Phone call: Audio works only with speakerphone or wired headset

Question

The following issue with my Sony Xperia ZR (running CM 11-20141112-SNAPSHOT) started a few days ago:

• When I initiate or receive an ordinary phone call, I can't hear the other side through my earpiece and the other side can't hear me either.
• When I plug in the wired headset, I can use that without problems.
• When I activate the speakerphone button during the call (without the headset plugged in), I can communicate with the other side.
• I also have a "click" sound effect for locking and unlocking the phone and this sound effect is now also only audible through the headset.

Here is what I tried:

1. First of course, I checked my profile and volume settings to make sure they are on Default and the in-call volume turned up.
2. I re-started my phone multiple times, sometimes with, sometimes without the headset being plugged in.
3. I thought that the headphone jack might be broken, i.e. that it thinks the headset is always plugged in - especially since I use the headset a lot for listening to audio while walking. But as soon as I plug in the headset, the Apollo audio player app starts, suggesting that the headphone detection works fine. Unfortunately, I haven't found a way to see if the software thinks that the headset is connected or not - is there a headset icon or similar I could enable?
4. So I thought it might be a software issue.
   1. I installed the Sound Manager app which allows to adjust all volume settings and
   2. found that it behaved a bit strange when I touched the In-Call Volume slider, causing a sound blip coming out of my earpiece. Also the volume "overlay" (or whatever you call that window that pops up when pressing the volume rocker) became visible, but sometimes only its icon, not the slider itself.
   3. After adjusting the volumes through that app, I could make a test call without headset and without the speakerphone enabled which worked fine. Also the phone (un-)locking sounds were working again.
   4. However a couple of hours later, when I unlocked my phone again, I didn't hear the click and doing a test call I realised that the problem had re-appeared.
   5. So I went back to the Sound Manager and adjusted the sliders once more, this time no strange effects as in 4.2 before. And no click when locking/unlocking and no audio through the earpiece & mic during my next test call.

Short of completely re-setting my phone (which I'd like to avoid), is there another way of debugging this issue? Does CM have a way to tell the headset detection status?

Any other things I could try?

Answer 1

Similar issue in OnePlus One (running CM 12.1). Check TTY Mode. If its off turn it back on and restart phone. Go back to TTY mode again and turn off and restart. It worked for me on OnePlus.

Answer 2

I had the very same problem with my Xperia SP. I also tried everything, but in the end it was the broken headphone jack.

My explanation why your audio player app starts automatically as you described in point 3 is the following: You are sliding the phone connector with its 3 or more contacts separated by some non-conducting material over the contacts inside the jack. This closes and opens some circuits several times while plugging in, which is actually the same as plugging the connector in and out several times. So the phone recognizes that something was connected. What is broken, so that it doesn't recognize a proper disconnect any more, I don't know.

I sent it to the service and they confirmed a broken jack. I got a new phone for free! (Maybe because of the German laws) Afterwards my problems were gone.

Answer 3

Here are a few things you should try:

• Delete or Deactivate all apps that could use audio, especially the app that turns on automatically(Apollo).Then check for the problem again. If the problem is gone, install the deleted apps one by one to see which app is the defaulter. If the problem persists try the next step

• Use both a earphone and a earphone + microphone auxiliary connector. This could be if your phone is too old (though it is from May 2013) or if the aux connector in the phone is broken.

• Try using the inbuilt or 3rd party Hardware test app.

• RESET

Answer 4

Andrew T recommended to answer my own question properly, so here it goes:

The problem turned out to be a hardware defect - the plug detected the headset as being connected, even when it wasn't.

To work around the issue, I created a tiny app that allows forcing the audio through the earpiece/mic even when the phone thinks the headset is plugged in. Find the Github repository here: https://github.com/FriendFX/android-audioswitch

As I have since replaced my phone and it has been years since I've had the need for it, I am not sure this would still work on a recent Android version, but it may be a start if someone likes to create something similar for their phone... it'd be a shame to cause phones going to landfill just because of a tiny broken earpiece detector switch!