Audio- headphone not recognized, must sleep and wake while plugged in?

[mathlete123]

My Early 2009 aluminum macbook does not recognize headphones. when i plug in, noise continues to play through the speakers. When I sleep and wake it, the headphones are recognized. I am not sure about the other way around, but this is getting to be supremely annoying. Any ideas?

[oculus42]

Contact Apple and they will likely replace it for you. Back up your data, first.

[mathlete123]

Uggh really?
I dont have an external HD, I guess ill have to get one. The headphones do work after sleep and wake though. And the speakers work without sleep after unplugging headphones. Any idea why? (as in, what part is failing?)
Ill talk to my parents about a trip to the apple store....

[soms]

Look through the sound settings, I kind of doubt its hardware related, as you say it still works if you sleep/whatever.

Make sure something isn't checked to mute headphones.

[mathlete123]

There is no mute headphones, etc. sound setting. with the headphones plugged in, it says "Output: Internal speakers" and no headphones are listed

[oculus42]

I kind of doubt its hardware related, as you say it still works if you sleep/whatever.

It could go either way... When your computer comes back from sleep, it has to reinitialize the hardware. If it detects the headphones when coming out of sleep but not when you plug them in, it could be that the hardware isn't reporting properly when the computer is awake. On the flip side, it's a software-controlled system these days, so the software might not be handling the request properly.

Either way, it's in warranty, and you should get a back up drive, whether you take it in or not. Trust me, I lost everything I ever typed from grade nine on when the hard drive in file-server PC failed two years ago.

[mathlete123]

Yeah, i got applecare so its always under warranty for a while now.

[Pearl Wisdom]

This is discussed in http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2199371&tstart=1
but there is not a known fix yet as far as I know. It is a problem with one of our Macs too.