Headphones not working on HTC Hero

August 10th, 2009 | Categories: Android | Tags:

My latest toy is the HTC Hero which my phone provider, T-mobile, insists on calling the G2 touch.  I’ve got quite a lot to say on this particular device and its operating system – Android – but I’ll leave that for a longer blog post in the future.  For now I want to talk about a problem I discovered this morning when I plugged in some headphones for the first time – they simply didn’t work.

At first I thought the problem lay with my headphones so I didn’t worry too much.  However, someone in my office also has a HTC Hero and he has some headphones that work fine on his phone but didn’t on mine.  Oh dear!

So the question was ‘Is this software (which would be OK) or hardware (which wouldn’t).  The practical upshot is that for me what worked was to switch my phone off completely by holding down the off button until the phone options menu pops up and selecting Power Off and then switching it on again.  Once the reboot had completed the headphones worked like a charm.

Someone over at the forums at www.4winmobile.com also had an issue with the headphones and thought it was related to a process named com.htc.dcs but I can’t confirm this one way or the other because the process doesn’t currently show up in Taskiller on my phone and yet the headphones still work fine.  I remember seeing it on the list earlier and the headphones worked fine then too and before you ask – no it hasn’t been added to the Taskiller ignore list as far as I can tell.

So, I’m not sure what is causing this headphone issue with the HTC Hero but the thing to bear in mind is that, for me at least, it is a software issue that can be fixed.  The only thing we have to do now is make sure we can come up with a foolproof way of fixing it for everyone so let me know if the above worked for you.

Comments welcomed.

Update (27th August 2009): Since I wrote the above post I have become aware of the fact that is is a known issue in Android 1.5 and that a workaround has been developed.  The workaround is called toggleheadset and has been reported to work for some people but personally I haven’t needed to use it.

It is not currently available in the Android Market put you can get the .apk file from the following URL

http://code.google.com/p/toggleheadset/

In order to install this .apk file you will need to ensure that you have allowed the installation of non-market applications first.

  1. Anthony
    August 10th, 2009 at 10:40
    Reply | Quote | #1
  2. August 23rd, 2009 at 15:12
    Reply | Quote | #2

    Got my HCT hero 2 weeks ago and I have to say, I am very impressed with it indeed. I bought a faster class 6 micro SD card and that’s smoothed the phone performance right out! HTC are working on a firmware update as we speak which will also iron out some of the initial glitches too… Love the way facebook and filckr are integrated with all your contacts! So glad I got rid of my iPhone

  3. Rick
    August 27th, 2009 at 11:25
    Reply | Quote | #3

    Hi mate

    I got my Hero about a week ago and initially all was fine. But i seem to be having the same problem as you. I plug in the head phones but the sound continues to come out of the phone speakers. Its very annoying. I tried turning it off and on and it still persists.

  4. Mike Croucher
    August 27th, 2009 at 12:11
    Reply | Quote | #4

    Hi Rick

    I have just done an update to this post that mentions the toggleheadset application. That may work for you but I haven’t tested it for myself. If you choose to try it then please let me know how you got on.

    Cheers,
    Mike

  5. daan
    September 16th, 2009 at 15:00
    Reply | Quote | #5

    Thanks,
    this worked for me..

    unfortunately I have to do this manually everytime :(

  6. Paul
    October 19th, 2009 at 16:48
    Reply | Quote | #6

    This was brilliantly helpful, i was worried id just bought a broken phone.

    thanks alot

    much appreciated

  7. Ashley
    November 28th, 2009 at 00:09
    Reply | Quote | #7

    The toggleheadset widget worked for me whereas the restart didn’t. I hope there’s eventually a fix where I won’t have to do this manually every time. :|

  8. Jack
    November 29th, 2009 at 12:09
    Reply | Quote | #8

    I’ve tried downloading toggleheadset; I installed it but nothings happened.. I’m not sure if I’m meant to find a little icon for it and click it, but I couldnt find it… I also tried restarting my phone and still nothing… tried two different pairs of earphones…
    Anyone with any more suggestions would really help..

  9. Crazed Engineer
    December 30th, 2009 at 16:29
    Reply | Quote | #9

    Just got the phone and had the same problem when I updated the Firmware version. I found this on another blog, I had tried reseting my phone a few times and it didn’t work, but once i tried it with the jack unplugged it worked fine.

    “Unplug the headphones, reboot the phone, then plug them back in. Do not leave your headphones plugged in if you turn the phone off.

    HTC has acknowledged this issue and said a fix will be included in the next patch. “

  10. Murty
    May 22nd, 2010 at 04:22

    Same problem, rebooted phone and it worked perfectly. Also installed toggleheadset widget and this also worked…thanks.

  11. alex
    June 27th, 2010 at 19:17

    Install the ROM update form the HTC webpage for hero. This will solve the problem. Backup ur info beforehand.

    Alex

  12. Name
    July 14th, 2010 at 11:51

    I just updated my Hero to Android 2.1 a couple of weeks ago but the same thing just happened again last night. I just rebooted (kept headphones plugged in during reboot) and they are working again now. It’s still not fixed.

  13. Jason
    April 19th, 2011 at 19:29

    I found that the app CSipSimple was causing this issue for me. Killing and restarting the app fixed it temporarily.

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