The OnePlus Buds are some of our favorite true wireless earbuds on the market, and their price makes them a cheap alternative to the Apple AirPods. But beware: Some OnePlus Buds owners have encountered an issue that might make future owners think twice about buying them.

Several users on the OnePlus community forums (via Android Police) have apparently encountered an issue where the left earbud fails for no reason, and there’s seemingly no way to bring it back to life. These users claim the left earbud simply stopped playing audio after just a few days of usage. Touch gestures continue to work, but they no longer play sound. Resetting the OnePlus Buds doesn’t appear to remedy the issue.

It’s difficult to say what's going on. One user was apparently able to get their left earbud working again by turning their phone’s Bluetooth off and then on again. But that doesn't sound like it's a universal fix. It could be something to do with software, in which case an update would fix the issue. Here’s hoping it’s not hardware related, because if that’s the case, that’s a pretty major defect.

OnePlus is allegedly issuing replacements to those encountering the issue under warranty. However, one OnePlus Buds user said even their replacement exhibited problems. That doesn’t bode well for the potential longevity of the earbuds, especially when there’s seemingly no rhyme or reason behind their failure.

When a new product is released, we always expect there to be some level of failure. But there appear to be enough complaints about the same issue that suggests a pattern is emerging, and it's worrying.

To be fair, in our review of the OnePlus Buds, we didn’t encounter any such issue, and found that the earbuds offer excellent sound, especially for the price. We reached out to OnePlus regarding this issue and were offered the following statement: “OnePlus is aware of this issue and we are investigating.” Once we have a better idea of what’s going on, we’ll be sure to update this post.