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The headphones have been working fine up until a few days ago when I turned the computer on and they didn't any more – no sound can be heard.

It looks like a software/configuration problem because

  1. different headphones do not work either;
  2. if I boot a fresh Linux Mint 18.3 from USB flash, the headphones are working fine.

If I open the sound settings, I see the headphones on the device list. They disappear/appear from there when I'm plugging out/in the jack.

If I test sound with the laptop's speakers, they sound all right.

In the sound settings, when clicking between the speakers and headphones on the output devices list, the volumes get updated accordingly, and are different. Changing the volume does not solve the problem.

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1 Answer 1

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There was a kernel bug that was causing issues with this. I believe it was kernel 4.4 if I remember correctly and the bug was related to Intel audio. The issue was fixed in a later kernel release which would make sense why booting a live session of 18.3 gave you functioning headphones.

You could try updating to a newer kernel or (better yet) update to 18.3 using the Update Manager. Maybe not a bad idea with Meltdown and Spectre patches that you will want. The Mint Blog has an outline of kernels that are patched for this.

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  • Thanks for the reply! My Linux kernel version is later though: $ uname --kernel-release 4.13.0-26-generic Also, the headphones were working all right with Linux Mint 18.2, until just recently.
    – Jānis Elmeris
    Jan 17, 2018 at 9:40
  • Also, if I boot a fresh Linux Mint 18.2, the headphones are working all right.
    – Jānis Elmeris
    Jan 17, 2018 at 21:34

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