Ubuntu – Very low volume from headphones and external speakers on HP p7-1235 (Ubuntu 12.04)

I found the solution somewhere. Do the following:

• In terminal, enter the command "alsamixer".

• An ASCI UI will open, use the arrow keys to find the item: "HP/speaker Auto Detect". it will say "Off" next to it.

• Press M and the "Off" tag will disappear.

• Re-plug your headphones.

• Enjoy!

Both my speakers and my headphones were playing sound at the same time and I just fixed that issue using the answers by WinEunuuchs2Unix and notorious.dds. You may want to read those posts for more complete info.

The below instruction will separate Line Out and Headphones (mine is actually a headset with mic) in the Ubuntu 18.04 Sound Settings (Volume Settings). You can swap the output device using by clicking on it in Sound Settings and individually set the volume for each.

Note that this fix may be overridden by pulseaudio software updates, in which case you may have to repeat the process below.

Determine your ALSA output file

1. Disconnect your headphones and select your speakers as the output in Sound Settings.

2. Open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and type pactl list | grep 'Active Port.*output.*'. Note the active port. Mine was analog-output-lineout so I will use analog-output-lineout.conf as my ALSA speaker output file in the below instructions.

3. Connect your headphones and select them as the output in Sound Settings.

4. Type pactl list | grep 'Active Port.*output.*' again and note the active port. Mine was analog-output-headphones so I will use analog-output-headphones.conf as my ALSA microphone output file the below instructions.

Edit ALSA output file for the speakers

5. Change to ALSA mixer path files directory by typing cd /usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/

6. Backup the speaker output file by typing sudo cp ./analog-output-lineout.conf analog-output-lineout.conf.bak

7. Edit that file by typing gedit admin:///usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output-lineout.conf

8. Find the [Jack Headphone] or [Jack Front Headphone] line, depending on where your headphone jack is located and it should look something like this:

   [Jack Headphone]
   state.plugged = no
   state.unplugged = unknown
   

9. Change state.plugged = no to state.plugged = yes to tell pulseaudio that headphones are always plugged in.

10. Add this to code to the end of the file (but before any .include lines) to create a volume slider for the speakers. Then save and close the editor afterwards.

    [Element Line Out]
    switch = mute
    volume = merge
    

Edit ALSA output file for the headphones

11. Backup the Headphone output file by typing sudo cp ./analog-output-headphones.conf analog-output-headphones.conf.bak

12. Edit that file by typing gedit admin:///usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output-headphones.conf

13. Add this to code to the end of the file (but before any .include lines) to mute the speakers when headphones are selected. Then save and close the editor afterwards.

    [Element Line Out]
    switch = off
    volume = off
    

14. Skip this step on the first try and complete the steps below. If the speaker sound does not turn off when the headphones are selected, it may be because the sound is being redirected through the Front element. Find the [Element Front] line and modify it as this:

    [Element Front]
    switch = off
    volume = off
    

Edit Auto-Mute is disabled in alsamixer

15. Type alsamixer
16. If needed, use F6 to find the correct soundcard for the speakers.
17. Using the arrow keys to find Auto-Mute and disabled ysing the down-arrow
18. Press Esc to close alsamixer and
19. Save changes with alsactl store

Restart Pulseaudit

18. Type pulseaudio -k && pulseaudio --start

You should now see separate options for speakers and headphones in sound settings.