No sound from Nokia N8’s speakers?

The loudspeakers on my N8 have stopped working. There’s sound through the call speaker, and sound will come through the headphones, but anything through the loudspeaker cannot be heard.

I thought an app I recently installed for review just didn’t have sound, but it appears that it’s actually my N8. Video audio, music player audio, calls set on loudspeaker etc will NOT play through the loudspeaker.

Some other folks seem to have experienced this too:

• http://discussions.nokia.co.uk/t5/Nseries-and-S60-Smartphones/Nokia-N8-no-Sound-in-Speaker/td-p/1050959
• http://forum.gsmhosting.com/vbb/archive/t-1224650.html
•  http://www.nokian8forum.com/nokia-n8-troubleshooting/loudspeaker-problem/
• http://discussions.nokia.co.uk/t5/Nseries-and-S60-Smartphones/N8-Speaker-has-no-audio/td-p/1011609

Hard reset does not work. All that does is strangely remove Ovi Store from your phone. (I’ve tried the CNN APP+Ovi Store work around to no avail 🙁 HOWEVER, amazingly, Ovi Store is just there in the software update section and I’ve got mine back now ).

On the up side, my N8 is at a good speed again. It’s a bit annoying that a reset is required to keep a phone speedy over time. Symbian is more like Windows in that aspect that Windows Phone :p.

For UK owners, certain hardware issues have to be fixed by authorised Nokia care points.

 http://www.nokia.co.uk/home/find-a-store/store-locator

There’s only two now in Wales and they’re in ever more awkward areas. One I used to go to closed. Fortunately I’m not really in that much of a rush so I’ll possibly wait until I get back to Manchester to get it fixed.

This speaker issue DOESN’T seem to be a widespread problem based on the search results. You can find similar threads for other phones.

e.g. http://forums.ilounge.com/iphone/234872-iphone-external-speakers-have-stopped-working.html

If the speaker problem happens to you, don’t hard reset. Back up your stuff and prepare to bring your phone  to a Nokia Care point. When you’re at the care point, you can wipe your data by the old *#7370# that removes everything on the phone and mass memory. Your memory card, if you have one, remains.

– UPDATE: Now it seems the loudspeaker words intermittently for half a second and then it will just have no sound. So it’s still working, but for some reason, something is turning it off.

– Update 2: It appears to be as suggested in comments, a loose connection. Play some music on the N8 and tap it to see if sound will come back. Mine did, but it will go off again. It’s like an unintentional accelerometer based sound control :p Still needs a trip to Nokia Care, but not until I gets me some Anna 😀

Category: Nokia, Rant