LG Ally: Sound only works (media and calls namely) with headphones. (Solution)

Question

I recently had a problem with my phone that was driving me crazy for the past few days.
The problem in particular was:
When i would answer phone calls, i would hear nothing on the other side of the call. In addition i was unable to watch Youtube videos and listen to the sound on the phone's speakers. Even more peculiar was that i would hear my ringtones and notification sounds, which i could also listen to when playing the sounds for fun.
Now it seems like its a fairly common problem for those who have the same kind of phone that i do, so i dabbled in the number of solutions:
- restarting my phone
-turning my phone off and taking out the battery for 30 seconds (which i did, but left the battery out for much longer than specified)
-restored factory settings (which erased a lot of apps and what not in the process)
Note that im only stating all this just to clear up what the problem was and what i tried to do to fix it. and i actually found the solution on this site:
http://androidforums.com/lg-ally/112076-interesting-problem-no-media-volume.html
If you don't care to skim through the posts the solution is this:
The Headphone Jack is (most likely) dirty/dusty/etc.  The cleaning formula Pro Gold/De-oxit is recommended, but i found that thinning out a Q-tip so that it can fit in to the jack, then spinning it around inside helps just as well. There was a noticable amount of dirt, and once removed i tried the music app on my phone without headphones only to have it play music again. (Also: I blew into the headphone jack as well. I figured it might have been dirty and from someone who used to play the NES, this is a very common practice.)
Anyway i hope this helps out anyone with this problem in the future. So try to find this before you return your phone and/or restore factory settings.

Answer 1

Good post!  I had a problem similar to this a while back with my Eris where the headphone icon would stay in the notification bar.  I had to use basically the same solution (I think I used a toothpick, though a Q-Tip is probably safer).  I do find it funny that you blew into the hole, as I did the same thing, also being a former NES player.  Why did that always work?!?