Non-HTC earphones not working on M9?

[tommo47]

Puzzling one this morning - I've had my M9 since May and have regularly played my music through earphones, both the HTC ones that came with the device and a variety of non-HTC ones perfectly well. This morning I plugged in the same set that I was using yesterday and ... no music. Tried another pair - same result. Did a cache partition wipe which is what I always do when I get an unusual glitch/problem although I did it tongue in cheek this time - no change as expected, so I thought it must be a hardware problem. As a final check plugged my HTC earphones in and MUSIC!!!!

Tried the non-HTC phones in my M7 and everything was ok.

Did a live chat with HTC support and got absolutely nowhere - must be incompatibility he said, how can two sets of earphones suddenly become incompatible after 4 months I said. Your only option is save data, do a factory reset, if that doesn't solve it send it in for repair, he said!! I won't repeat what I said!!!!!

I did comment that there was an update last night to HTC Service - HTC PNS, whatever that is, but he dismissed that as a possible cause.

Just wondering if any other M9 owners have experienced the same thing.....

Edit.. one significant difference between the earphones is the HTC ones are 4 contact whereas the others are standard 3 contact, although that, of itself, doesn't explain the 'overnight' change.

 

[today]

Pocket lint in the outlet?

 

[tommo47]

Pocket lint in the outlet?

Thanks for the suggestion but I sort of discounted that because I always have the phone in a totally enclosing case and also because the HTC 'phones worked perfectly.

However, I carried on using the HTC earphones yesterday and have found a possible cause of the problem - they have a single press button which has two functions - a short press will answer an incoming call and pause the music player, a second short press will clear the call and unpause the music player. A long press activates voice command to allow an outgoing call to be made. I don't know exactly how this function works and have so far failed to find any decent info after Googling*.

The non-HTC earphones are now working ok so I'm left wondering if somehow the 'answer call/media pause' mode had been activated.

*Update - found some info on 4 contact operation which refers to use of an Analogue to Digital Converter to determine button presses, so it could well have been a glitch/software lock-up.