521 sound issue

[mihnat]

I have had a Nokia 521 since May (actually two - suffice to say they don't wash too well!). Both phones have had a similar issue over time, leading me to do a complete reset and installation. The sound from the external speaker suddenly goes to almost no sound at all with any app, including the phone itself and the headphones have a little sound with crackles. The last time this happened I also got a weird error on XBox music that said the music & video app couldn?t find the "media usage rights" for songs to play them so it just kept forwarding from song to song, looking for something to play and finding nothing. I do use earbud headphones (Meelectronics M6 - great phones for the price!), used Spotify to listen to music the first time this happened and now XBox music and the 521 has the amber update. I am also not sure what app I was using before this happened - I think it was spotify the first time and the last time perhaps HERE Drive. Uninstalling/reinstalling apps and restarting the phone didn?t take care of the problem. A hard reset and re-installation does work. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

 

[realwarder]

Did a power down and power on make any difference? Subtly different from a regular restart in that more hardware would be 100% powered off.

 

[mihnat]

Thanks for the idea! I tried simply turning off and back on the phone and also tried holding the power button together with the volume down button to restart. Is the latter what you are talking about or is it something different? I didn’t try taking out the battery/micro SIM card and putting back in. Maybe I should have tried that.

 

[ffhounddog]

I think I have the same issue. My phone works with earbuds but I cannot hear on the handset. I can use speaker phone but I do not have sound when I play music. This all started this weekend when I roaming. Got home and no sound for me unless I use earbuds. I did turn off bluetooth since that is not working for me either.

 

[mihnat]

Ugh, sorry that you are having the same issue but I am glad I wasn’t hallucinating. It sounds a lot like my issue! A hard reset (to default settings) does correct this but I am not sure what is causing it and whether there is an answer short of a complete reset. If you do reset, be sure you have your app list/settings, text messages and photos backed up to the cloud because you can recover those at least (still takes maybe 1.5 hr to get the phone back from the reset). Thanks so much for your input!