Speakers stop working, turns on by itself

The speakers stop working. In certain apps where you can select and see how the audio is working it has a check next to 'dock connector'. But it's never connected. In fact haven't used one in months, I'm not sure why it's doing this. I was correcting the issue by turning the phone off. That stopped working & now the phone turns itself on.

I am admittingly very frustrated. It doesn't make sense that this product would suddenly start having such issues without an incident.

It is also frustrating how the one solution ( turning the phone off) not only became ineffective, but lead to the development of an additional concern. How is the device able to turn itself back on? I have tested possible ideas like the button getting pushed too hard, the bumper case being an issue, etc. No differences.

This most recent time I pulled out an iHome to see what happend in a dock connector. It played music until i disconnected. It said it was still connected and played again when connceted, and so on. I took my regular everday charger inserted it into the phone as usual. Then I wiggled it a bit and it worked. But that seemed to be a one-time solution as well.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Any help is appreciated.