[Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite Guides, News, & Discussion] corphish:
Issue

When the headphones (the ones that are bundled with the phone, but I guess it applies for others as well) are plugged in, audio will work in headphones for few seconds (or minutes, if you are lucky), and then the audio will stop (or rather, pause) playing, as if your headphones are disconnected. I tried with music players only, because when headphone is disconnected while music is being played, the music playback will be paused, not sure what happens while playing games but I think audio will start playing from speakers. Anyway, going albeit in depth, when headphones are plugged in, I get a notification from "Samsung USB-C headset" which would say "Checking firmware version", audio can be played via headphones during this time though (naturally), the notification would stay on for quite a few seconds and then disappear (not sure what this thing actually does during this time but OK), audio would still play from headphones, only until you get another notification from Samsung USB-C headset. When this happens, any audio playback will be paused or routed to the speakers as if the headphones are disconnected. You can press the play button in the music player app that you were using to resume playback (can't tell what happens while playing games, because haven't tried), and the audio will play from headphones (sometimes it would play via speakers as well), and it will continue until you receive the same notification again, and this goes on and on. The cycle is like: Plug in headphones -> receive notification -> play audio -> receive notification again which pauses playback -> play audio again -> receive notification again which pauses playback -> .... and it goes on like this.

This is a very frustrating issue as it will make it impossible to use the headphones as this thing repeats itself in intervals of few seconds. Sure, one can use wireless headphones but there are many people like me who prefer the wired ones over the wireless ones. Nonetheless, for normal users this will look like a headphone disconnection issue, and audio via headphone is a basic thing for a phone (or at least, it should be), and having it basically broken is straight unacceptable.

Cause

So like I was saying, we were getting notifications from the Samsung USB-C headset app which caused this disconnection behavior. "Samsung USB-C headset" is a system app by Samsung which kinda manages the firmware versions and codecs and stuffs like that. I haven't checked the logs, and cannot really say for sure, but its the version 1.2.05 version of this app that is causing all these troubles, I think its broken and Samsung needs to fix it ASAP.

That being a system app, it is not possible to disable or downgrade it, I tried various ways to do so, but its no longer possible (for system apps).

Ways to fix

Factory reset - Yes yes I know factory reset won't be a feasible option for many as it can be a bit tedious to go through the backup and the restore process that follows, especially when it is your primary phone (which is why I mentioned "ways to fix" and not "solution"), but yeah, factory reset will fix this issue. What factory reset will do is it will "downgrade" the Samsung USB-C headset app to version 1.1.51, and this version seems to work correctly. When you plug in your headphones, it will say a firmware update is available, simply follow the steps (basically dont unplug headphones while update is in progress), and it will work fine from then on, no issue. Btw, I am on June security patch at the time of writing this. From my observation, I would suggest to not update the Samsung USB-C headset app, and let it be in version 1.1.51. To prevent auto update, go to galaxy store, disable auto updates (luckily this is not there in play store).

This is a software problem, not hardware and Samsung needs to fix this ASAP.

TLDR;

Issue - Wired headphones keeps on disconnecting frequently.

Ways to fix - Factory reset and prevent auto updating Samsung USB-C headset app. Otherwise wait for Samsung to fix.