Earphone jack problem with my MBA?

I noticed yesterday that my Samsung earphones don't work when I plug them in, but all the other ones in my house do work when I plug them in. I called Apple tech support and we tried resetting some sound stuff, and this problem is still happening. They won't show up under system preferences -> sound when I plug them in and sound continues to come out through the external speakers. For other earphones, they work normally. I just tried turning off my computer and plugging the Samsung earphones in and turning it back on, and to my surprise now they're working and showing up under the sound preferences. What the heck?! So every time I want to listen to something at school I have to restart my laptop?!?

Has anyone been through something similar and knows how to fix this?