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Periodically, my MacBook Pro 17" stops recognizing my headphones. No amount of unplugging and replugging seems to help. The sound settings never show headphones as an output device. How can I fix this? The only thing I can find elsewhere on the Internet are people saying, "Reboot!" This works, but is impractical and annoying.

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Regular audio jack headphones or USB ones? – Gerry Aug 14 '12 at 19:40
Regular audio jack. – Brandon DuRette Aug 14 '12 at 22:54

2 Answers

up vote 4 down vote accepted

There seems to be a bug whereby if the headphones are plugged in when the MBP is put to sleep and are not present when it is rewakened, the headphones stop being recognized. The solution is to:

  1. Unplug the headphones
  2. Put the MBP back to sleep (close the lid; without an external display hooked up)
  3. Plug the headphones back in
  4. Wake the MBP by opening the lid.

This should fix the problem.

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Im tired of this thing.... need some permanent solution – Saqib Saud Apr 30 at 7:19
up vote 0 down vote

open system preferences and go into sound. under the output tab make sure where it says "use audio port for:" is set to "sound output"

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