Sound works fine, but headphone controls no longer work? IOS7 Iphone5

I have been having this problem for a while - sometimes controls would work and other times they wouldn't. I was convinced iOS7 caused it. But I tried cleaning out the jack. I used a piece of picture hanging wire where several very small wires are braided together. The end of it is rough and kind of grabbed the lint and pulled it out. I keep my phone in my pocket day to day so it must just build up.

It turns out the male headphone jack wasn't pushing far enough into the female one on the phone.

I took a Q-tip and ripped off most of the cotton until it would fit and soaked it in rubbing alcohol and really got it in there and cleaned it out and noticed the jack pushed in another millimeter or so afterwards and it started working fine.

Happened to me turned out to be lift jammed in there from being taken in out of my pocket

Just take a paper clip and dig it out same thing happened with the charging port

This fixed it for me as well. I blasted air into it from a compressed-gas can and a lot of lint came out. The fuzz and lint in there can't be seen with the naked eye, but plenty came out. Both my earbud controls and the power adapter are working as new now.

Thanks for your help, tcoop2232

Similar problem with iPhone 4s - music but no control with volume or central button. Followed advice to clean out the lint from headphone jack and now works perfectly. Simple but effective advice - thanks guys!!

This solution worked for me as well....Took small wire and cleaned earphone hole and guess what, it started working !! Thanks

Same here, i used a paper clip, was surprised how much lint came of of the audio socket

I had this problem and just discovered that pocket lint was the culprit. There was a small amount preventing that specific connection I guess because music still worked fine. I used a safety pin to clear it out although I'm sure that despite it name there was probably a 'safer' way. Hope this helps someone!

This solved my question... IF you have trouble with charging, use same technique - Works just fine!! 🙂

Oh my god, so the simplest solution that usually works for 99% and generally doesn't work for me FINALLY worked, it was a piece of lint on one side inside the jack! The interesting thing is that the other test apple earbuds worked so I initially ruled this out, however, i'm guessing that the fact that my old ones' jack is ever so slightly leaning while the new test set's jack is perfectly straight made all the difference. YES, THANK YOU APPLE COMMUNITY. I don't talk on the phone without these puppies!

Worked for me as well!

Turns out I had a 2mm pice of plastic stuck right in the bottom of the headphone jack - who knows how that got in there, or where it even came from? tcoop2232's solution saved me after weeks frustration and panic that my iPod was failing, seeing as Apple doesn't sell the 160gb classic anymore...

In my case lint was the enemy. I noticed that the 3.5mm jack didn't seem to go all the way in. When I took a toothpick and carefully plucked out pile after pile of lint, I was quite surprised to see how much had built up in there. After doing so, earbud controls work swimmingly!

For those daring enough (you're not losing anything if you were going to replace them anyway) I had this very problem, but found no lint in the socket.

WARNING: This might destroy your earbuds

I figured it could be caused by grime buildup and doused the remote in some high proof alcohol 😉

It's working back again, unfortunately I had taken it apart already 😟 (Don't do it, It can't be put together again)

This is the best advice on the page.

Worked perfectly 😍