Q: can't hear callers except using speaker

That's just so weird, it worked! Thank you so much! I thought it was an IOS9 issue, but I just have an old iPhone I think.. (iPhone 5)

The put the volume higher tip worked for me instantly... You have to put the volume to the highest possible volume and then i could hear my phone again. thnx.. Frans... And a happy 2016...

Stevedurko's advice resulted in me cracking my screen too, but it also made the earpiece work so I'm largely OK with the situation.

There is clearly a physical fault with my handset which I can now prove (since pushing on the front camera hasn't permanently fixed the issue, unfortunately)

Previously the Genius bar guys were convinced it was a software fault and were unable to help me.

Time to book in for another session.

Thank you !!!. Pressing hard works for me.

This solution worked for me. I haven't tried re-syncing the devices yet, but deleting them from my list of Bluetooth devices fixed the problem. Thank you!

I am using a 4S (model A 1387) iOS 9.3

Worked a treat, thanks!

Thanks! I pressed hard on front of the camera area a few times and now I can hear callers!

Stevedurko solution was AMAZING.

I saw where someone said not to follow his advice and rudely said his suggestion was "idiotic."

That person even asked to remove his suggestion from this site.
I am so glad it was not removed because I spent hours at the Apple store, waiting for my appointment and then working with the technician.

He thought it was dust in the headphone ear plug hole, because he was able to hear my voice memos.

I found that odd because I had tried all the headphone jack dust clearing suggestions and even used a can of air to blow out that jack and that did not help.

But my phone began properly working again after he accessed voice memos, so I thought he cleared the jack better than I has tried to do.

But that was not the fix,  because when I got home the problem returned.

I guess when he accessed my voice memos that corrected the problem but only temporarily.

So, I was going to either mail my iPhone back to Apple for repair (a cost of $269.00 dollars, if I correctly recall their costs as posted on their repair site).

If I did not do that I was considering buying a new phone.

But I recalled I had used my "Square Reader" before the trouble began and since that connected to my headphone jack, I decided to see if I could find any posts about that program (which uses the "Microphone setting) as being the cause of the problem.  In doing that I chanced upon Stevedurko's solution.

I was Stevedurko's solution which saved me as it worked perfectly.

Naturally, using common sense,I did  not press hard enough to crack the screen, and I heard the faint click he spoke about.

Now my I can hear people I call or who call me without needing to go on the speaker mode.

I needed to post this to thank Stevedurko and also to be sure his post remains for everyone to see since, as odd as it seemed, IT WORKED !!!

(Actually it isn't all that odd because in reading up on this it seems there is some sort of headphone sensing wire which runs right in the spot he said to press and that wire causes the phone to act as if headphones are plugged in.)

Bob

Random fix for the same issue with my new-ish 6s plus, only a couple of months after I got it. I couldn't hear during calls and unless my phone was either on Speakerphone or connected to Bluetooth or headphones. There was also no volume when watching videos unless headphones or Bluetooth was connected. It was a two second fix that is so random that was an accidental fix. I was recording my 8 year old talk on the voice memos app and played it back to show him there was no volume. When I turned the volume up while it was playing, the audio started working again with calls and videos too. For some reason that stopped my iphone from acting like headphones were plugged in.

Thanks!  Worked for me too.