iPhone is stuck in headphone mode

I hadn't used the headphones before this happened. I've tried cleaning out the jack with a match (it looks very clean) and plugging the headphones in and out several times whilst watching a video. Neither worked.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

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iPhone 6, iOS 8, 1 day old.

Posted on Oct 11, 2014 5:26 AM

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Posted on Feb 14, 2017 8:26 AM

Saw a bunch of posts on this and some of the answers are pretty stupid. In fact, some are malicious. There is no software reset, reboot, network reset steps to do this. The headphone jack is DIRTY and/or got wet. That simple. Phone thinks there is a jack in there so its stuck in headphone mode. One suggestion was to stick a paperclip in the jack. That will potentially damage your jack and phone!!! How stupid can one be?

Heres a fix that is SAFE and works. Use a cotton swab to rub alcohol or contact cleaner on the head phone cable jack and insert it a few times. Each time you pull it out, wipe the jack clean and insert it again. keep doing it until you see your ringer volume pop back up. Don't stuff a cotton swab up in there. I ended up using a toothpick with a tiny lens cleaner cloth wrapped around it and was able to insert it into the jack and rotate as I pulled it out. Lens cloth came out very dirty. Phone works now.

302 replies

Sep 21, 2016 11:43 AM in response to patrickfromnewbridge

iPhone 6 Plus iOS 10.0.1

This started happening suddenly with my phone. Picked up a phone call and could not hear a thing; switched to speaker and the caller could be heard clearly. All along, the caller could hear me in speaker and non speaker mode. Reading along on some sites, a member recommended turning the volume up while the call was in progress, (or better yet, record a few seconds of voice memo and play it back while troubleshooting) if with the headphones unplugged you get the volume icon that says "headphones", then your phone is stuck in headphones mode. This individual recommended the use of compressed air to blow in the headphones jack. After I did that . . . . . voila . . . the phone worked as advertised.


Others have recommended plugging and unplugging the headset; this did not work for me. Because this appears to be a mechanical issue with the plug itself, restarting, resetting or restoring the phone will not work. All else fails take it to a local shop that can take it apart and clean or replace the jack.

Oct 11, 2016 4:48 PM in response to don909

My iPhone 6 did this after uploading the new IOS. Using wireless headphones on the new IOS would cause the software to default to "headphones" and I missed multiple calls. Finally, found under settings>general>accessibility>interaction>call audio routing the ability to set "automatic", "bluetooth headset", and "speaker". "automatic" allows you to switch from headphones to speaker without intervention.

Dec 3, 2016 10:48 AM in response to Danny6052

Thanks so much this worked for me! I tried all the solutions proposed here, cleaning with qtip, needle, putting it in freezer/fridge, sucking/blowing with hairdryer, resetting hard resetting, calling with headphones and pluggin unplugging it etc. 50 times plugging in out....


What worked was putting on spotify so you can see what happens if you plug unplug it pauses the song. So i played a song and started fiddling with a needle and sucking the jack, surprisingly sucking the jack while playing a song in spotify made it to pause and voila after that it worked! I put play and it switched to normal mode showing the volume when hit the volume buttons instead of headphones! Thanks again! Hope this helps for others

Dec 5, 2016 1:15 PM in response to patrickfromnewbridge

This has happened to me twice now. The only trick which has worked is the "in and out of speaker mode". This time, instead of having someone phone me, I called an 800 #, went to speaker mode, plugged in some headphones, then removed the headphones. (I may have ended the call first, but I don't think I did.). Good luck! (PS: both times, the problem has come after updating several apps. I don't know which update is causing it.)

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iPhone is stuck in headphone mode

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