Audio option greyed out on internal speakers

[comda]

Greetings!

I was using my Macbook 3,1 running OSX Snow Leopard watching youtube when i plugged my apple head phones in. After about half hour of use i unplugged my head phones and the Volume greys out. I cant have anything playing from the internal speakers. But as soon as i plug something back into the jack the headphones work. odly enough i looked into the head phone jack and there was a red light flashing. Its gone now. but it flashed and stayed on now it disappeared.

It just started working as i plugged in and unplugged my other headphones without a mic. BUt as soon as i plugged in my apple head phones with the mic the red light inside the plug flashed and apon unpluging the headphones the icon volume is greyed out again!? Whats going on?

Macbook 3,1
2.2ghz Intel Core 2 duo
4gb DDr2 Ram
240 Kingston SSD drive
Snow Leopard.

 

[BrettApple]

Sounds like it's triggering the optical audio out (the red light). Sometimes the little switch gets bumped and stuck.

Some have success using a toothpick to reset the switch at the end of the jack.
Others used a little software trick as referenced here

The articles linked above explain that this appears to be due to some sort of stuck sensor in the headphone jack and that, most of the time, sticking a toothpick or matchstick in the headphone jack (or blowing with compressed air) can get it to reset itself.

However, I found a way to fix it without blowing or sticking anything in your heaphones jack (something you'll appreciate if you do want to use the thing for optical out!).

Here's what you do:

1. Plug your headphones back in.
2. Play a bit of sound through them (e.g., a song), then stop the sound.
3. Make sure Preferences is quit.
4. Launch Preferences and open the Sound pane.
5. While the Sound pane is open and set to Headphones, pull out the headphone plug from the jack.
6. It will reset itself to "Internal Speakers" and you are good to go.

My theory is that running the Sound preferences pane fresh does some sort of check on the sensors that clears this up. Others noted that you can launch Garage Band and this same check is performed and that can fix it too (but Garage Band is a seriously lame sound editing tool... I uninstalled it in favor of Amadeus Pro a long time ago).

I'd give the software fix a try before sticking objects into the jack, but I did have my late '08 model get stuck once and I managed to move the switch back and it's been fine for the last 6 years.