Headphone adapter not working

Hello RedBird917,

Welcome to Apple Support Communities. It sounds like your iPhone doesn't recognize that headphones are plugged when you use the Lightning to 3.5 mm Headphone Jack Adapter. Using other 3.5 mm headphones should be a plug and play setup process. However, if that doesn't always work, the information in the link below should help resolve this. Additionally, you can try with other headphones and earbuds to see if this is isolated to a certain pair of headphones.

If your headphones don‘t work with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

Specifically, use these steps:

If your headphones aren't detected or your device gets stuck in headphone mode

For these issues, get your iPhone, iPad, or iPod inspected at an Apple Retail Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider, or contact Apple Support:

• After you plug any headphones into your iOS device, sound plays from your device's speakers instead of the headphones.
• You unplug your headphones, but when you adjust volume on your iOS device, you still see a Headphones volume indicator.

Let us know if this works for you.
Cheers.

So your advice is to take it to an apple retailer? Not exactly helpful....