IOS 5.1.1. update bug (Volume Control)

Thanks a million i was devastaded trying to figure out what happen to the sound !! 😮 and i put it on the dock and voila ! last two times this happened i put head phones in and took them off and it worked, and i made a call put it on speaker and then hungup somehow it temporarily fixed the problem thanks again! lol 🙂

Try this. wprks for me:

go to setting

put lateral button to silence the ipad no o block rotate

put latteral button to silence, after that put button again to restore sound

that fix the sound for me.

its some kind of bug

iPhone 4s - iOS 5.1.1

The issue occurred again for me (third or fourth time now). I'd also noticed that the phone had started to tell me that some speaker docks I use are unsupported. Inspired by belovedRa's more focused troubleshooting, I spent a little more time attempting to diagnose the issue rather than just cramming things into the port until it works again.

I think, I strongly think, I have discovered what causes the issues from a hardware perspective.

I'd already theorized (with clues from other sources) that the issue is that the hardware believes that the phone is docked. I use an app called Melodies to connect to my Google Music library. Here is what the output selector looks like when the symptoms exist.

Note that my phone was not docked. Note no volume control on the right. Also note my great taste in music.

Here is what it looks like when I was able to, briefly, resolve the issue by sheer luck with some docking/undocking and cleaning.

Volume control back at the right there. Output is back to iPhone. What that told me is that my theory holds, for now. The device believes it's docked when I experience the symptoms.

How does a device know whether it's docked or not? It has to be some kind of hardware feature, a sensor of some kind.

Looking at the port very closely and testing with a toothpick, still thinking that a sensor of some kind is returning a false positive, I noted a reflective surface on the back side of the pin board. It's hard to see unless you angle the phone just so that light reflects off of it.

See the shiny rectangle to the right of the pin board? That is the dock sensor!

It's at a slightly deeper level than the black surface in there. That might explain why cleaning the port was hit or miss. If the bristles on the toothbrush, for example, never quite got down in there, the problem would continue. I took the toothpick and very lightly scraped some gunk off that tiny sensor.

And voila! The symptoms were gone immediately and some 18 hours later, still no problems. And the other symptom where the phone would tell me that my speaker dock was not supported has gone away as well.

I hope that this helps the rest of you that have continued to experience this problem.

I will make sure to post a followup to this to let the rest of the you know how this potential resolution turns out.

I wanted to add that I also was able to, very briefly, get the sound/volume back by resetting the phone, plugging in and unplugging headphones, docking and undocking to various, none of which resolved the problem for me more than for a few moments. So I can certainly see where this may work for some people. However, I think that is where the software aspect of the issue comes in, in some respects.

Only cleaning the port, to one degree or another, has ever resolved the issue for any length of time for me.

Maybe the docking sensor in the port on my phone was dirtier than others?

I hope the photos helped. If anyone tries my solution and it works, please reply to the post for my and everyone else's benefit.

Update: Here is a closer, labelled photo of the port:

@Daystar93 that's an outstanding piece of detective work! Looks like you split this problem cleanly in 2! Very nice.

So it appears we have (at least) 2 separate issues here:

1. a hardware problem where the dock connector sensor in the iDevice's socket gets dirty (see Daystar93's excellent post above for a to-the-point explanation and resolution)
2. a software problem where some apps (apparently alarm apps that use "background alarms") do not hand back proper control of the music sound channel to the iOS system, which in turn thinks there is still music playing and therefore assigns the volume hardware buttons to music volume (see my previous post for possible resolutions)

Apple, are you paying attention?

I saw your post JWinslow and figured WTH and ran a different game I had and this also seemed to rectify the problem. At least for now.

This solution works perfectly. I had the same problem and after I cleaned that sensor the problem was gone.

Thank you very much Daystar93. You have saved me a visit to the Customer Care Center of mymobile operator.

I updated to IOS6 and now my speaker sounds like it's busted!!

Cleaning the sensor restored the volume bar for 2 seconds and then it disappeared again. I'm getting desperate 'cause I tried anything and I'm not keen on resetting the device for 5th time again...

Very nice piece of RE'ing, Daystar. I came to the same conclustion just today (after a completely UNproductive visit with the Apple "Genius" Bar). I had to basically whittle down a long wooden "toothpick" to be very thin but long enough to get into the recessed cavity where this photo-diode sits. Scraping back and forth several times seems to have cleaned it off enough for the phone to NOT think it's on a dock 99.9% of the time.

Having a photo-diode in a recessed cavity within a recessed cavity that has no dust/gunk protection, on a mobile device that will sit in someones dirty/linty pockets/bags for 75% of the time...questionable design decision.

Just to note, I did try nearly every other possible solution. Cleaning out both the headphone and 20-pin connectors and cavities. Alchohol, wipes, cue-tips, compressed air, even put a bit of head on the lower port hoping to "burn" off any gunk that might be trapped in the recesses.

After all that I was still stuck in Dock mode. So, seeing that recessed sensor I thought that must be the "dock" sensor (the whole time I figured it must either be a combination of the 20 pin connectors or a physical "latch"). So, scubbing it off as best as possible; since the reach to it is a nightmare.

Seems to be working for now, and saved me the $200 Apple wanted me to spend to buy a brand new 4s (bought mine about 13 months ago...go figure!). Thanks for the help and confirmation, Daystar!

Ok i have a 3gs with os 4.3.3 i have not allowed to my knowledge any itunes or apple updates for quite some time

My ringer after today 11/19/12 has stopped working as well. It only works with headphones or plugged into

another device. Ive tried everything i know and no solution. The only thing i can consider is apple has forced (pushed) a crummy update

This is the biggest reason i have tried everything i can not to update. Seems every time i allow the blasted

device to do so i have problems with it. Also i kept getting the "uncompatible device thing just before everything went south.

same thing happened to me.. just figured it out. go to settings>general>accessibility>and turn mono audio switch to "on"

hope this helps!

That did not work. However I did figure it out. It was hardware not software as I first thought

First of all I kept getting the message box "This accessory is not supported by this iPhone"

But nothing at all was plugged into it.

I opened it up and discovered a tiny rouge screw loose in near the data connection plug.

All visible places where a screw could go was occupied. So thinking that was it. I cleaned out the

Pocket lent little hairs and other stuff.

I put it back togeather. No change it was the same. So using a fairly large magnifying glass I used the

little screw driver that I tightened the last two little screws with and carefully brushed the data/charging

terminals...

All the sudden the iPod player started playing through its speakers again.

That's when I noticed a small metalllic particle clinging to the little magnetic screwdriver.

Further observations found it came from a cheap data / charging cable.

So it seems to me that if you get the message "this accessory is not supported blah blah blah"

But the volume buttons still are showing up but not doing any thing.... and the only way to get sound is to plug into

The headphone jack THEN you have a conductve particle caught up in the place where you plug your charging cable into

I just wish I knew which ones it was effecting.

Thanks for the response and pass this message along.

Im having the same problem and i can't fix it :( my sensor is a red color for some reason and i have a white iPhone is this normal?

I went to another site after searching the web for over an hour (including all of these post) and found something that worked for me and several others. Take a credit card where you dock/charge your phone and run it under both sides of the connector board. IT ACTUALLY WORKED! As stupid as this sounds it worked!