Talking directly into earbud works as mic, but inline mic gets no input

[kepatoto]

I have been trying to get my microphone working for the past like three hours. My friend told me that he could hear everything that I was hearing, but not me. I tried multiple sets of headphones, all with inline mics. None of them worked and he kept hearing the same thing.

I selected the listen to this device option in sound > recording> microphone > properties > listen

I noticed that every time I moved my earbuds sound was being transmitted.
Then I would yell into the mic, and no sound would be heard. Through trail and error that probably looked as dumb as it sounds I talked at the headphone cords from top to bottom to find out what was going on. It turns out if I talk directly into the earbud the microphone starts working, but the mic it's self doesn't work at all.

Has anyone encountered this before and does anyone know how to fix it? It would be very awkward to dangle an earbud in front of my mouth every time I want to use a mic.

I selected a solution but I would also be down for discussion as well as I would be interested to know how this is working. I have a couple theories as to why it might be happening but I honestly have no idea if they are right

 

[sunder25]

can you hear sounds out of the "microphone" speaker?

 

[kepatoto]

can you hear sounds out of the "microphone" speaker?

No, because I have my headset plugged into the headphone jack and the earbuds plugged into the microphone jack

 

[sunder25]

get a splitter in that case, from audio+mic to audio and mic separated