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Root Normal Headsets sending commands through stereo jack. Need to make it stop.

C

cerebralcow

Member
Whenever I have something plugged into my phone it will sometimes pause or skip forward randomly. It does this when I shake the phone a little or move it around, which I assume causes the stereo plug to move a bit. I can also make it happen if I twist the cord back and forth. The phone shakes and moves a lot when I listen to music or podcasts on my phone because most of the time I'm listening either in my car or while I mow the lawn. I have kind of an old car so it shakes some when I'm idling and when I mow I keep my phone in my pocket.

It happens in different apps and with different devices plugged in. I use a normal male to male auxiliary cord in my car and I've used a few different headsets while mowing. I cannot figure out how to stop this from happening. It happened before I had my phone rooted and it happens when I have Tasker disabled also.

When used to happen is it would activate the voice search and voice dial apps but I disabled those two apps and the pausing and skipping forward started instead.

If anyone has any ideas for me to try to stop this from happening I would be very thankful.
 
What rom and kernel are you using? Have you tried a different aux cord/headphones? Does the same thing repeat without fail? Have you also tried different media players? (e.g. apollo, doubletwist, etc.)
 
I'm not using a custom rom or kernal I just have a rooted android 4.1.2 and this problem was happening before I ever rooted my phone.
I have used a basic male to male cord in my car plugged into my radio's auxiliary port and I've used a few different stereo headsets.
I use the Google Play Music app and I use Pocket Cast they both receive commands similarly regardless of what I have plugged into my phone.
 
Sounds like one of the connections in your 3.5mm socket is unable to maintain a consistent electrical contact with the plug. I'm not here to offer solutions though, just ideas. You need to do your own research.

1) Get a TRRS-TRS adapter. Several different type of adapters or cables are available. Some can split headphone and mic. Some have a controller to control playback/pause/skip. Some are simple and cheap. According to http://www.cablechick.com.au/blog/understanding-trrs-and-audio-jacks/ , there doesn't seem to be a standard so you probably need to find the right one that can work with an LG device.

2) Make your own adapter. If you have some engineering skill, check this for a starting point: http://www.wisebread.com/build-a-cable-to-control-your-android-phone-while-you-drive . If you know enough, you can probably figure out the correct resistor values or playback control signaling scheme to make it fully functional.

3) Implement a software hack or workaround.
(a) kernel level. The kernel exposes the jack's control input at /dev/input. I forget which one, but it shouldn't be too hard to figure out with the console command "getevent". Then with EVIOCGRAB, it should in theory be possible to create a process to monopolize that input.
(b) driver level. Normally for a sound device, you can use a mixer app to control the driver and mute a particular input. I don't know if Qualcomm provides such an interface or tool.
(c) OS level. According to https://github.com/dlew/android-headset-blocker , blocking the MEDIA_BUTTON intent is a problem in JB. Perhaps an Xposed module can be made to do it.
(d) app level. Find a music playing app that can ignore control signals from the headphone jack.

4) Use a bluetooth receiver. Bypass the phone's headphone jack altogether. There are both benefits and drawbacks with this option.
 
Thanks voider, I'll look into all this soon. This is the most help I've gotten since I started posting about this problem a few months ago. I've been thinking that blocking the input to the software would be the best option but could never find anything about how the commands get sent.
 
Haha, wow. I thought it was only me and my phone, funny to hear someone else having this problem. Yeah, it's super annoying when I use the aux in my car and the phone starts bugging out. Always voice search. Ugh... Does your music play at an oddly low volume as well? I have to turn my sound up in the car to half of the full volume (which is like deafening on other media) just to get a decent listening level.
 
no I don't have any volume issues since I use Tasker to auto play my chosen app and set the volume to max whenever I plug in a stereo cord. I used to have it set to kill the offending apps too so I could unplug and reinsert the cord to fix the problem some times.

Its only slightly louder than the car radio.
 
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