Hello! I’ve posted this a few weeks ago on /c/[email protected] but I didn’t get much of an answer, I hope it’s okay to post it here as well.

I use 3 audio devices on my computer: my monitor’s speakers (through HDMI), my headphones (through line-out/built-in audio) and my microphone (line-in/built-in audio). They all work fine, but when I reboot my headphones / line-out don’t seem to get recognized at all.

The only solution I’ve found thus far is to re-install alsa-utils twice after rebooting. Upon the first reinstall, my line-out / headphones reappear but my line-in mic disappears, only to come back after the second reinstall. Technically my sound works perfectly fine after this, but it feels extremely dumb to reinstall a package twice after every reboot.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance :)

  • @agent_flounderEnglish
    2•5 months ago

    Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner.

    Nope, I’ve checked and I don’t have any PulseAudio, JACK, or other audio packages

    Ok good. We should be able to rule that out.

    Could be kernel related, I don’t know.

    What version? The command uname -r will give it to you. More info here

    Also… If you run dmesg do you see any audio related devices or errors? I should’ve thought to ask about that last time.

    Want to know what’s even more fun? I need to re-install alsa-utils thrice now

    Whee!™ Are we having fun yet lol

    That is seriously bizarre.

    Did I ask what audio hardware chipset you’re using?

    It should show up in dmesg output. Or alternatively look up your motherboard specs and get it that way. Assuming you’re using the built in motherboard audio and not a separate card.

    • @[email protected]OP
      1•5 months ago

      Hey don’t apologize for offering free help to a stranger online! It’s much appreciated. uname -r returns “6.7.0-zen3-1-zen”, but like I said I had this issue with the standard Linux kernel as well.

      Nothing stands out to me when I run dmesg in terms of errors. I’m not sure which part is the audio hardware chipset, so here is the output relating to audio. I’m running both the built-in CPU audio and GPU audio through HDMI.

      Edit: Forgot to add my ALSA and Pipewire packages. For ALSA I got:

      alsa-card-profiles alsa-firmware alsa-lib alsa-plugins alsa-topology-conf alsa-ucm-conf alsa-utils lib32-alsa-lib lib32-alsa-plugins pipewire-alsa tinycompress

      and for Pipewire:

      gst-plugin-pipewire kpipewire libpipewire libwireplumber pipewire pipewire-audio pipewire-jack pipewire-pulse wireplumber

      • @agent_flounderEnglish
        1•5 months ago

        Hm. Nothing really jumping out then. I am racking my brain trying to think of anything else to look at.

        Dumb question but… Shouldn’t headphones be plugged into the headphone jack, not line out?

        Headphones typically have a lower impedance than, say, an amplifier.

        I’m just wondering if the audio hardware checks load impedance for audio out to prevent issues and the headphones are reading too low (tens to hundreds of ohms instead of, say, 10k-100k ohm or whatever) for a line out.

        I don’t know how that explains reinstalling alsa-utils twice or thrice to fix it until the next reboot. So I guess my theory isn’t all that great.

        Does it make a difference if you unplug the headphones before rebooting?