AirPods will only play out of one ear

I had the same problem. Tried everything from reseting the AirPods to reseting the NVRAM.

The solution I found was to open the Sound Preferences on the AirPods (from the bluetooth dropdown). For some reason, my AirPods were set to left on Balance. I set back to center and everything is working perfectly.

And what do you do if you can press the button as long as you like, the led won't start flashing amber 3 times?

It just keeps flashing white.

In normal mode, the led flashes green as soon as I insert the problematic pod. when I remove it, the blinking stops.

This menu is not available on iPhone or iPad. Which is where I use my AirPods. Any other ideas? The left AirPod will not register after forgetting device and resetting with a 15 second hold/reset.

This just happened to me. I "forgot this device" and then repaired them and it worked. The reset you mentioned didn't work for me so I went that route and it worked too.

Other than that issue happening once just now, I love these things!

Thank you!

I was going crazy, having done reboots, amber-light resets, etc. Unbelievable that it was just something to do with the balance.

I'm not sure I even had to change the balance, it seemed to fix as soon as I opened the Sound Preferences window. I was switching sound preferences using the volume icon in the task bar the whole time, so never stumbled across this.

This has not worked for us. We have 3 sets of Airpods in our family. Two are doing this and have been almost since new. Sometimes one side works, sometimes the other. At no time do both sides work on the two bad pairs. I actually am in possessionof both defective pairs because my son has given up on fixing his. The issue persists across iPads, iPhones of multiple versions including now a X, PCs, and a Mac. The issue persists after unpairing, disconnecting, and resetting. The L/R balance as far as I can tell is showing in the middle but I am not really seeing anything specific to adjusting the Airpods under the accessibility setting. It seems like it is referring to the iOS device itself.

Are there any other ideas?

You're not the dummy. Apple's the dummy. Anything that is too difficult to figure out like headphones isn't the fault of the user. It's like a Norman door. They're not the user's fault. They're just bad doors. But thanks for the solution. Solved my problem.

Thanks! Had my right AirPod stop working while mid-workout. Reset by holding down the button on the case until getting the flashing amber light. Nothing worked until ‘forgetting’ the device in the Bluetooth menu. Took quite a bit of fussing with, but working again. Let’s see....

You can hear through both AirPods if you put them in your ears at the same time. If you can only hear through one AirPod, take them out of your ears, wait a moment, then put them in at the same time. If it if sends your phone call to the iPhone, just tap the button and send the audio to the AirPods.

Thanks, I had the same problem and this advice solved it.

I thought this might be my problem as the issue didn't start until after I connected it to my mac running 10.11(El Capitan). But my sound preferences showed that it was still balanced. However, doing a hard reset of the AirPods fixed it! (holding for at least 15 seconds until the status light blinks amber 3 times, then connecting it to my iPhone again)

After having and using my airpods religiously for the last month, I just encountered this problem for the first time. i just disconnected and "forgot" them from both of my devices (iphone 6s+ & ipad air 2) and reconnected by simply holding the bluetooth button on the case until it turned amber. I was able to reconnect to both devices simultaneously.

I tried forgetting the device only from my iPhone, and used the reset button until it flashed orange, several times. Didn't help. Only forgetting it from my Mac as well solved the problem. As soon as I reconnected to my iPhone after that, it was solved.

I think there's a common thread in several postings: the Mac seems to somehow glitch the settings of the Airpods, in a way that the iPhone alone cannot fix. Remove from your Mac to restore equanimity.

Make a Genius Bar appointment at your nearest Apple Store and have them checked.