Hello all- I am seeking help trying to figure out why my internal microphone isn’t being detected. I have followed a lot of troubleshooting audio guides such as this one and none of it has worked.

I’m on Pop_OS, with wayland, on an Asus laptop,

Here is more info if anyone could by chance help me

arecord -l

**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC294 Analog [ALC294 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

systemctl --user status pipewire

● pipewire.service - PipeWire Multimedia Service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pipewire.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Thu 2025-07-03 15:19:48 EDT; 24h ago
TriggeredBy: ● pipewire.socket
   Main PID: 2192 (pipewire)
      Tasks: 3 (limit: 18486)
     Memory: 16.4M
        CPU: 15.088s
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/session.slice/pipewire.service
             └─2192 /usr/bin/pipewire

Jul 03 15:19:48 pop-os systemd[2182]: Started PipeWire Multimedia Service.
Jul 03 15:19:48 pop-os pipewire[2192]: mod.jackdbus-detect: Failed to receive jackdbus reply:>
lines 1-13/13 (END)

some more info: https://pastebin.com/embed_js/6vR5ZEXw

![]

I am new to linux so please don’t make fun of me too much if what i’m sharing doesn’t make any sense!!

  • jbrains@sh.itjust.works
    3·
    2 days ago

    Dumb question: do you have a key on your keyboard that disables the microphone? I don’t have my laptop in front of me, but I know there’s a key that disables the trackpad and another that disables the camera. I realized that I’d accidentally hit those by going through something similar to this.

    Good luck.

    • Crash@lemmy.mlOP
      2·
      2 days ago

      not a dumb question. I do and thankfully I checked that to see its not turned on :)

  • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
    1·
    2 days ago

    You definitely seem to have what looks to be the right audio device getting detected.

    The device that is “unplugged” should be the 3.5mm jack on your laptop (if you have one) not the internal mic.

    My first guess is that your audio device is in the wrong mode. If it is currently set to something like “stereo output” change it to “stereo output+mono input” or “stereo duplex” from pavucontrol or audio settings.

      • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
        1·
        1 day ago

        Audio devices can have multiple modes or “profiles” that determine what they do.

        For my headset I have:

        For my internal sound card I have:

        If I set my headset to one of the options that doesn’t have “+ Mono Input” the mic stops working and doesn’t even show up in settings and apps anymore. Same if I use the “Stereo Output” mode on my internal sound card. They must be set to a mode with both output and input enabled to work.

        I can see this from “Sound” in my KDE settings, but you can also configure this in the “Configuration” tab of pavucontrol.