Windows 10: Headphones/plug-in speakers work if plugged in on startup, but if removed have to restart...

I'm running Windows 10 and both my plug-in speakers and headphones, which plug into the audio jack not USB, work correctly if plugged in when the laptop boots up. If they're removed from the audio jack at any point though, Windows refuses to recognize them when they're plugged back in and just defaults to playing audio from the laptop's built-in speakers, and there is seemingly no way to get audio back to the speakers/headphones except completely rebooting the laptop.


To reiterate, if the thing connected to the audio jack is removed, I do not lose sound entirely. It switches to playing audio through the built-in speakers. I just have no way of getting my laptop to switch back to playing audio through the plug-in speakers or headphones without rebooting.


I've searched through some other threads to this effect without finding a satisfactory answer, so let me preemptively respond to some common answers:


1 Make sure the audio output device isn't disabled in the device manager.


And here we run into a problem immediately, because only one audio output device shows up in the device manager - not a separate one for the built-in speakers vs. plug-in speakers. Yes, I selected Show Disabled Devices and Show Disconnected Devices; no, a second device still isn't showing up. It looks like this when the plug-in speakers are plugged in but sound is still routed to the built-in speakers:




And the device list looks identical on startup as well. It doesn't seem to realize anything has changed when the plug-in speakers or headphones are removed from the audio jack.

2 Try the audio troubleshooter.


It asks whether I want to enable Audio Enchancements or not. My response to that popup does not affect the result; either way, I'm told the troubleshooter couldn't find any problems to solve:





Presumably because it doesn't realize there's supposed to be another device plugged in, and it just detects that the built-in speakers are working fine. Which they are, but that's not what I care about.


3 Update your drivers.


If go to the Device Manager to update the driver:





And let it search the internet for newer driver versions, I'm told the most up-to-date drivers are already installed:





Which I suspect are the drivers for the built-in speakers.


4 The jack may just be physically broken.


I highly doubt it wasn't broken on startup, only suddenly broke when the headphones or speakers are removed, and suddenly un-breaks itself upon startup again.


With those common responses out of the way... what else might I try to get Windows to correctly recognize the speakers/headphones so I can just re-plug them in instead of having to restart the whole laptop?

:)

 

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