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iphone thinks headphones are plugged in even when not - how to fix

iphone thinks headphones are plugged in even when not - how to fix

iPhone 4, Windows XP

Posted on Aug 10, 2012 2:48 PM

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Posted on Feb 28, 2017 3:38 PM

I've been trying to get this issue fixed on my iPhone 6 almost all day. I never use headphones and my phone has never had any water or physical damage. I tried SO MANY things and what finally worked for me was this.. HOLD DOWN THE VOLUME UP AND DOWN BUTTONS AT THE SAME TIME, WHILE STILL HOLDING THESE DO A HARD RESET. SO ALL THE STEPS YOU WILL DO AT THE SAME TIME ARE HOLD DOWN THE VOLUME UP AND DOWN BUTTONS WHILE HOLDING DOWN THE HOME BUTTON AS WELL AS THE BUTTON ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF YOUR PHONE. ONCE YOU SEE THE WHITE SCREEN WITH THE APPLE YOU CAN LET GO OF ALL BUTTONS. THIS SHOULD FIX THE ISSUE! I really hope this saves someone a lot of the hassle I've been through!!

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Question marked as Best reply

Feb 28, 2017 3:38 PM in response to kristinfromsummit

I've been trying to get this issue fixed on my iPhone 6 almost all day. I never use headphones and my phone has never had any water or physical damage. I tried SO MANY things and what finally worked for me was this.. HOLD DOWN THE VOLUME UP AND DOWN BUTTONS AT THE SAME TIME, WHILE STILL HOLDING THESE DO A HARD RESET. SO ALL THE STEPS YOU WILL DO AT THE SAME TIME ARE HOLD DOWN THE VOLUME UP AND DOWN BUTTONS WHILE HOLDING DOWN THE HOME BUTTON AS WELL AS THE BUTTON ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF YOUR PHONE. ONCE YOU SEE THE WHITE SCREEN WITH THE APPLE YOU CAN LET GO OF ALL BUTTONS. THIS SHOULD FIX THE ISSUE! I really hope this saves someone a lot of the hassle I've been through!!

Jun 14, 2017 10:30 PM in response to kristinfromsummit

After several hours of frustration, and trying EVERYTHING on this forum with zero luck, frustration took over. I walked to the trash can, opened it up & dropped my phone into it.


My dad, puzzled at my decision decided to fish it out, & trouble shoot.


The steps are rather simple, and it works everytime!

1. Plug a headphone/aux cord into the port 7-8 times, once done keep removed

2. After doing so, perform a soft reset by holding both the lock & home button.

3. once the apple logo appears, release the buttons & when it turns on the volume should be set to ringer



If you plan on using headphones & again, and none of the other methods worked, unfortunately you will have to repeat this procedure after every use, but its better then paying to get it fixxed.

Jun 1, 2017 4:18 PM in response to kristinfromsummit

made a video tutorial

FIX headphone iphone - YouTube


If nothing works, such as q-tip trick, un-plug in and plug in of the headphone, bluetooth speaker trick, the Setting/General/Accessibility/incoming calls (audio routing for newer software)/set speaker, then headset, turning on shazam, activiate siri...etc. TRY THIS, 1) have someone call you, 2) turn on to speaker mode, 3)turn off the speaker, 4) plug in your headphone, 5) un-plug headphone. This should work!


So I had this issue and did ALL the tricks on youtube. ALL of them DID NOT work. But this did work. You can follow all the steps he did but what I did was a bit more basic. I went to Setting/General/Accessibility/audio routing -set speaker.

Then I used gmail to call myself but I'm sure you can have someone just call you. It should answer in speaker mode. (Having someone call YOU is important because I called someone and this did not work.)

When you answer the phone and its on speaker mode hit the home button and go to podcasts or Spotify or anything that play sounds(I used podcast) then while the phone is still on the call in speaker mode play something and you should hear it on the speaker simutaniously as the phone call. then while its playing the audio hang up on the phone call.

This was the only thing that worked. I was so excited that I actually signed up for an account after 10 years with an iPhone just to post this.

Hope this helps.

Mar 13, 2017 1:04 PM in response to kristinfromsummit

Ask cliche as it sounds, if you think it is water damage, put your phone in rice and brightness all the way up. Make sure your screen doesn't turn off. If you don't wait too long after dropping it in water (or snow like I did), play music full blast and when the water is gone, music will start playing. I did this and my phone was fine and playing music in 20 minutes. Leave it as long as you can. If this doesn't help, you may have to pay to fix it:(

Apr 25, 2017 7:09 PM in response to kristinfromsummit

Okay, so here I am FREAKING OUT because I JUST got my new iPhone 6s Plus and I drop it in the bath! So I immediately take it off, take off the case, and dry it. I realize... it's stuck in headphone mode! I clean it with a q-tip, put headphones on and off, and then turned it off and on, did the whole call and uncall, did the Spotify thing... yep nothing works. So I watch and watch, and EVERYONE is telling me to hold down the power button and home button. They said it turns it off. So I just ignored it. I finally did it, and it turned out to be my fix

Apr 26, 2017 5:01 PM in response to kristinfromsummit

I'd some how got water in and it was saying headphone on the iPad Pro tried the paper clip , cotton bud ( que tip) and it did not work . So I then read the comment on sucking , so I took it to extreme .

Take the que tip ( the hollow one ) take all the cotton off one end and most off the other . Insert the one with a bit in the hole . Then get a vacuum and while holding the que tip between finger and thumb place the vacuum pipe over . This will suck the water out . As your doing it press the volume button and you'll see it start working before your eyes ;) ( hopefully ) . Good luck .

Jun 9, 2017 10:21 AM in response to kristinfromsummit

I found a solution that solved my problem.

Let your iPhone battery drain all the way, let your phone die, but make sure you're playing music through headphones when it dies. Then don't unplug the headphones, then charge your phone while the headphones are still plugged in. Then when your iPhone turns on, with headphones still plugged, unlock it and play any audio, then you can unplug them and continue playing the audio through the speakers.

This one worked for me cause I realized that before I had this problem, I was playing music in my car and my phone died, then I got home plugged it in and it was stuck in headphones mode, the iPhone just thought that it was still plugged to the car. Resetting it multiple times, and turning it off didn't help at all.

iphone thinks headphones are plugged in even when not - how to fix

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