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Issue dialing 911 on Google Pixel 6 cell phones

330 points by vpt 4y ago

vpt 4y ago
Here is the associated Google Pixel subreddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/z3knqv/action_news_jax_investigates_very_scary_issue/ https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/z3knqv/action_...
- simfree 4y ago
  I don't think this is newsworthy at this point. My Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 both are unreliable when trying to call 911, calling with an over the top app or dialing the PSAP's number directly are the only workarounds. Google doesn't give a fuck about this issue. I have filed repeated support cases over the past year with Google about this when using T-Mobile or Verizon.
  - conradfr 4y ago
    I would say a life or death years old bug still present in the newest model (on which I'm writing this) is newsworthy. Although I'm not sure how there's no legal repercussion here?
  - ImHereToVote 4y ago
    - Yoric 4y ago
      How so?
      - hh3k0 4y ago
        Club of Rome often lamented human overpopulation, so the user you’ve been replying to will undoubtedly share some far-fetched conspiracy theory that won’t make a lick of sense.
        ImHereToVote 4y ago
        I should have prefaced my post with "a modest proposal"
    - yreg 4y ago
      That makes little sense. "It's the users who are wrong" ideology applies when you tell the customers they are holding the iPhone 4 wrong. Or when you ask them whether they don't have phones when you reveal the next Diablo as mobile-only. No company would argue that users are wrong and that they are not supposed to dial emergency services.
  - creshal 4y ago
    Google already didn't give a fuck about 911 problems (or 112 in my case) on the Pixel 4a, those have been unfixed since release. Google doesn't seem to care that dead people don't make for good customers.
    - amelius 4y ago
      And FTC doesn't give a fuck about choice for consumers.
  - curiousgal 4y ago
    Pixel 6 is the last Google phone I bought, after owning every single Pixel up until that point. A company who fucks up this badly is not worth my money.
  - fanatic2pope 4y ago
    I have a Pixel 7, and I am curious how do you test the reliability of calling 911? I assume you don't actually call 911 and say "just testing!"
- Aissen 4y ago
  Most interesting is a user story[1] shared giving an idea of how often this happens: 3 times over 8 months, with ~5 calls a week. We could round it at around 1% error rate. It's both relatively low (as a chance it happens to you), and extremely high (I can't imagine how many people might have the issue and not be aware of it!). I'm sure there are other conditions that aren't identified here, but this definitely warrants more regulatory scrutiny. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/z3knqv/comment/ixn2422/ https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/z3knqv/comment...
karteum 4y ago
Is it a Google issue or a Qualcomm issue ? (e.g. does it occur when using Calyxos/GrapheneOS/LineageOS instead of the raw Google Android OS ?)
- Freak_NL 4y ago
  I have a Pixel 6 running GrapheneOS, and the one time I called 112 in the Netherlands it worked. Hard to extrapolate from that one data point though. It's a bit of a bother that this is not something you can test at any reasonable scale. “Just testing if my call gets through” is not something you want to see inundating emergency call centres.
  - lesquivemeau 4y ago
    112 worked for me in France when i had to call, pixel 6 running stock firmware... It sure is hard to reproduce
  - preisschild 4y ago
    AFAIK this only occurs when you have Microsoft Teams installed.
    - Underphil 4y ago
      Can't help thinking dialling emergency services should trigger a force close of everything non-essential on the phone.
- hocuspocus 4y ago
  The Pixel 6 has a Samsung SoC and 5G modem. If the Exynos based Samsung phones were also affected you'd have heard about it a lot more and earlier.
  - qqqturing2 4y ago
    I had a Samsung 5G Exynos and when one time I couldn't call 112 (emergency number in Europe). Tried over and over. Even restarted my phone but the phone line was silent when it answered.
newaccount2021 4y ago
Aachen 4y ago
Let's just spell it out instead of this clickbait title: Dialing the local emergency number (112, 000, and 911 were reported, but presumably also others) sometimes doesn't work, just gives a click instead of dialing. Google blames third party apps. Users report similar issues since Pixel 4 that were reported to Google but haven't been resolved since release. Not like "911 doesn't ring" is much longer of a title than "very scary issue with dialing 911". It just sounds ever so slightly less like a horror movie.
- alpaca128 4y ago
  Nothing about your explanation refutes that this is a very scary issue. Third-party apps or not, a phone that can't call emergency services in every situation other than empty battery should be treated by the government like food that can potentially poison people.
  - throwaway290 4y ago
    you posit "911 doesn't ring sometimes" ∈ "very scary issue with a phone", that's correct title implies "911 doesn't ring sometimes" ∈ "very scary issue dialing 911", that is incorrect frankly "doesn't ring" is probably the most routine issue that can happen when dialing a number the comment you respond to responds to article title and posits "911 doesn't ring sometimes" ∉ "very scary issue dialing 911"
    - zinekeller 4y ago
      "911 doesn't ring sometimes" in this context means that there's good signal and can call non-emergency numbers using ordinary phone networks, but for some reason can't handle emergency calls correctly (and yes, you could call the GSM-wise non-emergency but legally-wise long emergency number for your area normally, it's just you're more likely to not know it in an actual emergency). That's not just "scary", it's a life-threatening defect similar to a faulty airbag (where you don't need it now but it must work in an emergency).
      - 4y ago
edent 4y ago
When I used to work for a large mobile network, we would spend ages testing the firmware of new devices. Even giants (at the time) like Nokia would release phones which couldn't dial the emergency services, or put out more than the legal limit of radiation, or were in other ways defective. We'd test, send a report back, wait a few weeks, get a new firmware, test again, repeat until everything worked. It took months. That was fine when phones weren't expected to be updated by users. But when more modern phones arrived with flashable firmware, customers couldn't stand the delays associated with testing. They'd see a new firmware had been released and complained that the mobile network operators were delaying progress, dragging our feet, deliberately depriving customers of something cool. The fact was, operators very often didn't certify the firmware because it contained *dangerous* bugs. I'm sure there was also a cost element - why pay to re-test a phone that you're no longer selling? - but that wasn't the primary driver. Well, the manufacturers and customers "won". If you buy a phone through your network, it probably has a network-certified firmware blob. If not, you're at the mercy of the manufacturer.
- thih9 4y ago
  Sounds like you’re unhappy that people didn’t want the network to be responsible for checking against bugs. But would the opposite actually be fine? What about people who buy their phones from the manufacturers?
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  How would you have tested 911 dialling? Did you go all the way to a real operator?
  - edent 4y ago
    Yes. From memory we had a specific SIM which was registered with 999. We dialled up, gave a password of the day, and asked them what info they could see about the call. They could see IMSI, IMEI, Cell Location and other things like that. (A couple of decade ago now - my memory might be inaccurate.)
    - 4y ago
constantcrying 4y ago
Is there any theory or explanation why this happens? "Third party apps" is totally vague, what third party app could stop you from dialing an emergency number? And even if such apps exist (or even are common) is it not a huge design flaw by itself, which the manufacturer has to remedy?
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago
  Not sure why they don't say it by name but the bug was originally found with MS Teams. "The issue is the result of an “unintended interaction” between Teams and Android, specifically when the users have the app installed but are not logged in to any account." [0] [0] https://www.androidauthority.com/google-pixel-microsoft-teams-911-calling-bug-3073107/ https://www.androidauthority.com/google-pixel-microsoft-team...
  - constantcrying 4y ago
    Thanks! Still very weird to be honest.
  - lultimouomo 4y ago
    So users who join Teams calls but refuse to login cannot call 911, and die. Seems in line with the general Teams ethos to be honest.
    - n0tth3dro1ds 4y ago
      Unless Teams is abusing private APIs or acting in other nefarious ways, this is 1000% a problem with Android itself. It shouldn’t be possible to break emergency service call operation through normal usage (or even naive usage) of the public APIs on the system. To blame Teams here is completely backwards.
      - lultimouomo 4y ago
        Of course it is an Android problem. But as someone who is forced to use Teams, it is hard not to see irony in the situation.
mahathu 4y ago
> “So this is what happens on my brand new $1,000 Google phone when I try to call 911.” How old is this story? The news report is from 2 days ago, but surely in 2022 the person filming the TikTok video wouldn't call a Pixel 6 a "brand new $1,000 Google phone"?
- Caporal 4y ago
  Old enough to influence people a few days before Black Friday I guess.
- jakub_g 4y ago
  It's not $1000 anymore but you can still buy "brand new" Pixel 6 in retail stores in EU.
  - happymellon 4y ago
    We don't call 911.
    - iggldiggl 4y ago
      Which leads to a different problem, because at least a few Android versions ago (or maybe even today?), the emergency call dialler didn't necessarily recognise all the different country-specific emergency numbers. E.g. in Germany the European standard of 112 is only natively used for fire brigade and ambulance, whereas the police's native emergency number is 110 – but you couldn't dial the latter from the lockscreen without unlocking your phone.
    - LadyCailin 4y ago
      From a mobile, you can. And anyways, I would actually be even less confident that Google correctly implemented 112 support than 911.
rerenjkl 4y ago
- crooked-v 4y ago
  It's not a network problem. It's a side effect of that Android version letting apps register to take over calling functions (for, e.g., VOIP purposes), when then makes emergency calls fail if any of the apps that have registered that functionality don't handle it properly.
  - ddalex 4y ago
    Do you mean users install apps that are buggy, and this is somehow Androids fault? At the same time, if Android wouldn't allow VoIP apps, it would be somehow at fault again ?
    - crooked-v 4y ago
      It's absolutely Android's fault that it allows a buggy app to interfere with emergency calls, and Google agrees, given that in later Android versions they tore out the code that allowed anything but OS handling for emergency calls placed through the default phone app.
    - theshrike79 4y ago
      There is no reasonable way a normal user could suspect that buying a phone from one of the biggest companies in the world (Google) and installing a very common application from another huge company (Microsoft) will result in their phone no longer being able to dial the emergency number. This is most definitely Google's fault for allowing emergency calls to be overridden and not having a fallback if the override fails.
    - zinekeller 4y ago
      Most custom versions of Android (in this context, non-Pixel phones) have actually hardcoded that all emergency calls (especially in lock screens) be routed into a different, lightweight, for-emergency-only dialer. Google has known about this but didn't do anything to also provide a hardcoded override. Edit: and apparently recent Android versions, but I can't confirm that.
deleted 4y ago
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crooked-v 4y ago
This article, dating back to January, lays it out pretty clearly: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/01/google-fixes-nightmare-android-bug-that-stopped-user-from-calling-911/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/01/google-fixes-nightma... > If you're logged out, launching Microsoft Teams 10 times will result in 10 duplicate PhoneAccounts from Teams clogging your phone. Teams shouldn't do this, and Microsoft's update stopped Teams from doing this, but a bunch of duplicate PhoneAccounts also shouldn't be enough to bring Android's phone system to its knees. > Next bug: when picking a PhoneAccount to run the emergency call through, [...] it's possible for this to result in an integer overflow or underflow, and now the phone subsystem is going to crash. > A third bug in this mess is that Microsoft Teams does not even register itself as an emergency call handler. > An update is not arriving for the Pixel 6 yet. Google's newest flagship is going though a bit of an update crisis at the moment. The December 2021 update was pulled due to unrelated "mobile connectivity issues" (phone calls don't work). While Google scrambles to fix everything, the next Pixel 6 update with this 911 fix is due in "late January." Until then, it's normal to be on the November patch. Both of Google's "early January" and "late January" patch timelines seem incredibly slow for a bug that could cause users to literally die. If the OP article is correct, then apparently this still hasn't actually been fixed yet.
- paganel 4y ago
  If I get this right, we have a $1+ trillion company not being able to build a basic functionality into their phones? (like "phone calls don't work" and the whole calling 911 issue). And, apparently, that was happening because of a shitty app built by another $1+ trillion company? In terms of innovation the US tech scene is toast with these dinosaurs.
  - mitchdoogle 4y ago
    Bugs happen everywhere, to everyone. The fact that it happened is not a surprise - the lack of an immediate fix is what is concerning
    - semi-extrinsic 4y ago
theCrowing 4y ago
Ah yes... the yearly pixel/nexus emergency call bug. I would say it's a total shame for Google that they really have repeating probably life threatening bugs in their phones but they don't seem to care at all.
- cube00 4y ago
  Google's reply to the reporter in the story says it all: We don't have any comment to provide. They do not care, people need to stop trusting their lives to this company.
  - CydeWeys 4y ago
    Oh come on. "No comment" is always what a company says in a situation like this, where saying anything else might hurt them in a future lawsuit. It doesn't mean they don't care, it means they have lawyers with the bare minimum level of competency.
    - cube00 4y ago
      I've seen statements that at least pretend like the company cares and the steps they are taking to deal with the issue. Something along the lines of "the safety of our users is our highest priority and we are investigating these reports", no admissions, no legal risk, but they couldn't even do that much.
      - ChoHag 4y ago
      - jakear 4y ago
        > "the safety of our users is our highest priority and we are investigating these reports", no admissions, no legal risk That statement contains both admissions and legal risk! If they aren't actually investigating the reports (entirely possible), it's a lie. If they don't actually mark "safety" bugs p1 (almost certainly possible), it's a lie.
puyoxyz 4y ago
Again?! This is, like, the third or fourth time I’ve heard of Pixels not being able to call emergency services.
- lsajdn872he 4y ago
  Pretty sure it's the same old issue and people just haven't updated.
dm319 4y ago
I'm all over the place with pocket computing devices and remain confused. I once has an iphone. Beautifully crafted, both inside and out, but so frustratingly locked down that I was desperate to leave it behind. They have progressively opened up the platform, but it always lags behind (I remember I couldn't access the cloud storage from anything other than a mac). My favourite devices have been more alternative. E90 running symbian, which was fairly 'open' for its time - I could install any software, proper multitasking. The N900 also, full linux system, great phone. But then the apps I find useful, are often not available for that platform. At the moment I'm on Pixel, which has been a good balance between being well supported, while still fairly open. I can sideload apps, run a linux distro in the form of termux. As a bonus the camera is great. I have to remind myself that while it might not quite compare to iphones in terms of refinement and hardware, I do at least have more freedom on the platform, and it's easy to take that for granted until you lose it.
- vbezhenar 4y ago
  I’m in a similar position. I used iPhone for years but after they started to remove important apps from AppStore I decided to move to pixel. UX is terrible and unpolished. Hardware is just bad. But I can sideload and that’s more important.
  - nvr219 4y ago
    What app did they remove that you used?
    - generalpf 4y ago
      Oh, you know the ones.
      - komali2 4y ago
        No I don't, which do you mean?
        4y ago
canbus 4y ago
This kind of thing makes me want to use a 'dumbphone' as my daily driver..
djhworld 4y ago
Are there reports of similar problems outside of the US, e.g. dialling 999 in the UK from a pixel phone?
- Havoc 4y ago
  FYI memorizing 112 is probably a better idea. It's baked into GSM spec and gets redirected to the right country end-point (like 999 for UK) in most of the world. Same difference while in UK, but good habit for travelling.
  - Archipelagia 4y ago
    For my experience, when possible it's better to use the more direct number – that extra layer of redirection takes only a minute or two, but in an emergency that can be a lot.
    - mekkkkkk 4y ago
      How can a redirection take minutes?! And do you at least get some relaxing elevator music for you to remain calm while watching your house burn down?
      - Archipelagia 4y ago
        Nah, I don't mean just the "please hold the line." But most of all redirection means that you need to explain the situation to two different operators before the response is sent.
hopfog 4y ago
I've seen many reports of this on Pixel phones but I experienced something very similar on another Android phone (it was either Moto G5 or OnePlus One): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29494820 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29494820
Jemm 4y ago
Unusable website
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
exabrial 4y ago
On my pixel 4 it failed to call 911 when i needed it once. The phone literally crashed and hung up. But here you know what worked really well? Google tracking me all over the Internet… that never once failed!
- wholinator2 4y ago
  Well, I'm being pedantic but how do you know Google tracking never once failed? It could fail 50 times a day in strange circumstances but work just often enough to keep the approximate trail without you being aware. In fact, I'm nearly certain that just due to the ubiquity of Googles tracking, it's vastly more likely to break than the phone services. Now, each of these have very different meanings and severity and all concern is certainly warranted but if you do, I would be interested in how you're tracking google's tracking
- ars 4y ago
  Google tracking fails me all the time. I check my timeline on Google maps, and it's wrong more often than it's right.
GrabbinD33ze69 4y ago
Maybe this is a 'straw man', but this is what I refer to when I say I prefer iPhones for their reliability and stability, or at least what I perceive to be more reliable than most android phones. The closest issue I can recall on iPhone was that issue where saying some nonsense to siri caused an erroneous dialing of 911. I get it, this is sorta a one off thing, but it irks me when super basic functionality of the phone is unstable, such as making a literal phone call.
nsteel 4y ago
As an end user today with a Pixel 6, what am I supposed to do if I can't rely on them to get this right? I NEED 999 to work. If not for me, then the people around me. Am I supposed to go and ring 999 to test it after every major update until Google gives an actual statement on the condition of their shitty product that has failed the most important use-case? That doesn't scale and if nothing else, Google should understand a scaling problem...
- Marsymars 4y ago
  > As an end user today with a Pixel 6, what am I supposed to do if I can't rely on them to get this right? Buy a Pixel Watch! I’m sure emergency dialling won’t be broken on both the watch and phone at the same time! But in seriousness, I personally just accept that cell phones aren’t a bulletproof way of accessing emergency services. At any point in time, my phone could be out of service, out of battery, dropped and broken, unconnected due to a network outage, etc. An emergency services bug is a qualitative difference, not a quantitative one. I qualitatively increase my odds of being able to access emergency services by running redundant systems - I have a VoIP landline, my partner has a cell phone with a different OS/mobile network than me, I carry a PLB if I’m in the wild. (I plan on getting an LTE-capable watch at some point - the Pixel Watch is quite unappealing for the price though.) (Will probably switch from PLB to sat messenger when the battery on this expires, which will double as an emergency service contact backup.)
- ChoHag 4y ago
- jerlam 4y ago
  Do you have any local emergency non-999 numbers? I have saved the numbers for the local emergency dispatch numbers for the cities around me, along with the non-emergency ones. This is also where directing specific people around you to call 999 (or calling on another person's phone) is a backup plan.
hilbert42 4y ago
Frankly, that this situation happened at all is outrageous and certifying bodies should take steps to ensure it's no longer possible for it to happen. The solution is to mandate that emergency numbers be hardwired into phones and thus their operation could not be overwritten by any software whether it be the phone's operating system or any user app. Moreover, it would make sense for all phones, irrespective of country of origin, to include emergency numbers from all countries, i.e: 911, 112, 000 and any others I'm not aware of. Moreover, all emergency numbers should work—that is no matter what emergency number is dialed it still should connect to the local emergency number. This is important because tourists/travelers in a different country may be unaware of the emergency number for the country they are visiting. Whilst roaming, the phone would recognize its location by actual location and the carrier its connected to and it would dial the correct number even when the user dials his/her home emergency number. This is not just a nice hypothetical, there have been multiple instances of US citizens visiting Australia where I am and dialing 911 in an emergency and failing to connect with the local one. Here, as in Europe, the mobile number is 112 and the landline one 000. Why this wasn't a part of the original ITU 'G' roaming specs is anyone's guess but it's an obvious and very dumb omission.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  This has nothing to do with the problem of different numbers.
NelsonMinar 4y ago
Most of the discussion here is related to 911-specific bugs in Pixel. But there's also generic cellular communications bugs, and based on what I see on Reddit it's widely experienced but not well understood. The symptom I see is nothing cellular works sometimes until I put the phone in airplane mode and back again. Networking software bug? Problem with the cellular tower? I have no idea. But it seems very common on Pixel 6. I probably won't buy another Google made phone because of it.
Eleison23 4y ago
In these United States, there are now two emergency numbers which can be dialed: 911 and 988, for mental health crises. The last time I removed the SIM from my Android phone, I tested 988; unsurprisingly I was not able to contact the service because the phone denied access. If your phone doesn't recognize 988 as a bona fide, legitimate emergency number, it's time to request a firmware update. 988 has been years in the making, and firmware developers should have made it a priority to put it on the whitelist.
- Eleison23 4y ago
  I must qualify this by pointing out that I have mixed feelings about the 988 line. It streamlines the hospital pipeline for committing people who are DTS/DTO (5150) status, and let me tell you, that is an easy status to earn or gain. The hospitals profit immensely from admitting mental patients in a way that jails and police don't profit from locking up people who act crazy. Every time there is a mass shooting in these United States, the Legislature swoops in and throws more cash-money at mental health programs. Therefore more mass shootings will tangibly "improve" your mental health care (if improvement is gained from larger budgets) and the more insurance money available, the more crazies they can lock up and the longer they can hold you in the hospital "just to make sure" you're responding well to treatment and that you'll be a permanent customer after your release. So call 988 at your own peril, because the mental health system is a roach motel for many of us. Welcome to the Hotel California.
komali2 4y ago
I used to be REALLY into modding / jailbreaking / rooting / installing custom ROMs on android phones, until I witnessed a car accident, tried to call 911 on my iirc galaxy s3, only for it to crash. Luckily my friend was able to call, but I tried again a couple times later and sure enough, dialing 911 on whatever ROM I had simply crashed the phone. As much as I miss having root on my phone, I'm never taking the risk again. Being able to use payment features is a nice extra plus I guess.
partiallypro 4y ago
As a 6 Pro user, even if you could get ahold of 911 your signal may just drop out entirely in the middle of your call. I've never had a phone that drops signal so often. It's insane. I used the Black Friday sales to get a new phone to replace this one for that reason specifically.
nunez 4y ago
i'm REALLY surprised that this is still a problem, especially after the last 911 fiasco (the one where Teams was preventing users from dialing 911 due to call routing) it feels like android in general has had issues with 911/112. i remember cyanogenmod ROMs (when that was a thing) having issues as well.
dontbenebby 4y ago
- samcal 4y ago
  911 generally does perform their job well. Your issue is with the police and is valid, but there are many other public services an operator will route to you (ambulance, firefighter...)
p1mrx 4y ago
There ought to be a test number that behaves like 911 except for the "emergency" part at the end. This entire class of problems wouldn't exist if anyone could run an integration test.
- layer8 4y ago
  I’m sure we’d then get bugs where the test number is called instead of the real 911.
murpydee 4y ago
I actually had another emergency-call-related bug a few days ago on my Pixel 5 after accidentally triggering the SOS call feature. My device got stuck in a reboot loop -- it would reach the colored google "G" logo in the startup process, then reboot again. Every handful of cycles, it would reach the lock screen, attempt to start an emergency call, then reboot again. I had to get my device to the debug fastboot screen just to kill the loop
Animats 4y ago
The regulation problem is that the "Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act of 1999", which requires carriers to support 911, predates smartphones with non-carrier software. There's Kari's Law, [1] which requires multi-line phone systems to support direct 911 (not 9-911, or diverting 911 calls to in house guards). That applied to the Microsoft Teams problem, where Microsoft Teams was capturing 911 calls but not connecting them if the user was not logged into Teams. If the FCC went after Google on this, they could probably win claiming clear legislative intent to cover all the cases, and that a third party who insinuates themselves into the call chain has the same liability as the carrier. File a formal complaint with the FCC, and copy your elected representatives. [1] https://www.911.gov/issues/legislation-and-policy/kari-s-law-and-ray-baum-s-act/ https://www.911.gov/issues/legislation-and-policy/kari-s-law...
elwell 4y ago
I had the opposite problem with an iPhone last week: it called 911 all by itself. I was in a different room so I didn't hear any warnings. Instead, I heard the "It's the police! Open up!" accompanied by banging on the door around midnight. Since I had recently washed the phone (it's supposed to be water-resistant), my theory is that some water got into it and was completing the contact for the side button. There's an iPhone 'feature' that does an emergency SOS if you hold down the side button for about 10 seconds. I've since turned that feature off. Unfortunately the "side button being constantly held down" problem is persisting for me, sending the phone into recovery mode whenever it turns on; I may need to scrap the phone.
n8cpdx 4y ago
Google Pixel phones pose an unacceptable safety risk to vulnerable Americans. This product should be recalled and future Google phone products should be refused certification until they document and enact a plan to do QA. And no, “engineers write their own unit tests” does not count as QA for safety-critical software. I luckily don’t own one, but if I did I’d be reporting it to every regulator I could find. https://www.saferproducts.gov/ https://www.saferproducts.gov/
charonn0 4y ago
> I contacted Glynn County emergency services about Macleod’s 911 issue. The county said it “did not find any record of these calls registering in our system during the time in question” despite Macleod’s phone log showing she called 911. I was under the impression that (successful) 911 calls aren't recorded in the call log.
diebeforei485 4y ago
Why are apps allowed to take over the main dialer?
hedora 4y ago
Since this has apparently been happening for multiple years, and is a safety issue, why don't the authorities order a product recall? 100% refund for every pixel phone seems reasonable, and Google has that sort of cash laying around anyway.
silexia 4y ago
I owned a Pixel 1, a Pixel 2... and now a Pixel 6. Pixel 6 is by far the worst. It is extremely low quality and the screen has broken twice in a year just sitting in my pocket. It runs slowly and has frequent bugs. Garbage phone.

330 points by vpt 4y ago

vpt 4y ago

Here is the associated Google Pixel subreddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/z3knqv/action_news_jax_investigates_very_scary_issue/ https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/z3knqv/action_...

simfree 4y ago
I don't think this is newsworthy at this point. My Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 both are unreliable when trying to call 911, calling with an over the top app or dialing the PSAP's number directly are the only workarounds. Google doesn't give a fuck about this issue. I have filed repeated support cases over the past year with Google about this when using T-Mobile or Verizon.
- conradfr 4y ago
  I would say a life or death years old bug still present in the newest model (on which I'm writing this) is newsworthy. Although I'm not sure how there's no legal repercussion here?
- ImHereToVote 4y ago
  - Yoric 4y ago
    How so?
    - hh3k0 4y ago
      Club of Rome often lamented human overpopulation, so the user you’ve been replying to will undoubtedly share some far-fetched conspiracy theory that won’t make a lick of sense.
      - ImHereToVote 4y ago
        I should have prefaced my post with "a modest proposal"
  - yreg 4y ago
    That makes little sense. "It's the users who are wrong" ideology applies when you tell the customers they are holding the iPhone 4 wrong. Or when you ask them whether they don't have phones when you reveal the next Diablo as mobile-only. No company would argue that users are wrong and that they are not supposed to dial emergency services.
- creshal 4y ago
  Google already didn't give a fuck about 911 problems (or 112 in my case) on the Pixel 4a, those have been unfixed since release. Google doesn't seem to care that dead people don't make for good customers.
  - amelius 4y ago
    And FTC doesn't give a fuck about choice for consumers.
- curiousgal 4y ago
  Pixel 6 is the last Google phone I bought, after owning every single Pixel up until that point. A company who fucks up this badly is not worth my money.
- fanatic2pope 4y ago
  I have a Pixel 7, and I am curious how do you test the reliability of calling 911? I assume you don't actually call 911 and say "just testing!"
Aissen 4y ago
Most interesting is a user story[1] shared giving an idea of how often this happens: 3 times over 8 months, with ~5 calls a week. We could round it at around 1% error rate. It's both relatively low (as a chance it happens to you), and extremely high (I can't imagine how many people might have the issue and not be aware of it!). I'm sure there are other conditions that aren't identified here, but this definitely warrants more regulatory scrutiny. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/z3knqv/comment/ixn2422/ https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/z3knqv/comment...

karteum 4y ago

Is it a Google issue or a Qualcomm issue ? (e.g. does it occur when using Calyxos/GrapheneOS/LineageOS instead of the raw Google Android OS ?)

Freak_NL 4y ago
I have a Pixel 6 running GrapheneOS, and the one time I called 112 in the Netherlands it worked. Hard to extrapolate from that one data point though. It's a bit of a bother that this is not something you can test at any reasonable scale. “Just testing if my call gets through” is not something you want to see inundating emergency call centres.
- lesquivemeau 4y ago
  112 worked for me in France when i had to call, pixel 6 running stock firmware... It sure is hard to reproduce
- preisschild 4y ago
  AFAIK this only occurs when you have Microsoft Teams installed.
  - Underphil 4y ago
    Can't help thinking dialling emergency services should trigger a force close of everything non-essential on the phone.
hocuspocus 4y ago
The Pixel 6 has a Samsung SoC and 5G modem. If the Exynos based Samsung phones were also affected you'd have heard about it a lot more and earlier.
- qqqturing2 4y ago
  I had a Samsung 5G Exynos and when one time I couldn't call 112 (emergency number in Europe). Tried over and over. Even restarted my phone but the phone line was silent when it answered.

newaccount2021 4y ago

Aachen 4y ago

Let's just spell it out instead of this clickbait title: Dialing the local emergency number (112, 000, and 911 were reported, but presumably also others) sometimes doesn't work, just gives a click instead of dialing. Google blames third party apps. Users report similar issues since Pixel 4 that were reported to Google but haven't been resolved since release. Not like "911 doesn't ring" is much longer of a title than "very scary issue with dialing 911". It just sounds ever so slightly less like a horror movie.

alpaca128 4y ago
Nothing about your explanation refutes that this is a very scary issue. Third-party apps or not, a phone that can't call emergency services in every situation other than empty battery should be treated by the government like food that can potentially poison people.
- throwaway290 4y ago
  you posit "911 doesn't ring sometimes" ∈ "very scary issue with a phone", that's correct title implies "911 doesn't ring sometimes" ∈ "very scary issue dialing 911", that is incorrect frankly "doesn't ring" is probably the most routine issue that can happen when dialing a number the comment you respond to responds to article title and posits "911 doesn't ring sometimes" ∉ "very scary issue dialing 911"
  - zinekeller 4y ago
    "911 doesn't ring sometimes" in this context means that there's good signal and can call non-emergency numbers using ordinary phone networks, but for some reason can't handle emergency calls correctly (and yes, you could call the GSM-wise non-emergency but legally-wise long emergency number for your area normally, it's just you're more likely to not know it in an actual emergency). That's not just "scary", it's a life-threatening defect similar to a faulty airbag (where you don't need it now but it must work in an emergency).
    - 4y ago

edent 4y ago

When I used to work for a large mobile network, we would spend ages testing the firmware of new devices. Even giants (at the time) like Nokia would release phones which couldn't dial the emergency services, or put out more than the legal limit of radiation, or were in other ways defective. We'd test, send a report back, wait a few weeks, get a new firmware, test again, repeat until everything worked. It took months. That was fine when phones weren't expected to be updated by users. But when more modern phones arrived with flashable firmware, customers couldn't stand the delays associated with testing. They'd see a new firmware had been released and complained that the mobile network operators were delaying progress, dragging our feet, deliberately depriving customers of something cool. The fact was, operators very often didn't certify the firmware because it contained *dangerous* bugs. I'm sure there was also a cost element - why pay to re-test a phone that you're no longer selling? - but that wasn't the primary driver. Well, the manufacturers and customers "won". If you buy a phone through your network, it probably has a network-certified firmware blob. If not, you're at the mercy of the manufacturer.

thih9 4y ago
Sounds like you’re unhappy that people didn’t want the network to be responsible for checking against bugs. But would the opposite actually be fine? What about people who buy their phones from the manufacturers?
robertlagrant 4y ago
How would you have tested 911 dialling? Did you go all the way to a real operator?
- edent 4y ago
  Yes. From memory we had a specific SIM which was registered with 999. We dialled up, gave a password of the day, and asked them what info they could see about the call. They could see IMSI, IMEI, Cell Location and other things like that. (A couple of decade ago now - my memory might be inaccurate.)
  - 4y ago

constantcrying 4y ago

Is there any theory or explanation why this happens? "Third party apps" is totally vague, what third party app could stop you from dialing an emergency number? And even if such apps exist (or even are common) is it not a huge design flaw by itself, which the manufacturer has to remedy?

DoingIsLearning 4y ago
Not sure why they don't say it by name but the bug was originally found with MS Teams. "The issue is the result of an “unintended interaction” between Teams and Android, specifically when the users have the app installed but are not logged in to any account." [0] [0] https://www.androidauthority.com/google-pixel-microsoft-teams-911-calling-bug-3073107/ https://www.androidauthority.com/google-pixel-microsoft-team...
- constantcrying 4y ago
  Thanks! Still very weird to be honest.
- lultimouomo 4y ago
  So users who join Teams calls but refuse to login cannot call 911, and die. Seems in line with the general Teams ethos to be honest.
  - n0tth3dro1ds 4y ago
    Unless Teams is abusing private APIs or acting in other nefarious ways, this is 1000% a problem with Android itself. It shouldn’t be possible to break emergency service call operation through normal usage (or even naive usage) of the public APIs on the system. To blame Teams here is completely backwards.
    - lultimouomo 4y ago
      Of course it is an Android problem. But as someone who is forced to use Teams, it is hard not to see irony in the situation.

mahathu 4y ago

> “So this is what happens on my brand new $1,000 Google phone when I try to call 911.” How old is this story? The news report is from 2 days ago, but surely in 2022 the person filming the TikTok video wouldn't call a Pixel 6 a "brand new $1,000 Google phone"?

Caporal 4y ago
Old enough to influence people a few days before Black Friday I guess.
jakub_g 4y ago
It's not $1000 anymore but you can still buy "brand new" Pixel 6 in retail stores in EU.
- happymellon 4y ago
  We don't call 911.
  - iggldiggl 4y ago
    Which leads to a different problem, because at least a few Android versions ago (or maybe even today?), the emergency call dialler didn't necessarily recognise all the different country-specific emergency numbers. E.g. in Germany the European standard of 112 is only natively used for fire brigade and ambulance, whereas the police's native emergency number is 110 – but you couldn't dial the latter from the lockscreen without unlocking your phone.
  - LadyCailin 4y ago
    From a mobile, you can. And anyways, I would actually be even less confident that Google correctly implemented 112 support than 911.

rerenjkl 4y ago

crooked-v 4y ago
It's not a network problem. It's a side effect of that Android version letting apps register to take over calling functions (for, e.g., VOIP purposes), when then makes emergency calls fail if any of the apps that have registered that functionality don't handle it properly.
- ddalex 4y ago
  Do you mean users install apps that are buggy, and this is somehow Androids fault? At the same time, if Android wouldn't allow VoIP apps, it would be somehow at fault again ?
  - crooked-v 4y ago
    It's absolutely Android's fault that it allows a buggy app to interfere with emergency calls, and Google agrees, given that in later Android versions they tore out the code that allowed anything but OS handling for emergency calls placed through the default phone app.
  - theshrike79 4y ago
    There is no reasonable way a normal user could suspect that buying a phone from one of the biggest companies in the world (Google) and installing a very common application from another huge company (Microsoft) will result in their phone no longer being able to dial the emergency number. This is most definitely Google's fault for allowing emergency calls to be overridden and not having a fallback if the override fails.
  - zinekeller 4y ago
    Most custom versions of Android (in this context, non-Pixel phones) have actually hardcoded that all emergency calls (especially in lock screens) be routed into a different, lightweight, for-emergency-only dialer. Google has known about this but didn't do anything to also provide a hardcoded override. Edit: and apparently recent Android versions, but I can't confirm that.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

crooked-v 4y ago

This article, dating back to January, lays it out pretty clearly: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/01/google-fixes-nightmare-android-bug-that-stopped-user-from-calling-911/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/01/google-fixes-nightma... > If you're logged out, launching Microsoft Teams 10 times will result in 10 duplicate PhoneAccounts from Teams clogging your phone. Teams shouldn't do this, and Microsoft's update stopped Teams from doing this, but a bunch of duplicate PhoneAccounts also shouldn't be enough to bring Android's phone system to its knees. > Next bug: when picking a PhoneAccount to run the emergency call through, [...] it's possible for this to result in an integer overflow or underflow, and now the phone subsystem is going to crash. > A third bug in this mess is that Microsoft Teams does not even register itself as an emergency call handler. > An update is not arriving for the Pixel 6 yet. Google's newest flagship is going though a bit of an update crisis at the moment. The December 2021 update was pulled due to unrelated "mobile connectivity issues" (phone calls don't work). While Google scrambles to fix everything, the next Pixel 6 update with this 911 fix is due in "late January." Until then, it's normal to be on the November patch. Both of Google's "early January" and "late January" patch timelines seem incredibly slow for a bug that could cause users to literally die. If the OP article is correct, then apparently this still hasn't actually been fixed yet.

paganel 4y ago
If I get this right, we have a $1+ trillion company not being able to build a basic functionality into their phones? (like "phone calls don't work" and the whole calling 911 issue). And, apparently, that was happening because of a shitty app built by another $1+ trillion company? In terms of innovation the US tech scene is toast with these dinosaurs.
- mitchdoogle 4y ago
  Bugs happen everywhere, to everyone. The fact that it happened is not a surprise - the lack of an immediate fix is what is concerning
  - semi-extrinsic 4y ago

theCrowing 4y ago

Ah yes... the yearly pixel/nexus emergency call bug. I would say it's a total shame for Google that they really have repeating probably life threatening bugs in their phones but they don't seem to care at all.

cube00 4y ago
Google's reply to the reporter in the story says it all: We don't have any comment to provide. They do not care, people need to stop trusting their lives to this company.
- CydeWeys 4y ago
  Oh come on. "No comment" is always what a company says in a situation like this, where saying anything else might hurt them in a future lawsuit. It doesn't mean they don't care, it means they have lawyers with the bare minimum level of competency.
  - cube00 4y ago
    I've seen statements that at least pretend like the company cares and the steps they are taking to deal with the issue. Something along the lines of "the safety of our users is our highest priority and we are investigating these reports", no admissions, no legal risk, but they couldn't even do that much.
    - ChoHag 4y ago
    - jakear 4y ago
      > "the safety of our users is our highest priority and we are investigating these reports", no admissions, no legal risk That statement contains both admissions and legal risk! If they aren't actually investigating the reports (entirely possible), it's a lie. If they don't actually mark "safety" bugs p1 (almost certainly possible), it's a lie.

puyoxyz 4y ago

Again?! This is, like, the third or fourth time I’ve heard of Pixels not being able to call emergency services.

lsajdn872he 4y ago
Pretty sure it's the same old issue and people just haven't updated.

dm319 4y ago

I'm all over the place with pocket computing devices and remain confused. I once has an iphone. Beautifully crafted, both inside and out, but so frustratingly locked down that I was desperate to leave it behind. They have progressively opened up the platform, but it always lags behind (I remember I couldn't access the cloud storage from anything other than a mac). My favourite devices have been more alternative. E90 running symbian, which was fairly 'open' for its time - I could install any software, proper multitasking. The N900 also, full linux system, great phone. But then the apps I find useful, are often not available for that platform. At the moment I'm on Pixel, which has been a good balance between being well supported, while still fairly open. I can sideload apps, run a linux distro in the form of termux. As a bonus the camera is great. I have to remind myself that while it might not quite compare to iphones in terms of refinement and hardware, I do at least have more freedom on the platform, and it's easy to take that for granted until you lose it.

vbezhenar 4y ago
I’m in a similar position. I used iPhone for years but after they started to remove important apps from AppStore I decided to move to pixel. UX is terrible and unpolished. Hardware is just bad. But I can sideload and that’s more important.
- nvr219 4y ago
  What app did they remove that you used?
  - generalpf 4y ago
    Oh, you know the ones.
    - komali2 4y ago
      No I don't, which do you mean?
      - 4y ago

canbus 4y ago

This kind of thing makes me want to use a 'dumbphone' as my daily driver..

djhworld 4y ago

Are there reports of similar problems outside of the US, e.g. dialling 999 in the UK from a pixel phone?

Havoc 4y ago
FYI memorizing 112 is probably a better idea. It's baked into GSM spec and gets redirected to the right country end-point (like 999 for UK) in most of the world. Same difference while in UK, but good habit for travelling.
- Archipelagia 4y ago
  For my experience, when possible it's better to use the more direct number – that extra layer of redirection takes only a minute or two, but in an emergency that can be a lot.
  - mekkkkkk 4y ago
    How can a redirection take minutes?! And do you at least get some relaxing elevator music for you to remain calm while watching your house burn down?
    - Archipelagia 4y ago
      Nah, I don't mean just the "please hold the line." But most of all redirection means that you need to explain the situation to two different operators before the response is sent.

hopfog 4y ago

I've seen many reports of this on Pixel phones but I experienced something very similar on another Android phone (it was either Moto G5 or OnePlus One): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29494820 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29494820

Jemm 4y ago

Unusable website

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

exabrial 4y ago

On my pixel 4 it failed to call 911 when i needed it once. The phone literally crashed and hung up. But here you know what worked really well? Google tracking me all over the Internet… that never once failed!

wholinator2 4y ago
Well, I'm being pedantic but how do you know Google tracking never once failed? It could fail 50 times a day in strange circumstances but work just often enough to keep the approximate trail without you being aware. In fact, I'm nearly certain that just due to the ubiquity of Googles tracking, it's vastly more likely to break than the phone services. Now, each of these have very different meanings and severity and all concern is certainly warranted but if you do, I would be interested in how you're tracking google's tracking
ars 4y ago
Google tracking fails me all the time. I check my timeline on Google maps, and it's wrong more often than it's right.

GrabbinD33ze69 4y ago

Maybe this is a 'straw man', but this is what I refer to when I say I prefer iPhones for their reliability and stability, or at least what I perceive to be more reliable than most android phones. The closest issue I can recall on iPhone was that issue where saying some nonsense to siri caused an erroneous dialing of 911. I get it, this is sorta a one off thing, but it irks me when super basic functionality of the phone is unstable, such as making a literal phone call.

nsteel 4y ago

As an end user today with a Pixel 6, what am I supposed to do if I can't rely on them to get this right? I NEED 999 to work. If not for me, then the people around me. Am I supposed to go and ring 999 to test it after every major update until Google gives an actual statement on the condition of their shitty product that has failed the most important use-case? That doesn't scale and if nothing else, Google should understand a scaling problem...

Marsymars 4y ago
> As an end user today with a Pixel 6, what am I supposed to do if I can't rely on them to get this right? Buy a Pixel Watch! I’m sure emergency dialling won’t be broken on both the watch and phone at the same time! But in seriousness, I personally just accept that cell phones aren’t a bulletproof way of accessing emergency services. At any point in time, my phone could be out of service, out of battery, dropped and broken, unconnected due to a network outage, etc. An emergency services bug is a qualitative difference, not a quantitative one. I qualitatively increase my odds of being able to access emergency services by running redundant systems - I have a VoIP landline, my partner has a cell phone with a different OS/mobile network than me, I carry a PLB if I’m in the wild. (I plan on getting an LTE-capable watch at some point - the Pixel Watch is quite unappealing for the price though.) (Will probably switch from PLB to sat messenger when the battery on this expires, which will double as an emergency service contact backup.)
ChoHag 4y ago
jerlam 4y ago
Do you have any local emergency non-999 numbers? I have saved the numbers for the local emergency dispatch numbers for the cities around me, along with the non-emergency ones. This is also where directing specific people around you to call 999 (or calling on another person's phone) is a backup plan.

hilbert42 4y ago

Frankly, that this situation happened at all is outrageous and certifying bodies should take steps to ensure it's no longer possible for it to happen. The solution is to mandate that emergency numbers be hardwired into phones and thus their operation could not be overwritten by any software whether it be the phone's operating system or any user app. Moreover, it would make sense for all phones, irrespective of country of origin, to include emergency numbers from all countries, i.e: 911, 112, 000 and any others I'm not aware of. Moreover, all emergency numbers should work—that is no matter what emergency number is dialed it still should connect to the local emergency number. This is important because tourists/travelers in a different country may be unaware of the emergency number for the country they are visiting. Whilst roaming, the phone would recognize its location by actual location and the carrier its connected to and it would dial the correct number even when the user dials his/her home emergency number. This is not just a nice hypothetical, there have been multiple instances of US citizens visiting Australia where I am and dialing 911 in an emergency and failing to connect with the local one. Here, as in Europe, the mobile number is 112 and the landline one 000. Why this wasn't a part of the original ITU 'G' roaming specs is anyone's guess but it's an obvious and very dumb omission.

Dylan16807 4y ago
This has nothing to do with the problem of different numbers.

NelsonMinar 4y ago

Most of the discussion here is related to 911-specific bugs in Pixel. But there's also generic cellular communications bugs, and based on what I see on Reddit it's widely experienced but not well understood. The symptom I see is nothing cellular works sometimes until I put the phone in airplane mode and back again. Networking software bug? Problem with the cellular tower? I have no idea. But it seems very common on Pixel 6. I probably won't buy another Google made phone because of it.

Eleison23 4y ago

In these United States, there are now two emergency numbers which can be dialed: 911 and 988, for mental health crises. The last time I removed the SIM from my Android phone, I tested 988; unsurprisingly I was not able to contact the service because the phone denied access. If your phone doesn't recognize 988 as a bona fide, legitimate emergency number, it's time to request a firmware update. 988 has been years in the making, and firmware developers should have made it a priority to put it on the whitelist.

Eleison23 4y ago
I must qualify this by pointing out that I have mixed feelings about the 988 line. It streamlines the hospital pipeline for committing people who are DTS/DTO (5150) status, and let me tell you, that is an easy status to earn or gain. The hospitals profit immensely from admitting mental patients in a way that jails and police don't profit from locking up people who act crazy. Every time there is a mass shooting in these United States, the Legislature swoops in and throws more cash-money at mental health programs. Therefore more mass shootings will tangibly "improve" your mental health care (if improvement is gained from larger budgets) and the more insurance money available, the more crazies they can lock up and the longer they can hold you in the hospital "just to make sure" you're responding well to treatment and that you'll be a permanent customer after your release. So call 988 at your own peril, because the mental health system is a roach motel for many of us. Welcome to the Hotel California.

komali2 4y ago

I used to be REALLY into modding / jailbreaking / rooting / installing custom ROMs on android phones, until I witnessed a car accident, tried to call 911 on my iirc galaxy s3, only for it to crash. Luckily my friend was able to call, but I tried again a couple times later and sure enough, dialing 911 on whatever ROM I had simply crashed the phone. As much as I miss having root on my phone, I'm never taking the risk again. Being able to use payment features is a nice extra plus I guess.

partiallypro 4y ago

As a 6 Pro user, even if you could get ahold of 911 your signal may just drop out entirely in the middle of your call. I've never had a phone that drops signal so often. It's insane. I used the Black Friday sales to get a new phone to replace this one for that reason specifically.

nunez 4y ago

i'm REALLY surprised that this is still a problem, especially after the last 911 fiasco (the one where Teams was preventing users from dialing 911 due to call routing) it feels like android in general has had issues with 911/112. i remember cyanogenmod ROMs (when that was a thing) having issues as well.

dontbenebby 4y ago

samcal 4y ago
911 generally does perform their job well. Your issue is with the police and is valid, but there are many other public services an operator will route to you (ambulance, firefighter...)

p1mrx 4y ago

There ought to be a test number that behaves like 911 except for the "emergency" part at the end. This entire class of problems wouldn't exist if anyone could run an integration test.

layer8 4y ago
I’m sure we’d then get bugs where the test number is called instead of the real 911.

murpydee 4y ago

I actually had another emergency-call-related bug a few days ago on my Pixel 5 after accidentally triggering the SOS call feature. My device got stuck in a reboot loop -- it would reach the colored google "G" logo in the startup process, then reboot again. Every handful of cycles, it would reach the lock screen, attempt to start an emergency call, then reboot again. I had to get my device to the debug fastboot screen just to kill the loop

Animats 4y ago

The regulation problem is that the "Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act of 1999", which requires carriers to support 911, predates smartphones with non-carrier software. There's Kari's Law, [1] which requires multi-line phone systems to support direct 911 (not 9-911, or diverting 911 calls to in house guards). That applied to the Microsoft Teams problem, where Microsoft Teams was capturing 911 calls but not connecting them if the user was not logged into Teams. If the FCC went after Google on this, they could probably win claiming clear legislative intent to cover all the cases, and that a third party who insinuates themselves into the call chain has the same liability as the carrier. File a formal complaint with the FCC, and copy your elected representatives. [1] https://www.911.gov/issues/legislation-and-policy/kari-s-law-and-ray-baum-s-act/ https://www.911.gov/issues/legislation-and-policy/kari-s-law...

elwell 4y ago

I had the opposite problem with an iPhone last week: it called 911 all by itself. I was in a different room so I didn't hear any warnings. Instead, I heard the "It's the police! Open up!" accompanied by banging on the door around midnight. Since I had recently washed the phone (it's supposed to be water-resistant), my theory is that some water got into it and was completing the contact for the side button. There's an iPhone 'feature' that does an emergency SOS if you hold down the side button for about 10 seconds. I've since turned that feature off. Unfortunately the "side button being constantly held down" problem is persisting for me, sending the phone into recovery mode whenever it turns on; I may need to scrap the phone.

n8cpdx 4y ago

Google Pixel phones pose an unacceptable safety risk to vulnerable Americans. This product should be recalled and future Google phone products should be refused certification until they document and enact a plan to do QA. And no, “engineers write their own unit tests” does not count as QA for safety-critical software. I luckily don’t own one, but if I did I’d be reporting it to every regulator I could find. https://www.saferproducts.gov/ https://www.saferproducts.gov/

charonn0 4y ago

> I contacted Glynn County emergency services about Macleod’s 911 issue. The county said it “did not find any record of these calls registering in our system during the time in question” despite Macleod’s phone log showing she called 911. I was under the impression that (successful) 911 calls aren't recorded in the call log.

diebeforei485 4y ago

Why are apps allowed to take over the main dialer?

hedora 4y ago

Since this has apparently been happening for multiple years, and is a safety issue, why don't the authorities order a product recall? 100% refund for every pixel phone seems reasonable, and Google has that sort of cash laying around anyway.

silexia 4y ago

I owned a Pixel 1, a Pixel 2... and now a Pixel 6. Pixel 6 is by far the worst. It is extremely low quality and the screen has broken twice in a year just sitting in my pocket. It runs slowly and has frequent bugs. Garbage phone.