Earbuds connected through USB-C connect but arent able to be used as sound output

Hello, hoping for some help regarding my earbuds not being recognized through the adapter to my Fairphone 5.

I have my Moondrop Chu 2 IEMs (which work on my pc without adapter) along with an old pair of regular 3.5 jack wired headphones and i have tested both through a cheap non-brand DAC usb-c to 3.5mm jack adapter and also Fairphones very own new USB-c - 3.5mm DAC adapter, but no combination of the 2 earbuds or adapters work.

When i connect them the only change on my phone seems to be that it recognizes a connected USB under the “other devices” tab of “connected devices” settings and attempts to charge that USB. I cannot however use that connected USB device as a sound option.

When i change the sound level, press the dots at the bottom of the appeared sound bar, then press on “sound plays on: this phone”, there is simply no other option. If i then press on “connect a device” it goes to “connected devices settings” where there are only my bluetooth devices and the one connected USB device under “other devices”, when i press on that no change appears other than that i see the line “USB controlled by connected device”, which i in this case think must be my earbuds, and a bunch of different USB data transfer options which are greyed out, but i dont know what that means and i cant change the setting, it just says “unable to change setting”.

I assume the problem must be with the Fairphone 5 because the two earbuds work both with my laptop and i’ve tried two adapters, one of which bieng fairphones own, and it would be weird for both to malfunction. Does anyone know what i can do or what is wrong and in need of repair? there are no other issues with the USB-c port or the phone. Thanks.

Hello and welcome to the forum

To be absolutely sure, could you try different headphones?
Plus, there are two similar adapters sold by Fairphone

And

Could you please confirm that you have the latter?

Hello, thanks for helping. Yes it is the latter mini-jack adapter that I have tried.

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Just purely coincidentally I decided to test my headphones and my adapter and it failed as well.
But the data transfer seems not be working either so I will be double checking my usb port tomorrow for any failure

Alright. Please check back with whether or not it’s a hardware issue for you, I’m hoping it’s a system software issue that’s going to be solved with an update maybe?

hello, in my case it is a 99% hardware/connector issue as it used to work just fine. plus it is not only audio but data transfer fail.

Edited to say that I submitted a support ticket. I opened the phone, checked all the connectors, and performed the internal testing with USB3.0 failing. It was pretty straight forward and was given the option to send a phone for repair but I would rather avoid it. I hope I will be able to solve it just by swapping the USB port.

hi
just to say that after swapping my USB C port all my issues are gone and I am able to use headphones via the adapter
so it looks like the hardware issue in my case

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Hi,

I recently ran into similar issues with my Fairphone 5. Headphones connected via USB-C are suddenly not any longer detected as audio devices.

I tried different headphones, different DACs and now also changed the USB-C jack but the problem persists.

Android Version: 15

Build number: FP5.VT2K.C.076.20251222

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I recently bought a pair of headphones that support lossless audio via USB-C, and they are connected to my FP5 using the USB-C to USB-C cable provided with the headphones.

However, when I try to play audio (in my case mainly from Qobuz, but also any other media source), no sound comes out of the headphones at all. I looked online and I checked the developer settings and confirmed that “Disable USB audio routing” is turned off, so that shouldn’t be the issue.

The headphones works fine with my laptop, also using Qobuz and USB-C to USB-C connection; also when I use a USB-C to Aux 3.5 mm adapter, audio works normally with the FP5.

So the issue seems to occur only with USB-C → USB-C audio connection.

Has anyone experienced this with the FP5?
Is there a workaround to get lossless audio over USB-C working?

Thank you!

Leo

Without detailed specifications of the headphones it’s not easy to help, and I’m no audio expert.

I suggest you read around the forum and elsewhere to get an idea of the complexity of audio over USB-C. See:

and
https://forum.fairphone.com/search?q=%2Busb-c%20%2Bheadphones%20%2Bfp5%20order%3Alatest

I have the same issue as you and I can’t seem to find a solution. The same headphone set on other devices works fine so it is related to FP. I tried switching some of the developer options related to USB connections but nothing changes.

Thank you for sharing those! I had a look also around the FP community for similar issues but haven’t seem to find a solution. Most of the issues are related to USB C - Aux adapter, and that works fine on my FP5.

The headphones I tried are the Bose QC ultra (2) and what is really not working is the direct USB-C audio output,

I’ve looked online and seems that it is a common issue to some Android phones but normally the workarounds that I’ve mentioned above seem to solve it, while for me it’s not working.

So I was keen to understand if someone else with similar issues managed to toggle some USB settings to solve the issue.

so they have an internal DAC? If not I dont think they can work with a FP…

Yes, they do have an internal DAC.

I have just downloaded USB Audio Player Pro to double-check: that through that I can listen to USB-C lossless audio, while without that I can’t.

Which means that the Android/FP5 audio driver does not work/recognize with USB-C audio.

Keen to understand if this is can be solved, maybe via update or by changing some settings. In the meantime I opened a support ticket.

Same problem here (FP5, DAC-Adapter, no audio i.e. recognition as audio device).
Have you found any helpful infos or answers by the support?

USB Audio Player Pro did not help either. What settings worked for you?

FP Support was not useful, they probably did not understood the problem and how common it is within fairphone users and proposed to just send my FP5 back to get replaced, which I refused because it clearly won’t solve the problem.

As for USB Audio Player Pro, to me it work immediately. As soon as I download (and payed) for the app I was able (and I still am) to stream from my Qobuz account with lossless USB audio. As for the phone settings you can check if under media your “disable USB routing audio” option is toggled off, that might be a problem if on. (if you don’t find the setting you need to activate developer options)