MacBook Pro 2017 headphone jack seems to go to sleep when the laptop is idle
The problem seems to be that OSX selects the wrong output device when returning from sleep mode. For me the issue is that it selects the DisplayPort audio instead of the headphone port.

I did the following to fix this:


Install switchaudio-osx and sleepwatcher (I personaly use Homebrew for this)


brew install switchaudio-osx sleepwatcher



Check the name of the audio output device you want to use by running


SwitchAudioSource -n


(for me this was Built-in Output)


create a wake-up script using the output device from step 2:


echo -e "#\!/bin/bash\n/usr/local/bin/SwitchAudioSource -s 'Built-in Output'" &gt;&gt; ~/.wakeup



Set the permissions for the file 


chmod 700 ~/.wakeup



Test the script (execute the command below and let your Mac go to sleep)


/usr/local/sbin/sleepwatcher --verbose --wakeup ~/.wakeup



Set-up the launch configuration for sleepwatcher


ln -sfv /usr/local/opt/sleepwatcher/de.bernhard-baehr.sleepwatcher-20compatibility-localuser.plist ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/de.bernhard-baehr.sleepwatcher-20compatibility-localuser.plist
brew services start sleepwatcher



Done! Now every time your machine returns from sleep the script will run and select the correct output