Headphone issues

I have a Windows 10 HP Laptop, 5 months old.  I try to listen to a recording on youtube and can't hear anything.  I check out SOUND in the control panel and everything checks out (apparently) OK.  I plug in my ear buds (headphones) and now I hear the sound.  What's happening is the opposite of how it worked yesterday.  I don't want others around me to hear the sound when I plug in the ear buds.  Not sure what I did, but I must have down something between yesterday and today to cause this.  Can't seem to fix it.

Do I have this correct?

• When you play videos without anything plugged into the headphone jack - you hear nothing.
• When you play videos with headphones plugged in - you hear sound through your laptop speaker… not the ear buds.

Yes.  When no headphones are plugged into the laptop, I hear no audio.  When the headphones (ear buds) are plugged into the laptop I hear sound through the computer, not through the headphones - there is no sound at all through the headphones.  Yet, I can take these same head phones and use them on my other laptop and hear through the headphones just fine on that computer.

My guess is there is something in your headphone jack.

Well - believe it or not … today (Saturday) I turned on the laptop and could hear audio through the computer.  Then I inserted my head phone jack and could hear the computer through the ear buds.  I have no idea how this happened or what I might have done to correct this issue.  Sometimes electronics are very strange.  Anyway, I'm going to go right on believing that this was a blimp on the radar.  I thank you for your responses and attempts at assisting me.  Always appreciate the What The Tech folks who give of their time so freely.  

Well… seeing as how tommorrow is St. Patricks Day… I'm going to choose to believe that you had a leprechaun that hid out in your system for a few days.  With the advent of St. Pat's day - he moved on.  

Well… seeing as how tommorrow is St. Patricks Day… I'm going to choose to believe that you had a leprechaun that hid out in your system for a few days.  With the advent of St. Pat's day - he moved on.

I would say it's something in your headphones but not really sure. This is a common issue I see on other forums too. Some people just buy another set of headphones or headset and fix the problem. However, it's good to know if you should go for headphone or headset. As I see you are using it for listening to music and watching videos on YouTube, so I would suggest you to go for headphones. You can refer to this guide to get a more comprehensive understanding about the distinction between headsets and headphones.