Chosen Solution
My mute button fell off today. I have the button and studied it close and saw the adhesive had just let go from the button to the boss that it goes on. I carefully glued it back on and noticed that it does not change the phone to vibrate when you switch it. It made me realize that it, in fact, hasn’t been working for about a week now. I thought something was funny with it, but I dismissed it as my error. What’s involved in fixing it? Could the connector just have come loose on the switch? Or is it a bad switch? No way to tell, I don’t guess. Any place you can get the new switch, if that’s what’s needed?
The mute switch with the red dot on it actually sits on top of another switch which is located on the headphone jack assembly (this part comes built into the assembly), the mute switch simply toggles this switch. Essentially it’s a piece of plastic with no other gadgetry attached/built into it. If the mute switch has ‘fallen off’, I imagine that it’s cracked/broken off because there’s no way it can fit through the whole in the casing if it was still in one piece. A replacement is v cheap, but the fitting of it isn’t that easy, if you following the headphone jack assembly guide on this site it should sort you out (patience required).
is your iPhone still under warranty? I’ve heard of other people with this problem getting it taken care of by Apple edit: oops I just re-read your question and sounds like you already tried repairing it once, so I guess you may already be out of warranty…
Same thing just happened to my phone. The button just fell off and I have no more warrenty. I’m trying to find out if there is anything that can be done to fix it.
I bought the button off of ebay for about $4. In the meantime, I found a post that had a close up of the switch and realized the button didn’t “break”, but rather the glue came off. I glued it back on. However, the problem with mine, above, is that that button stopped working, along with the volume control. I took it apart and found a connection had come lose. I plugged it back in, and now it works fine and I have my mute switch glued back on. However, if the glue fails, I still have the backup button I got from ebay. Very easy fixes.
