EarPods button not working in iOS 26.1 is there a fix for this?

[the8thark]

Hi everyone,

I am on iOS 26.1 and have an iPhone SE3. When I use the wired EarPods, the two volume buttons on the ear pods cable work just fine. But the middle play/stop button no longer works.

This is a shame as I use that button a lot to play/pause and move forward and back tracks when listening to the music app.

I feel it’s not the EarPods themselves being faulty as they worked just fine on iOS 26.0. But now in iOS 26.1 all of a sudden the button no longer works.

I feel this might be an issue with the new iOS update.

Has anyone else noticed this?
Would anyone know of a fix for this?
Everything I have tried through my own research on this has not worked.

Thank you

 

[the8thark]

After doing some more testing in this I seems the EarPods are fine. They the button works for things like accepting and ending calls.

It’s just not with the music app where it does not work when it did they on iOS26.0

I’ll keep looking in to this to see if there is a fix.

Would anyone know about a fix for this?

 

[Lulu77]

iPhone 12pro, recently updated to iOS26.2. I did not update to iOS earlier. Since the update, I have had the same problem with podcasts. The earPods playback controls are not working, but volume does. I thought it was my EarPods, but I had the same problem with another set that works fine in another device.