My Macbook Pro speakers aren't working and the headphone jack is emitting a red light when I try to play something with sound. HELP!

Question

The question says it all. It worked perfectly last night and stopped working this morning. A whole day has gone by and the speakers still don't work. I've plugged in headphones and that works.
When I try to increase volume or decrease volume, it shows me the mute sign which makes no sense at all. When I try to unmute, it stays muted.
HELP I'M ON THE VERGE OF BREAKING THIS P.O.S. LAPTOP

Answer 1

SO I just now had the same problem. A million threads online suggested to try inserting headphones, toothpicks, or even qtips to try and switch the "switch" inside the headphone jack. Everyone had great results from using the toothpick method. Well that didn't work for me. here's what FINALLY WORKED!!--> I wrapped a toothpick in fashion tape (fashion tape is basically stretchy double sided tape. If you don't have any ask some girls and someone will have). My thought was that maybe this "switch" didn't need to be flicked or pushed like a button. Maybe it was stuck in like a button that has been pushed in. I used the sticky toothpick to pull up the button/switch. Basically, take the toothpick and pressdown on the switch (supposedly the botton is inside the jack at the 6 or 7-0clock position) and then press the toothpick away (so that you are pushing in the opposite direction [1-oclock]). do this multiple times so you're flicking the toothpick back and forth. Just make sure you press firmly enough in the 6-oclock position so the tape can get stuck to the button.
Two tips for this method:
1) I had tried a manicure q-tip first, which in hindsight could've cleaned out the headphone jack, facilitating a surface that can get stuck to the fashion tape effectively.
2) You can see in the photo attached that I wrapped the tape on the toothpick a little past the edge so that there was extra tape on the end of the toothpick. That was (and this is just my theory) to make up for the fact that toothpicks have a tapered end. I figured that having this extra loose bit of tape at the end would allow me to reacch into any nook or crany of the headphone jack where this mysterious "button" might be lurking.