No Alerts or music sounds SiriRingtones ok dockheadphone ok iPhone

2 week old iPHONE 4s and sound stopped working suspiciously around the time I started using my headphones and Bluetooth speakers. (Much like several people have experienced.) No speaker sound for any alerts or other sound producing actions or APPS other than Ringtones and Siri. Soft/hard resets, reboots,reloading firmware in new phone and restore modes and closing all apps (double click home >> minus arrow...) has done nothing but an occasional, one-time, unlocking alert. The phone has been encased in a protective cover since purchase that covers the headphone and docking ports.

 

Symptoms:

Side volume buttons only display ringer/speaker icon, no volume bar shown below speaker, for ringer or speaker volume.

With Settings >> Sound >> Ringer and Alerts "Change with Buttons" = ON, The slider bar will (intermittently, but mostly) not move with side buttons. If you exit Settings and hold down a + or - volume button, no bar is displayed on the white popup speaker volume Icon. But if you go back to the Sound settings menu, the slider bar has moved in the direction of the side button pushed. The slider won't visibly move with the side side buttons unless you first (kick-start)  move the slider with the touch screen with/without simultaneous holding a side button. Then it will move. (This works in the = ON as well as = OFF setting...) In the OFF setting, doing this sometimes makes the speaker volume icon show up and appear to be adjusting the volume, but no sound from speakers. Icon will sometimes show the speaker with sound waves but no sound bar, sound waves should go away when volume is muted (turned all the way down.) so that in itself is odd.

With any sound APP,  the volume controls act like it is either docked via bottom connector, paired with Bluetooth speakers or headphones are plugged in to headphone jack. No sound from speakers, but everything works fine through any alternate speaker option. And the additional volume slider on those APPS is displayed and moved with side buttons/touch screen. While playing "Music", double clicking home and scrolling full left, shows another volume control. Full off volume is displayed and there is no control (touch or buttons). While the settings trick of holding a side button and moving the alert slider volume in OFF mode does sometimes get the volume "Icon" bar working, there is usually no change on this volume control display or in sound. Sometimes you are able to see the Music volume control has matched the Icon setting (but still no sound), but as soon as you touch the screen, the slider button disappears.There are two volume levels. One for internal speakers, and one for external. Using the "kick-start" method, within the Volume settings window only, the two Icon volumes can be set independently by plugging and unplugging headphones (still no internal speaker sound). Directly locking and unlocking the phone stops internal speaker volume icon from working.  With headphones plugged in, "Headphones" is not displayed above the speaker Icon if the kick-start method was used.The list goes on and on but I shall stop here. I think you get the point that some combination of connector/chip/firmware confusion is going on.

Temporary Fix:

Using a can of Dust Off, blowing out the bottom docking connector gets the internal speaker working for a while. After a short time, sound will stop and the volume buttons will display the speaker Icon, with sound waves, but no sound bar or control. Plugging in headphones works, unplugging them pauses music as expected, but upon playing, still no internal speaker sound or control. Blowing air into the docking port again, after sound has stopped, will cause the play button to display a paused button. Pushing play will produce sound from the internal speakers, for a while. I strongly suspect this is has to do with thermal expansion screwing up a connection or chip near the docking port. Several of the fixes I have seen people do with brushing/cleaning the ports and such may have really just inadvertently "fixed" a poor/broken connection, not a dirty connection. Oddly enough, no amount of shaking, tapping the phone or wiggling a docking plug in the connector seems to fix, or break the sound problem.

Upon completion of this summary, and several iterations of the sound coming back on with blown air, I discovered, while picking up the phone, and covering the right speaker, the sound dropped greatly. The left speaker has little to no sound coming out of it, Mono and the left/right settings has no effect on either speaker. Ring Tones and Seri both have no sound coming out of the left speaker both when music sound works as when it does not. Both channels work fine through headphones. Cooling the phone with an air conditioning duct, as well as leaving it in a cold environment (fridge) brings back the right speaker.

At this point I think a replacement is necessary. If you are experiencing this problem, see if temperature has an effect on the symptoms. Have you found that your "intermitted" problems line up with hot or cool environments the phone is exposed to?