PipeWire - System not detecting wired headphones as plugged

General system Gaming, sound and video
1

I am using KDE Plasma, installed by the EOS Calamares installer. From last couple of weeks, I have been having this issue where my wired headphones are not being detected by PipeWire / AlsaMixer / Plasma Audio Settings.

The weird part is that when I select the Headphones (Unplugged) port in Plasma Audio Settings and use the test button to test front left and front right sounds, the headphone produces sound accordingly - including the distinct left right sounds and volume control.

Then after selecting the port, when I try to playback some other media, the playback stream disappears and no sound is produced.

I am in a bit of a pickle and can’t figure out what is wrong after trying to read many posts on this as well as other forums so here I am. Kindly help and let me know if I need to provide more information.

My System Information - output from inxi -Fxxc0z

System:
Kernel: 6.5.5-arch1-1 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 13.2.1
Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 5.27.8 tk: Qt v: 5.15.10 wm: kwin_x11 dm: SDDM
Distro: EndeavourOS base: Arch Linux
Machine:
Type: Laptop System: ASUSTeK product: Vivobook_ASUSLaptop K3605VC_K3605VC
v: 1.0 serial:
Mobo: ASUSTeK model: K3605VC v: 1.0 serial:
UEFI: American Megatrends LLC. v: K3605VC.305 date: 03/31/2023
Battery:
ID-1: BAT1 charge: 47.3 Wh (100.0%) condition: 47.3/50.1 Wh (94.4%)
volts: 13.0 min: 11.9 model: ASUS A32-K55 serial: N/A status: full
CPU:
Info: 12-core (4-mt/8-st) model: 13th Gen Intel Core i5-13500H bits: 64
type: MST AMCP arch: Raptor Lake rev: 2 cache: L1: 1.1 MiB L2: 9 MiB
L3: 18 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 1114 high: 3400 min/max: 400/4700:3500 cores: 1: 3222
2: 535 3: 400 4: 400 5: 1022 6: 3400 7: 693 8: 1914 9: 400 10: 1857 11: 1571
12: 400 13: 400 14: 400 15: 817 16: 400 bogomips: 102016
Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
Device-1: Intel Raptor Lake-P [Iris Xe Graphics] vendor: ASUSTeK
driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Gen-13 ports: active: eDP-1 empty: HDMI-A-1
bus-ID: 0000:00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:a7a0
Device-2: IMC Networks USB2.0 HD UVC WebCam driver: uvcvideo type: USB
rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 1-7:3 chip-ID: 13d3:5463
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.8 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: X:
loaded: modesetting alternate: fbdev,intel,vesa dri: iris gpu: i915
display-ID: :0 screens: 1
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1200 s-dpi: 96
Monitor-1: eDP-1 model: BOE Display 0x0b2b res: 1920x1200 dpi: 141
diag: 407mm (16")
API: EGL v: 1.5 platforms: device: 0 drv: iris device: 1 drv: swrast gbm:
drv: iris surfaceless: drv: iris x11: drv: iris inactive: wayland
API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: intel mesa v: 23.2.1-arch1.1
glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: Mesa Intel Graphics (RPL-P)
device-ID: 8086:a7a0
API: Vulkan Message: No Vulkan data available.
Audio:
Device-1: Intel Raptor Lake-P/U/H cAVS vendor: ASUSTeK
driver: sof-audio-pci-intel-tgl bus-ID: 0000:00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:51ca
API: ALSA v: k6.5.5-arch1-1 status: kernel-api
Server-1: PipeWire v: 0.3.80 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse
status: active 2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin
4: pw-jack type: plugin
Network:
Device-1: Intel Raptor Lake PCH CNVi WiFi driver: iwlwifi v: kernel
bus-ID: 0000:00:14.3 chip-ID: 8086:51f1
IF: wlan0 state: up mac:
IF-ID-1: CloudflareWARP state: unknown speed: 10000 Mbps duplex: full
mac: N/A
Bluetooth:
Device-1: Intel driver: btusb v: 0.8 type: USB rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s
lanes: 1 bus-ID: 1-10:4 chip-ID: 8087:0033
Report: btmgmt ID: hci0 rfk-id: 2 state: down bt-service: enabled,running
rfk-block: hardware: no software: yes address: bt-v: 5.3 lmp-v: 12
RAID:
Hardware-1: Intel Volume Management Device NVMe RAID Controller Intel
driver: vmd v: 0.6 bus-ID: 0000:00:0e.0 chip-ID: 8086:a77f
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 476.94 GiB used: 224.46 GiB (47.1%)
ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: MZVL4512HBLU-00BTW
size: 476.94 GiB speed: 63.2 Gb/s lanes: 4 serial: temp: 35.9 C
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 73.27 GiB used: 27.51 GiB (37.5%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p6
ID-2: /boot/efi size: 256 MiB used: 84.8 MiB (33.1%) fs: vfat
dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1
Swap:
Alert: No swap data was found.
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 51.0 C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (rpm): cpu: 1500
Info:
Processes: 310 Uptime: 4h 3m Memory: total: 16 GiB available: 15.3 GiB
used: 4.32 GiB (28.2%) Init: systemd v: 254 default: graphical Compilers:
gcc: 13.2.1 Packages: pm: pacman pkgs: 1301 Shell: Bash v: 5.1.16
running-in: konsole inxi: 3.3.30

2

In alsa mixer did you check F5 to show all devices. What does it show when Head Phones plugged in?

3

Hi rick! Thanks for your response. This is what I get when I F5 in AlsaMixer with my headphones plugged in.

image
image1238×667 31.3 KB

I am starting to think that something is probably wrong with either my headphones or audio jack as the headphones are not working on my dual boot Windows 11 installation but they work on my Android Phone.

4

I had this issue for a long time, I was thinking hardware too, but it disappeared a few months ago. I didn’t do anything, but maybe I can share some configs. I just don’t know what one needs for pipewire diagnostic.

One thing that worked for me is replugging the headphone a few times.

5

@yeetingtacos

Maybe check out the pipewire section in the arch wiki.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PipeWire#Sound_does_not_automatically_switch_when_connecting_a_new_device

6

I have the EXACT same issue, (using kde plasma, headphones are not detected, shown as unplugged, the test button produces sound) did you manage to fix it or find any help?

8

please open a new thread and in case link to this one if it is really the exact same issue so we can properly get helpers in instead of getting confused with old stuff…