Ubuntu 20.04 - Headset mic not working

Question

I'm using Ubuntu 20.04 on an HP da0077tx laptop and my headset's mic is not working on ubuntu. The same headset is working fine with other devices.

Audio Codec: Realtek ALC236

This Audio codec is not available on https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/sound/hd-audio/models.html

I have my interviews next week and this issue can create a problem. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Please specify the brand/model of the headset. Note that for bluetooth devices, mic does not work well with stereo speakers. I don't know if that is your case. — sancho.s ReinstateMonicaCellio, Jul 04 '21 at 23:35
this bug reported and now is confirmed status but not yet fix https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/1769936. could you try change to mono it's maybe work. — Morteza Mohammadi, Jul 08 '21 at 14:23
The screenshot show the microphone volume almost at zero... Move it up (right) and test it with the embedded meter or via web with this tool of Mozilla MDN — Pablo Bianchi, Jul 09 '21 at 03:25

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 08 '21 at 09:58

if it's listed, then open up terminal and type alsamixer then navigate to your headphones and turn up the volume, if the volume is all the way up, but there's no sound, then go there again and look if it's saying "OO" or "MM" under the volume bar, if its MM, then its muted, so press M while having it selected and it should become unmuted.

Nguyen Quang Minh · Answer 2 · 2022-01-07T03:08:36.373

I'm using an ASUS laptop with ALC3236 codec and had the same issue. I fixed it by adding this line to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf:

options snd-hda-intel model=laptop-amic,dell-headset-multi

After this, when I plug the headset in, a pop up will show up for me to choose the type of plugged-in device, then I can choose headset and use the microphone. I only works when I add BOTH models: laptop-amic and dell-headset-multi (1 minor issue with this solution: there is 1 redundant microphone option in Audio setting) Image of redundant option:redundant option

score -1 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 08 '21 at 12:20

I was having a similar problem on Ubuntu 21.04 with my headset's microphone not working. I was able to fix it by replacing Pulseaudio with Pipewire: Replacing Pulseaudio with Pipewire in Ubuntu 20.04

I found that headset audio is really bad when using the HSP/HFP CVSD codec (which is what you have to use to use the headset microphone). To enable the better MSBC codec, uncomment the line that says bluez5.msbc-support = true in /etc/pipewire/media-session.d/bluez-monitor.conf. The audio still won't be as good as if you were using an A2DP codec (no microphone), but it's definitely usable.

Hope this helps.

Ubuntu 20.04 - Headset mic not working

3 Answers3