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Occasionally, my MacBook Pro will get "stuck on mute"1 if I pull the headphones out too quickly. When you try to increase or decrease the volume, you see this:

When this happens a red LED shines out of the headphone jack:

With some clever Googling, I found out that what is happening here is that the MacBook is stuck on digital optical out (that is, it thinks you have a fiber-optic line -- for high-fidelity output -- stuck in the laptop).
The frustrating thing is that when you open the Mac OS Sound preference pane, it simply confirms that it is stuck and won't let you change it to the normal speakers (called "Internal Speakers"):

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:
- Plug your headphones back in.
- Play a bit of sound through them (e.g., a song), then stop the sound.
- Make sure Preferences is quit.
- Launch Preferences and open the Sound pane.
- While the Sound pane is open and set to Headphones, pull out the headphone plug from the jack.
- 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).
1 (Technically, this isn't "mute" as that is just the volume icon with the indicator all they way greyed out whereas this one has the indicator at full audio but the speaker icon greyed out.)
THANK YOU
THANK YOU
Thanks SO much for your time
Steph
Any other ideas?
Thanks! Eric
Why does Apple (or who ever) not bring a update for this problem since apperently so many people are suffering the same issue.....
For what it's worth, the procedure I've outlined above doesn't always work for some reason. If you've read this far, I'd suggest trying IT2's solution from a few lines up.
The fix worked exactly as you described Joe.
Thanks!
Jason
Please PLEASE I am so desperate and it has been like this for a few days!
Help me!
This has been annoying me for a few days now and with your advice, YOU fixed it for me in less than a minute!
I messed with it for hours and finally followed EVERY step precisely. DONE and I;m happy
I'm in Anguilla right now with no Skype and no Apple Support. Now I can play my music.
Thank you for your excellent help !!!!
tried restard/ apple+option+r+p restart...no luck
tried batterie out, 5 sec on power button...no luck.
any other ideas ?
I thought I had followed your steps but it didn't switch to display "internal speakers" but I pushed the headphones in/out once and suddenly it switched from "digital" to "internal speakers" in the prefs pane - hallelujah!!!
Thanks again bro'!
-Simone, Oakland, California
I did exactly what you said..
(*Q tip on the wrong side of the atlantic I believe)
After plugging in usb headset, the slider for volume in system preferences was responsive and I could uncheck mute button.
Then volume in system bar was not greyed out and everything worked.
Also I did not have red light issue described above.
Not sure what caused this but i was using iTunes and Toast Titanium 11 to convert flac to apple lossless and importing to itunes before this glitch appeared.
I didn't have the red light in the headphone jack, but did have all the other symptoms and this worked like a charm.
Recently, my MacBook Pro got "confused" and I could not turn the speakers on. I used a "System Management Control Reset" or "SMC Reset" to fix it.
This will work on Macs as far back as 2005.
Here is the procedure:
Shut down the computer. Make sure the power supply is plugged in (If a MacBook or MacBook Pro).
Hold down the keys "Shift+Control+Option+Power" at the same time for 10 seconds.
If done correctly, the computer does not power on at this time and stays dark.
Next, hit the power key to turn and the computer, and immediately
reset the PRAM by holding down the keys "Option+Command+P+R"
and continue to hold them done until you hear the startup chime a second time.
Then release the keys. The system should be back to normal now.
1) Plug earphone in
2) play movie, sound should be coming from earphones
3) while playing movie, set sound to mute by pressing keyboard mute
4) open pref > sound > output
5) Unplug earphone
6) Unmute
7) the output setting should change immediately and sound should becoming from speaker
I was struggling for soooooo long going through every perference.. finally I got pissed off enough to google the problem! THANK YOU!
THANK YOU!!!
THANK YOU!!!
THANK YOU!!!
THANK YOU!!!
THANK YOU!!!
THANK YOU!!!
Bernard (Senegal, West Africa)
I did not see a BT device that may be causing a problem. Hope it helps