I've got a Nexus 5 running stock 4.4.2, not rooted. Sometimes, seemingly at random, I will go to do something that plays sound (watch a YouTube video, play a podcast, etc) and the audio comes through the front speaker (the earpiece, where you'd normally hold it up to your head) instead of the bottom speaker.
When this happens, the volume buttons always change the "phone" volume (handset icon) instead of the media volume (speaker icon). Stranger still, some applications still use the right output - Amazon MP3 will play through the normal speaker, but Pocket Casts won't, and because of the volume button issue there's no easy way to change the actual loudness of the former.
I'm having trouble finding this issue on forums. Does anybody else get this? Is it special to the N5? Is it caused by a specific app? Can I stop it from happening, or at least recover from it without rebooting?