iPhone stuck in "headphones" mode

Ok so I decided I was gonna plug my iPhone into my Car Stereo for the first time (new stereo) and it was really wonky at first then it kicked in and did great all sorts of strange sound before this 5 minute adjustment period... then when I unplugged it got stuck in headphones mode after reading this thread I thought well it wouldn't hurt to try so I did the headphones in out repooted no change. But after reading all of this I realized the problem here is that it is dirty... looked in the headphone jack and sure enough... looked like the pocket lint monster had babies in there. So I carefully took a plastic coated Paper Clip and gently worked it around and then took a paper towel and put it over the end of the paperclip and did this again... and voila... working iphone no longer stuck. If you do any of this remeber the contacts in that hole are delicate... and if you go crazy cleaning it out ... well it may not work at all anymore... also if you don't have a plastic coated paperclip and want to use a regular one... be sure your phone is turned off. When you are done a quick puff of air wouldn't hurt to blow out whatever you knocked loose. These phones are in and out of pockets and purses and in the wind and elements all the time so small wonder they get dirty.

Can of compressed air worked like a charm. Just make sure the can is right side up. I tried plugging and unplugging the headphones and got no results. The straw from the compressed air fit perfectly into the headphone jack. A couple puffs later and it is now working.

I have to agree about humidity and the wetness in the audio jack. I spilled water in my handbag and my iPod was in it. By that, I think I wet/dirtied the headphone jack.

I tried plugging and unplugging many times and blowing (Felt ridiculous). Didn't work at all. I didn't try calling because mine was an iPod. Started to panic a little at this point....

What worked for me is getting some cotton from a Qtip, cover one end of a toothpick with it and inserted it into my audio jack. At first, it didn't work. So I tried again and again, pulling it out and pushing it back in (lol), and my cotton got stuck! Panicked a lot here. Tried to dig it out with my toothpick... and miraculously after that IT WORKED. Probably cleaned/dried it.

Conclusion is, I think you can forego plugging it in and out if you know you accidentally drowned your iPod before this problem occurred

its all about time!! i dropped my one month old 4s in a drain 24 hours ago ( good news im back to a working phone) .....water and sludge- worst possible !! no sound from speakers, display showing headphone logo, and water showing under the screen -( both water indicators triggered

i can explainin massive detail if u want all the things i did but here is a quick run thru of what i did

turn phone off and put in dry rice for 12 hours

insert a rolled up piece of tissue into headphone jack

then insert'headphone jack into holder multiple times

blow and suck into headphone and charger jacks

still not working?

hard reboot by holding home and lock button at same time until apple logo shows then letgo and press home buttong twice

when phone is booted up take out headphones. go to music and play a song and leave it until the phone auto locks itself. then plug in headphone jack, unlock phone and go into music. stop song and go back to home screen. take out headphone jack.

perform another hard reboot

at is point you should have use of your normal speakers but the volume will keep going to zeroon its own. go to settings, sound and de-activate change with buttons. manually put sounder slider to max and hey presto hopefully you should be back in business. its all about time. in 24 hours even my screen has dried out nd there is ow no water marks under thenscreen. the only issue im left with is the + volume bottom on left of phone doesnt work but that doesnt matter as i had to deactivate that function anyway.

i can go into more detail on request as i have had to brief tonight. let me know if u need more info

Hi guys i had the same problem but not for long! i came up with this idea-

I took a dental brush named after "GUM" brand called "GO-BETWEENS" its like a tiny bottle cleaner (to clean between teeth). I dipped the brush into ISOPROPANOL ALCOLOL ( I used the "Vaporgizing pump" method of alcohol basicly a spray but i'm sure dipping in alcohol works well) than I jammed the brush sprayed with alcohol into the earphone jack for awhile to clean it out and than finally pluged my iphone headphones in and out and VOI-LA!! suddenly started working.... (may take few tries...took me about 5 minutes) keep applying more alcohol to the brush and clean it until it works...play with it. 😉 😀

In response to my previous post; if any users cannot fix the issue from any suggestions listed in this thread take note. If you do not get an immediate fix by cleaning/blowing the jack -OR- the reboot method suggested by russellsimpson79, save yourselves the headache and time and replace the audio jack. This part should be replaced and it will work correctly again. This includes the audio jack and the connective ribbon.

It will cost between $55 and $65 US. After countless hours looking for a solution for my son's iPod Touch 4G, trying various suggestions without resolve, I would have gladly paid this amount for an immediate fix and be done with it. In addition, here are other symptoms due to a bad audio jack, in which replacement will fix.

• no headphone sound
• can only hear right or left channel
• iTouch stuck in headphone mode
• no sound out of headphone
• of course, damaged or broken jack

I had mine replaced by a local UbreakIfix store at a cost of $64, took about 10 min while I waited. There are numerous Certified Apple repair shops online, however the link below is the only one I found that guaranteed a fix for this specific issue.

http://fixapplenow.com/repairs/itouch/4g/headphone-jack-repair.html

Cheers!

Okay so I totally freaked today when this happened to my phone and I couldn't figure out why. I will say that I blamed it on my two year old who seems to be a pro at changing settings in three seconds and then it taking me hours to figure out what he has done. After reading this post I remembered that this morning I spilled coffee in my car. I don't think any got on my phone but it is a possibility. I took an alcohol wipe and a bobby pin and cleaned out the headphone jack - and it worked! I know it doesn't sound that the best thing to do but the alcohol seemed to dry up what ever was in the headphone jack and fixed my problem. Hope this helps someone out there.

I have an iPhone 5 16GB

This is what worked for me, I rolled up a tiny piece of newspaper, jiggled it in the jack port, and also sucked out the air for a second and sound was back. Perhaps try this two or three times gently before giving up

It is definitely a hardware issue, not a software issue, do not attempt most of the suggestions here, if it continues to happen I am going to the Apple store with it and I am not paying "jack" **** for it.

( sucking out the air worked as the sound came on as I was attempting this )

That actually does sound like a physical repair...or the headphones them selves. Try a different set of headphones. If the same thing still happens; have the earphone jack replaced. An "Old School" repair shop shouldnt charge more than 69.99-79.99(That's what I charge). Try to avoid the corporate repair shops and the ones in the mall; they all tend to not reassemble your phone correctly, and or, use cheap chinese knockoff parts.

I tried all the suggested solutions, including turned sound on and off in the sound settings menu, moving headphone plug in and out a number of times, blowing dry air, q-tip with alcohol, sucking, hairdryer, but no result. The last thing I tried what to stick a safety pin in the earphone connection and move it around a couple of times on the bottom and ... `voila!.. the pin came out with some greasy dirt on in. Right away, everything worked again.

I think that the problem can be caused by moisture or dirt or both. I would first try with the hairdryer, unless you are sure the phone has not been in contact with any moisture. The next step would be to use the safety pin or a paperclip and thouroughly clean out the bottom.

Just chiming in with my solution for my iPhone 5, which got this problem today after I carried it around outside during a major rain storm:

I tried various air-related tricks (sucking, blowing, blow dryer, sitting it next to a space heater for a long time, etc.) and none of that worked. I tried inserting the cut-off end of a Q-tip and wiggling it around and that didn't work either. But then I decided, against my better judgement, to insert the cotton side and twist/wiggle it around in a way that made me paranoid that I was going to get cotton stuck in there. Voila, that worked, and I didn't get any cotton stuck.

Good luck.

I have an iphone 5s less than a week old. Same problem - stuck on headphones. Tried all solutions that were suggested. Cleaning the headphone jack out with a q tip worked. Nothing else did. Bunch of black grease(?) on the end of the q tip after cleaning.

Ok I had the "stuck in headphone" issue.

Solved it by:

Open control center

Select air play and found a check mark beside earphone. Did not have any plugged in.

Left the screen open

Plugged in headphones

Unplugged headphones and the check mark "headphones" changed to "iPhone"

Closed control center and it works.

Same thing happened to me so i cut a qtip in half (the ends didnt fit) and then i scraped the inside and a little lint came out until after a few scrapes a pretty significant piece came out and now it is back to normal. I guess the lint and dust just builds up over time.

I found a fix which worked quite well for me. Had tried all of the above suggested methods but none worked. I dissessembled a basic ballpoint pen and took out the tube which contains the ink. I used the back end of this (a skinned Q-tip would likely work as well), and put it in the headphone jack. I then went to a song, and noticed that if I put the tube in the right place in the headphone jack and pressed play the music would play through my speakers. I kept re-adjusting this and playing the music until it finally was playing the music through the speakers when nothing was in the headphone jack. It is now working proper, and headphones can be plugged in and taken out properly with no issues.