[SOLVED] External Headset Microphone Not Detected In Settings.

[WMFsw]

Hey, I'm new to the whole forum thing so sorry if my organisation is not up to code.

I play quite a few online games on my laptop and the microphone is a valuable utility in many cases. I have a headset with a combined Microphone and Speaker setup, meaning both go through the single universal 3.5mm jack. The audio output has worked flawlessly, headphones sound crisp and work brilliantly, however, I've noticed that in every application and game, the computer does not detect the external microphone, instead using the internal one. This has worked alright, but the sound of the fan can quickly get annoying for teammates, friends, etc... So I'm looking to finally fix this.

Now I searched the forums for other problems like this, but it seems that many of those users have Tower PCs, and know all the components inside, but I really have no idea, but I'm sure there are ways to figure out if it could help with a solution. I appreciate any and all help.

[claydoh]

Hello! Welcome to KFN!!

First off, some basic info, please:
Which Kubuntu version are you using?
Computer make and model, as specifically as you can

A quick thing to check right off the bat before we get into hardware identification and all that nerdy Linxy stuff:
In System Settings> Audio, for your headphones, or Line Out, or whatever matches up to your setup, you may need to make sure that it is set to a 'duplex' setting, or one that includes both output and input:.
Using my USB headphones as an example:

Notice this has no mic at all with this setting

Now, this is what the dropdown shows:

Changing that to something appropriate enables the mic:




Now, this might not be your issue at all, but is a place to start.

[WMFsw]

Thanks for the reply, checked settings and under both playback devices and recording devices, and both are set to the Duplex profile, however I have an additional output option for HDMI, which I do not often use (this option also appears to be using a different sound card, if that helps). Also, under playback devices > headphones, the is a drop down menu labelled "Port" that allows me to select Headphones or Speakers, which appear to be unavailable while I have headphones plugged in. Under recording devices, there is no such Port menu.

I'm on 22.04 Jammy, and everything is up-to-date in the package manager. For hardware, I've got an Acer Aspire 5, (A515-45 line)

A couple of days ago I tried an online guide to switching the audio system to pipewire by masking pulseaudio, or something along the lines of that, and the problem persisted.

[WMFsw]

Tried switching back to pulseaudio again with no luck. Is there a driver or something that i need to install in order to use the headphone jack as a microphone jack?

[WMFsw]

A solution! Posting this in hopes of someone finding it eventually and it helping them out greatly.

I followed along to this gentleman's youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYkzX1lyTNk
To summarize, as his english was not so good, navigate in the file manager to etc/modprobe.d/alsa.base.conf
Edit this document using a text editor and append "options snd-hda-intel model=,dell-headset-multi" to the end of it
After rebooting the computer, in KDE's audio settings, there should be an option now for a "Port" under recording devices, where there wasn't one before, and you can select Headset Microphone from the drop-down list.
Very happy that I got this working, and I hope that I can help someone else down the line.