[solved] FP4 primary microphone not working

/e/OS Devices Fairphone
1

Hello there.
This post will be both a question and an answer.

I have been having an issue with my primary microphone for some time. Nobody could hear me in calls, voice messages would display a seemingly okay wave on preview, but in actuality will only play some noise from second and third noise-cancelling microphones (ironic), Fairphone Checkup will do the same, silence on primary mic, some noise on secondary.

I have thought this must be a problem with /e/. Hardware issue is possible too, but I very much doubted a simple thing like a microphone would fail in 2 years this day and age.
However, I do not make calls and voice messages often, so I just largely ignored this, made occasional calls with a loudspeaker and horrible sound quality from my side.

Now for a bunch of reasons I decided to get to the bottom of this. Read through a lot of Gitlab issues, forum posts here, on FP forums, on iFixit, etc. No dice.

And then I looked at the dust inside the hole. I’ve noticed it before, but never truly believed dust could provide such a perfect sound seal. But what did I have to lose at this point?

I cleared it, and voila, the mic works perfectly again.
Musicians pay attention, a completely free and functionally impenetrable sound proofing.

Everyone else, CLEAN YOUR HOLES.

I did this with a toothpick, because

  1. Mine doesn’t fit too deep, it quickly widens and hits the hole edge;
  2. I disassembled the phone completely before this to figure out where the microphones are located, and AFAI understood they are on the mainboard, and the holes in the case are just routed to their position with some type of rubber/silicone right angle sound tunnels, so it seemed unlikely I could damage the mic with a toothpick.

I do not guarantee you will not break your mic when cleaning the hole with a toothpick, if you are not comfortable with this try using a vacuum cleaner or pressurized air, maybe dissolving the dust dam with some alcohol first (but be careful with those rubber/silicone tunnels. Silicone will not care, but if it’s rubber, it might).

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