Android 14 // One UI 6.1 // s21 Ultra // all sound non-functional

[HaywireKnight]

I'm moderately technical but I can't find any reference to this sorta thing anywhere.

As mentioned above here are my phone specs.
Android 14,
One UI 6.1
s21 Ultra

Currently all audio from any source is non-functional.
This seems to have happened after my phone completely discharged and came back, audio was working fine previously.
Tested the below
Calls, podcasts via Podcast Addict, Tiktok, Youtube, and local ringtones and any other sound making app I could think of.

It does not seem to be directly related to the physical speakers as Bluetooth devices have the same issue, no audio playback from any source.

This seems to be a system related issue as I'm getting a few seemingly related error messages.
This one is from Podcast addict.


Trying to change to any ringtone, even preinstalled ringtones shows.
"Sorry, the player does not support this type of audio file."

Videos from sources like TikTok and Instagram, sometimes stutter and fail to playback as well.

I've done everything that I can personally think
ran an update,
power cycled multiple times,
went into safe mode,
reset an increasing amount of setting culminating in a full factory reset after backing my phone up.

Issue has continued even after a full reset.

I'm at my wits end, any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

 

[SpookDroid]

Unfortunately if this didn't go away with a Factory Reset, chances are very high that this is a hardware issue, not a software one. One thing I'd try is to run the Hardware Test menu and see if any of the audio hardware ones fail or not. And other than taking it to a Samsung repair center, I don't know of a way to install a 'clean' factory image (except maybe manually downloading one and installing on a rooted phone). But it's really likely that this is jut a hardware problem at this point.

 

[HaywireKnight]

Well shoot, I was afraid of that.
I'll try the hardware test menu shortly and report back.

Regardless, thank you for pointing me in a direction!

 

[SpookDroid]

You may be able to try to update via SmartSwitch on a computer...

 

[HaywireKnight]

Most recent iteration of Smart Switch has gotten extremely simple in its settings.
2 options, backup and restore, nothing else like it used to have.

Just to add insult to injury, MMI codes aren't working on my phone for some reason.
Makes me think I'm just gonna have to bite the bullet take it to a Samsung repair center.

Thanks for the assist though, second opinion helped point me the right way.

I'll post here again if I get any new information from them.

 

[SpookDroid]

Good luck!

 

[HaywireKnight]

Lagged a bit, but I got my phone checked out.
Couple updates.

According to the Samsung repair spot, I couldn't use the hardware test codes since my provider's Verizon and they block it.

A couple other issues I noticed while using it, camera wouldn't open at all anymore, certain games wouldn't launch.
And if I could mute videos on Instagram they would play, but not if it was trying to output any audio.
So A LOT of things were barely working.

For the actual issue, based on their diagnostic it looks like at minimum that small board at the bottom of the phone had gone out, but could have potentially been a bigger main board problem. So def a hardware issue.
I'd had this phone for nearly 4 years, so I decided to just trade it in and upgrade to a new one while it still had some value.



Thanks again for the help, hopefully this last update helps somebody.