iPhone stuck in "headphones" mode

Had the same issue on my iPhone 5 after a day snowboarding (snow, cold and humidity).

My solution was:

1) Leave iPhone in some dry place

2) Go to sleep

3) Wake up, play some music through AirPlay/Bluetooth

4) Accept incoming call twice while listening to music

Me too had this problem. Tried lots of solutions in this post, after hair-drying and plugging the recharging cable into the imac it worked again. Very mysterious though... just hoping this doesn't happen again. It's really a bummer when you want to use the iphone as a navigator...

Thanks Shannon. It worked like a charm on my iPhone 5s (less than a month old) !!!

BTW I had tried all other options as people suggested without any help, before trying your solution. Still not sure if it was a software or hardware issue. Hope I won't be facing it again.

I had this same problem and thanks to the guy who suggested sucking on the jack and to the other who pushed the ringer button while sucking, my phone is now "unstuck" from headphone mode! Yay! Here is what I did:

1: sucked on the headphone jack.... Nope didn't work

2: took iPhone out of the case.... Still nothing

3: sucked on jack while pressing the "up" volume button... MAGIC! It works and instead of saying headphone it said ringer! Just to be sure I tested with music, sure enough it was working!! Thanks whoever you are that suggested these two things!!

Yep - the toothpick & cotton worked right away. Thanks so much!

Tried all the physical fixes, but nothing worked. I suspect there are multiple reasons for the phone to get stuck in headphones mode, so different solutions for different causes. I'm convinced mine is a software problem, but I haven't pinpointed the trigger yet. However, I have (temporarily) solved the problem the same way each of the three times it happened. It's six steps: 1: start a song 2: plug in headphones 3: call your phone from another line 4: answer the call 5: unplug the headphones 6: end the call. Voila! Lots of trial and error that I hope someone else can take advantage of. And if I pinpoint the trigger before I get a new phone, I'll post back. Good luck!

THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH!!!!!!! I AM FREAKING OUT THAT IT ACTUALLY WORK. OMG!!!!! THANKS!!!!

i dont know how you found this out but this works. #dope

What worked for me w/ the issue of 'EarPod volume controls stopped working w/ iphone 5' -

take a very small bit of tissue paper, roll/twist it into a shape similar to a headphone plug, soak it in rubbing alcohol, and insert it all the way into the headphone port while twisting for a full minute. Mine came out dirty and now the volume controls/mic on the EarPods work again. I had tried many other suggestions in this thread, but this is the only one that worked for me.

Using compressed air to clean out the lightning power port fixed a problem where the iphone 5 started having problems charging via the lightning power cord.

I tried everything. From using a q-tip to try and dislodge lint and dust, sucking on the headphone port, hard rebooting it, drying it with a hair dryer, putting the headphone jack in and out repeatedly, putting it in airplane mode, trying to trick it by setting an alarm and getting my wife to call me. When my wife would call me it would connect for about 3 seconds and then disconnect.

What did work was I got my wife to call me while my headphones were in and in mid call I removed the headphones and presto, I am back to a fully functioning phone.

I dropped my phone in the snow by accident last night, and it got stuck in headphones mode. I figured I messed up something electrically, so it was a lost cause. But I tried everything, like cleaning out the headphone jack with a q-tip and rebooting the phone. I read that sucking in at the headphone jack worked, but I didn't really want to put my mouth on my phone so I saved it for last. It worked perfectly though! After a few seconds of sucking in really hard my phone went back to normal!

Compressed air can did the trick for me. As always, make sure that it will blow air and not the liquid that sometimes comes out of those things. So I tested on my arm, verified it was just blowing air, then a few blasts into the headphone hole. Then it worked fine, I saw "ringer" instead of "headphones" when I pressed the volume buttons on my Iphone 5.

Alright. I Spent an hour reading this forums and different websites and even youtube videos and NOTHING worked. I decided to try something on my own just cause i was literally trying everything. Im not sure if this was a combination of all the previous attempts or if this fixed it all on its own. All i did was:

1) Put the phone on airplane mode.

2) Turn off my phone

3) Wait 30 seconds

4) Turned phone back on

Thats it. I hope it works for y'all!

Wow the sucking on the headphone jack thing really worked. I thought it was a joke but it actually fixed the problem. Thanks guys.

Compressed air with little nozzle worked for me!