# Why might my headphones suddenly not work **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 12, 2010, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-might-my-headphones-suddenly-not-work/528787 "2010-02-12T23:03:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-might-my-headphones-suddenly-not-work/528787/1 "2010-02-12T23:03:22Z")
Why might my headphones not work? They sound fine when I put on City of Heroes, but not Youtube. Worked fine yesterday. Weird. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-might-my-headphones-suddenly-not-work/528787/2 "2010-02-13T00:31:17Z")
If it helps, the only change I’ve made recently was to install a new graphics card. ---
**Author:** ![MannyL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@MannyL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MannyL)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-might-my-headphones-suddenly-not-work/528787/3 "2010-02-13T00:42:59Z")
Are they USB or do they plug into an audio port? ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-might-my-headphones-suddenly-not-work/528787/4 "2010-02-13T00:58:55Z")
> [@MannyL](#): > > Are they USB or do they plug into an audio port? Plug in. I’ve tried un-and-replugging them. No dice. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-might-my-headphones-suddenly-not-work/528787/5 "2010-02-13T01:45:09Z")
Assuming it’s not a problem with the audio port (easy enough to check by using different headphones) even good headphones are remarkably flimsy. I’d suspect an intermittent short. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-might-my-headphones-suddenly-not-work/528787/6 "2010-02-13T15:19:29Z")
How do you mean? Is there a way I can test for that? ---
**Author:** ![something\_other](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@something\_other](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/something_other)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-might-my-headphones-suddenly-not-work/528787/7 "2010-02-13T15:23:11Z")
Are you saying that right now, they work with City of Heroes, but won’t work with Youtube? Or yesterday they worked, and today they won’t work with anything? ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-might-my-headphones-suddenly-not-work/528787/8 "2010-02-13T15:31:53Z")
> [@something\_other](#): > > Are you saying that right now, they work with City of Heroes, but won’t work with Youtube? Or yesterday they worked, and today they won’t work with anything? Yesterday they only worked with CoH, not Youtube. Same thing today. First time I’ve had this problem. It’s a mystery! ---
**Author:** ![something\_other](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@something\_other](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/something_other)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-might-my-headphones-suddenly-not-work/528787/9 "2010-02-13T15:38:16Z")
Sounds like a software problem, not hardware. Is Youtube muted? (I gotta ask the obvious) ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-might-my-headphones-suddenly-not-work/528787/10 "2010-02-13T15:44:16Z")
> [@something\_other](#): > > Sounds like a software problem, not hardware. Is Youtube muted? (I gotta ask the obvious) No, I turned the little slider in the corner up to max. Unless I’m missing something. ---
**Author:** ![something\_other](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@something\_other](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/something_other)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-might-my-headphones-suddenly-not-work/528787/11 "2010-02-13T15:46:43Z")
I can’t think of anything else that would be easy to do. I think at this point I’d try a different browser, see if that changes anything. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-might-my-headphones-suddenly-not-work/528787/12 "2010-02-13T15:54:44Z")
> [@something\_other](#): > > I can’t think of anything else that would be easy to do. I think at this point I’d try a different browser, see if that changes anything. Tried Internet Explorer and Firefox. Nothing. Bah! Guess I’ll invest in new headphones…☹ ---
**Author:** ![something\_other](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@something\_other](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/something_other)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-might-my-headphones-suddenly-not-work/528787/13 "2010-02-13T15:57:43Z")
Well, that won’t make anything worse, but from how you described it, it won’t fix anything either. If the headphones were bad, you wouldn’t hear anything while playing City of Heroes. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-might-my-headphones-suddenly-not-work/528787/14 "2010-02-13T16:49:19Z")
> [@something\_other](#): > > Well, that won’t make anything worse, but from how you described it, it won’t fix anything either. If the headphones were bad, you wouldn’t hear anything while playing City of Heroes. So it’s an internal computer problem? Hopefully not too expensive. ---
**Author:** ![something\_other](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@something\_other](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/something_other)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-might-my-headphones-suddenly-not-work/528787/15 "2010-02-13T17:20:31Z")
It’s got to be a software setting, but I don’t know enough about windows to try and find it remotely. Hopefully somebody else will come by. I’m more of a hardware guy. ---
**Author:** ![Magicicada](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c67d28/32.png) [@Magicicada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magicicada)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-might-my-headphones-suddenly-not-work/528787/16 "2010-02-14T00:12:27Z")
Perhaps we can get together. The last few days I can hear Youtube, but can’t see anything. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-might-my-headphones-suddenly-not-work/528787/17 "2010-02-14T00:43:27Z")
I’ve had issues where my computer sound works fine, but then I go to YouTube and the sound works then stops. The sound works for every program but not YouTube. I am thinking is is a flash player issue. If your sound works on your other programs but not YouTube, you’re not the only one this happens to. Sometimes a reboot of the computer works, othertimes I just can’t get YouTube for a day and then it works again. I still think it’s something to do with the flash player, at least in my case