Real Fix: iPhone “I can’t hear the caller”, or iPhone stuck in Headphones Mode

I have been a victim thrice in total. It is not a good situation to find oneself in. I decided to share all the tricks with my readers when the third issue occurred a few days ago. I tag this article  “Fix can’t hear the other side iPhone”. This recommendation will work for you regardless of the form your case takes. As long as the result is your inability to hear your caller from the other end, you will be more than happy to read this post today. Noteworthy, this can be either way; you can’t hear the caller, or your caller can’t hear you.

Especially relevant: solution to every major hadware problems of mobile phones

Causes of iPhone ear receiver/ earpiece Distorted Sound During Calls

There is a wide range of possible causes for iPhone earpiece problems. One thing is, however, common to all, you can’t hear your caller or no sound is coming out of your earpiece. Below are highlights of the possible causes. We cannot also absolve Apple of the blame. I think it is, in most cases, a manufacturer’s defect. I have never dropped my iPhone, and neither have I ever drenched it. Yet, it had this fault thrice.

• You have a damaged earpiece/speaker. This can be a fault of the factory or an impact damage. If this is the case, you must take it to the engineer for a replacement.
• Your iPhone is new, and you have unconsciously failed to remove the transparent nylon covering the entire face of the phone. This, in turn, blocks your hearing.
• Your earpiece jack is dirty(this can make your iPhone stuck in headphones mode.
• Also, you may unknowingly have your volume down.
• What about the fact that you have your phone actively connected to a Bluetooth headset, and you have forgotten to disconnect it?
• Maybe your earpiece has a problem; it might be damaged or stuck
• Have you searched for your earpiece location to see if it is loose? Who knows, this might be the culprit.
• The problem might also be related to the carrier. You may think about changing your sim card.
• Water Damage A prevalent reason iPhones get stuck in headphones mode is water damage, and often, people don’t know how it could have happened. Here’s how the conversation went: I’d ask, “Are you an athlete?” and they would say yes. I’d ask, “Do you listen to music when you run or work out?” and they’d say yes again. Can you guess what happened?

Troubleshooting Guide

As I said earlier, there is a problem, and the problem is that your caller cannot hear you. Please perform the following troubleshooting to know the degree of damage to your iPhone. In 99% of the situations, it is a mere bug.

• Are your speakers working?
• Can you hear the sound of your songs when playing music via the music app?
• What about your voice notes? Can you hear your recordings play?

Basic Troubleshooting 

Eliminating the possibility of a software problem: To do this, totally power off your iPhone and switch it back on. If this doesn’t fix the issue, do a soft reset of your phone by pressing the “home button and power button simultaneously” for iPhone to iPhone 8, for iPhone X do this.

Fix can’t hear the other side On iPhone

Let us start with the most straightforward fixes for this annoying situation.

• What to do when your music player and voice notes are working but you can’t still hear your caller: This issue happened to me twice. The first time was while I was using my iPhone 6, and it normalized without my knowledge after some days. The second time it happened to me, I had to use my Apple earphones to fix it. This is what I did. I plugged in my earphones and removed them quickly while rocking the volume button up and down. Eventually, I was able to hear my caller. This fix works when the speaker mode, music app, and voice notes work.

Take A Look At The Headphone Jack

Grab a flashlight and shine it inside your iPhone’s headphone jack. Is there any debris stuck inside? I’ve seen everything from rice to brown goo to broken-off tips of cheap headphones attached inside. Trying to extract something from your iPhone’s headphone jack is extremely difficult, and some Apple techs won’t even try.

How to get junk/debris out of your iPhone earpiece jack

1. You can use a standard ballpoint pen. The opposite end of the cartridge is the perfect size to remove debris from the headphone jack. Insert that end into the headphone jack and gently twist to loosen the debris, and then shake it out of your iPhone or iPad.

2. Compressed Air

   Try using a can of compressed air to blow air directly into your iPhone’s headphone jack. This may work even if you don’t see anything stuck inside. Compressed air can loosen debris enough to shake or blow it out completely. Be gentle: Don’t stick the hose into your iPhone’s headphone jack and start blowing. Start from the outside of your iPhone and work your way in.

   If you don’t have a can of compressed air, you can try blowing it out yourself, but I don’t particularly like that option because our breath contains moisture that can damage your iPhone’s internal circuitry. If you feel like you have nothing to lose, then, by all means, give it a try.

3. Using a cotton swab/bud: You can also use a cotton bud to clean the inside of your dirty earpiece. Do this by twisting the cotton end in
4. The speaker or sensor might have gotten loose due to a drop or a screen repair.  This can cause the iPhone ear speaker to stop working. Attempt to apply light pressure to the case surrounding the speaker. This indicates a faulty connection and a hardware problem. If your problem is still unresolved, it is likely a software problem.
5. Soft reset + volume buttons combo: If any of the above doesn’t work for you, try the followings:

• Soft reset your iPhone using the appropriate button combination(This might fix it, but if it doesn’t). Now go to>>settings>>sounds>>then start pressing the volume buttons. Press the volume down and do the same for the volume up. Make sure you do not leave the sound page. If you are successful with this, you will notice that volume will identify the sound as a ringer against “headphones” when you return to the main menu. Once you notice this, it means you are successful. It worked for me when others failed.

5. Do a full factory reset of your iPhone: If any of the above fails, then you can erase everything on your iPhone to see if it fixes your issue

6. As the last resort to any software-related issues that can cause you to be unable to hear your caller, do iTunes restore.

If your earpiece or speaker has suffered hardware damage, here’s what you should do.

• Please don’t wrap your iPhone’s earpiece around your iPhone. If you do this often, after a while, the strain from the headphones wrapped around the iPhone on the end plugged into the headphone jack becomes so great that the entire headphone jack starts to pull away from the logic board. It’s OK to wrap your headphones around your iPhone as long as you unplug them when you do. 

• If every attempt to resolve this with a software fix fails, your earpiece receiver/speaker is damaged. It is time for you to take your phone to your local GSM engineer or, better still, call your dealer if you are still under warranty repair.