ubuntu 14.04 off of a flash drive (dual booting Windows) and I have a Dell machine.

I've tried the solutions listed here: Headphone jack not working?

and a few from other random sources around the internet. I've made sure to completely shut down my machine after each attempted fix. I made sure to unplug and replug the headphones after Ubuntu booted up.

Should I just try and update Ubuntu? I'm a bit new to Linux in general so I'm sorry for being such a noob. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks

Solution

Have you tried checking Pulse Audio Control? You can sometimes track down problems in the settings there. In case it's not already installed:

$ sudo apt-get install pavucontrol
$ pavucontrol

Click on the Configuration tab, and check that the Profile is set to something sensible (e.g. "Analog Stereo Duplex"). Then go to the Output Devices tab, and check you can see your headphones listed in the dropdown box (and check that they are not muted).

You have my sympathies -- headphone problems can be a nightmare to track down sometimes.

Comments

[Matthew Harris]

I installed Pulse Audio Control as you suggested and I fiddled around a little bit, but to no avail. I noticed in the "Output Devices" tab it has the option to select headphones, but it says they're unplugged. Selecting that option will do nothing and sound will still be output through the speakers.