[HN Gopher] Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an eme...
___________________________________________________________________
Some Pixel owners still can't dial 911 during an emergency
Author : vpt
Score : 343 points
Date : 2023-09-30 11:52 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.androidauthority.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.androidauthority.com)
| johndhi wrote:
| In my experience (which is about as relevant to this topic as one
| can imagine), regulatory-required features in software always get
| built in really shitty ways.
|
| These are some of the reasons I've seen for why:
|
| -the regulation isn't sufficiently flexible to allow the company
| to build it in a way that makes the most sense for their system
|
| -for the same reason testing, user research and feedback largely
| don't matter
|
| -the projects are led by legal or compliance teams who are
| generally terrible at building features
|
| -the feature isn't requested by customers so the company has very
| limited dialogue with the user about it
|
| -the feature will not make money so no one at the company is
| incentivized to build it well or spend time on it
| guraf wrote:
| If what you said was true, we'd see the same poor quality in
| Samsung or Apple phones. Yet we don't.
| johndhi wrote:
| Those companies are a little more like traditional hardware
| companies than Google who is more of a software company.
|
| We do see poor e911 implementation at other software
| companies (twilio, five9, etc)
| perryizgr8 wrote:
| Realistically, if you care about software/hardware quality at all
| in your smartphone, there are only two options: Iphone or Galaxy
| S phones. Anything else and you have to be ready to face a bunch
| of problems.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| Sometimes people ask me, why do I use an iPhone when Android
| phones are so much better in this or that respect.
|
| And the thing is, none of iPhones I had my hands on (since 4S
| maybe) have never failed me as _phones_. When I need to place or
| receive a call, the call is placed or received. No shenanigans
| with sound, microphone, connections. If there is a connection
| problem, I can be 100% sure it 's the carrier. With Android, all
| bets are off. When Maemo was a thing, all bets were off, it could
| enter a 100% CPU-hogging busy loop during a call and you would be
| SOL, or you wouldn't be able to hang up, or some such shit.
|
| The only other cellular thing that I could 100% rely on was my
| Nokia 1280 and a 1112 before it, but 2G networks are being wound
| down in my area, alas.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > And the thing is, none of iPhones I had my hands on (since 4S
| maybe) have never failed me as phones. When I need to place or
| receive a call, the call is placed or received. No shenanigans
| with sound, microphone, connections. If there is a connection
| problem, I can be 100% sure it's the carrier.
|
| Just saying, I've used only Android phones since 2009 or so,
| and I've never once had a problem with the phone functionality.
| It's not like this is some problem with Android in general.
| lopkeny12ko wrote:
| Funny, because I have the opposite problem. My Pixel dials 911
| out of random and I always have to race to disconnect the call.
|
| Just last night my Pixel Watch started ringing out of random
| while I was eating dinner and it said it was dialing 911. I saw a
| phone call pop up on my Pixel 6 phone but fortunately canceled it
| before it connected. My watch didn't even tell me _why_ it dialed
| 911, and once I disconnected the call it just disappeared from my
| watch. Totally useless!
|
| There should really be a hard-to-accidentally-accept confirmation
| dialog for any kind of automated emergency dial feature. This is
| ridiculous because this is probably the 3rd time this has
| happened to me.
| escapecharacter wrote:
| Ah, 911 Georg
| minitoar wrote:
| I think a confirmation dialog would defeat the purpose of an
| auto dial here -- you need the auto dial because you have been
| incapacitated.
| srmatto wrote:
| Apple's approach is to give you some fixed amount of time to
| cancel before it auto-dials an emergency number.
| denysvitali wrote:
| Pixel does the same, but the amount of times it triggers
| automatically can be different...
| petabytes wrote:
| When you hold down the power button, there is a big red
| emergency button beside the restart button. I've gotten pretty
| close to accidentally pressing it.
| postalrat wrote:
| How are you doing this? Dialing an emergency has never happened
| to me by accident on Android or iOS.
|
| It has happened to me many times on office phones where you
| need to use 9 to route your call. And you learn to just stay on
| the call if you dial me mistake because they will call back if
| you disconnect and telling them it was a mistake if much
| quicker. They must deal with it all the time
| skipkey wrote:
| I had this happen with my iPhone a few years ago. Basically
| there's a setting where some combination of the side buttons
| pressed together calls 911. I was in a borrowed car and the
| cup holder was just the right width to do this when I hit a
| bump.
|
| The very nice 911 operator told me it happened all the time.
| After the second time it happened I tracked down the setting
| to disable it.
| dcormier wrote:
| In iOS 17, there are two related settings for this is under
| Settings Emergency SOS.
| wolkmo wrote:
| Happened to me twice with an iPhone. Both times I triggered
| it when the phone was lagging for some reason (eg it got too
| hot and throttled down). I guess iOS doesn't track the delay
| between button presses properly when it's overloaded. I was
| able to cancel the call in time, but it's a horrifying seeing
| the timer go down while mashing the non-responsive stop
| button.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Sounds about right, considering how many accidental
| screenshots I've taken during lag when I press the two
| buttons involved in the combo a few seconds apart.
| OtomotO wrote:
| After I retired my last smartphone, a Nokia something, the
| same thing happened. I used it purely as a mp3 player when
| walking the woods and it would randomly call the emergency
| line (not 911 in my country)
|
| I barely could cancel the call before it went through as of
| course I was walking and had headphones in.
|
| I figured it had something to do with a button... it got more
| annoying over time so what I did to fix it was: change the
| emergency number to my girlfriend`s
| LesZedCB wrote:
| on android, pressing power five times calls 911.
|
| you can turn it off in settings. it's a good idea but sadly too
| easy to do if you're trying to turn the volume down instead for
| example.
|
| also, even if it's awkward, stay on the line and explain. they
| usually appreciate it.
| psanford wrote:
| Turn off Emergency SOS on your watch and phone.
| rkagerer wrote:
| Jeez - can't dial 911, randomly dials 911.
|
| I don't understand why these devices can't even do the most
| _core_ feature of a phone properly.
|
| This will sound crass but the development teams (right up to
| CEO's) should be dragged out to the gallows and flogged.
|
| If it was my product I would have made damn sure the 911
| experience was perfect before shipping, and not rested for a
| minute until any bugs were solidly quashed - up to and
| including recalling all sold units and overhauling the flakey
| architecture if needed.
|
| This is _life safety_ we 're talking about, not only for their
| users but also everyone else impacted by their blatent abuse of
| the emergency services system. Would we tolerate bridges that
| collapsed with equally ambivalent consequences for those who
| engineered them?
| formerly_proven wrote:
| > Jeez - can't dial 911, randomly dials 911.
|
| There's enough 911 calls for everyone, they're just not
| distributed equally.
| numpad0 wrote:
| I can hallucinate couple different explanations for that:
| - Modern software is way too overcomplicated to take
| seriously. - 911 is handled too specially,
| leading to oversights by implementers. -
| Feature importance to you has nothing to do with
| implementation difficulties.
|
| etc.
| amelius wrote:
| Yeah, 911 calls should be implemented in an entirely
| different hardware subsystem, just like the flight control
| system of an airplane doesn't run on the same hardware as
| the entertainment systems.
| Szpadel wrote:
| > 911 is handled too specially AFAIK there is some special
| functionality to report location directly to emergency
| services when calling to speed up emergency handling
|
| but if that would be my implementation I would track call
| in some very simple way and if that's second or third try
| to call 911 within hour then handle it as ordinary call
| without that extra functionality as a safeguard
| rkagerer wrote:
| One more I'd throw on the list is a growing trend in our
| field of shipping buggy products with the expectation we'll
| fix them later via updates. It's a terrible drug the
| internet enabled.
|
| The ironic thing is personally I only upgrade my phone
| every 5+ years and would be totally happy with longer
| development cycles.
| fallingknife wrote:
| Also possible that bug is due to poor handling of mobile
| network error so no functionality is lost, just a UI issue.
| Or there is a bug, but the frequency is much lower than
| mobile network failure rate so low priority.
| denysvitali wrote:
| Yes, I think the real problem is #2.
|
| The only reliable way to test 911 features is a test lab,
| to which the average engineer doesn't have access to. On
| top of that, calling 911 isn't exactly as placing a normal
| call - so the only way to test is... to call 911.
|
| Again, a test lab should help towards these things, but I
| doubt Google has one accessible to the average engineer
| working on the dialer. Plus, they most likely don't have a
| way to automatically test these changes - or they might
| happen as part of other "features" (remember the Microsoft
| Teams bug that caused similar issues?).
|
| In the end, the smarter our smartphones become - the dumber
| they are at doing the one single thing they were initially
| meant to do - get help in case of an emergency.
| philipov wrote:
| > _Again, a test lab should help towards these things,
| but I doubt Google has one accessible to the average
| engineer working on the dialer._
|
| And why not? It seems like the _real_ real problem is #4:
| Management doesn 't take seriously people's need to reach
| emergency services because it's not a profit center.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Even the dimmest view of management should expect them to
| care about extremely bad PR.
| philipov wrote:
| So how do you explain Unity and Reddit and Twitter and
| Wizards of the Coast all belly flopping their PR this
| year? I'm sure they care, in some abstract sense, about
| PR (well, not Musk). I just think they're out of touch
| and incompetent at dealing with it. Some of them are even
| on the record saying it will blow over and the benefits
| of not caring are worth the cost, like the Reddit CEO.
| Clearly the costs of bad PR aren't high enough.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| They care if bad PR results in less money. Wizards +Unity
| realized they pushed too hard and will ultimately cost
| them. Reddit thinks their decision still makes financial
| sense.
| philipov wrote:
| And Google is making exactly the same calculation. Maybe
| they'll do something to fix it _after_ a hundred people
| die because they can 't call 911 and it blows up
| nationally.
| denysvitali wrote:
| A test lab is a room that is completely isolated from the
| outside (and in a way that the RF doesn't leak outside of
| the premises) where you can do these kind of experiments.
|
| Considering the amount of teams working on the Google
| Dialer, and the fact that they might be distributed
| across multiple cities / countries - this sounds very
| expensive.
| bleachedsleet wrote:
| Linus Tech Tips has one complete with an isolated private
| 5G network inside. I'm sure Google could manage.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Intrigued, looked up... hm. and am still wondering what
| they plan to do with that.
|
| 1: https://firecell.io/product/labkit/
| pests wrote:
| They are building their "Labs" which aims to offer high
| quality testing. They also have purchased a professional
| power supply tester as well.
|
| They noticed cell phone reviews over time have dropped
| signal or quality testing. Which makes sense since each
| reviewer is just testing in their local environment with
| no standards or baseline so they were pretty meaningless
| anyways.
|
| Are they going to be able to test enough phones and
| wifi/radio equipment to make it worth while? Not too
| sure.
| philipov wrote:
| If Google, of all companies, can't afford the necessary
| testing equipment for a critical function, who can? If
| they thought that emergency services would make them
| money, they could have a lab in every office. But it
| won't, and so they don't care.
| 4RealFreedom wrote:
| Arguing an expensive price tag for Google just doesn't
| resonate. They are building a phone - it should be able
| to do the one thing that it should, as others have said.
| Anything outside of contacting someone in an emergency
| should be secondary.
| mlyle wrote:
| Society spends a few billion dollars a year on E911 and
| related infrastructure.
|
| To have faith in it eroded because of a little bit of
| slipshod validation by phone vendors is a false economy.
| evilduck wrote:
| Building a Faraday cage is an afternoon woodworking
| project. You can build them in your garage or bedroom
| with hand tools if you wanted. You don't even need a huge
| room, a portable phone booth sized space could be mass
| produced and delivered on site. A Faraday Booth might
| take a few dozen square meters of copper mesh and some
| basic lumber, drywall and finishing efforts. If it took
| more than $10k per office I'd be shocked. This is
| something simple and cheap enough it could be something a
| local director or manager could charge to their company
| card and assembled themselves if they really cared.
| mlyle wrote:
| It shouldn't be _too_ expensive, but before you put in
| equipment and pretend to be the phone network, you need
| to make sure that you 're hitting regulatory limits on
| the amount of RF leaking out. Doing a good enough job to
| hit that above a gigahertz--- including things like
| conducted RF, and validating with measurements-- is gonna
| cost a bit more than you describe.
| evilduck wrote:
| Fine, for permitting and regulations and inspections,
| let's 100x the cost and say it's an annual expense too.
| This is still well within Google's budgets to provide to
| their Android teams.
| numpad0 wrote:
| [1]. $1k, -95dB to 3GHz, in stock, manufacturer standard
| I/O plates sold separately. I think there's zero room for
| hypotheticals and challenges to talk about setting these
| up if you ask not webdevs but actual phone people.
|
| 1: https://jretest.com/product/jre-0912/
| mlyle wrote:
| Who's the person who crawls into the tiny box and makes
| sure the dialer UI is doing the right thing, given that
| is what our primary concern is?
|
| We've been talking about the cost of making a screened
| room. "Turnkey" ones cost about $20-50k, but you're going
| to pay contractors a fair bit beyond that. Not to mention
| whatever equipment you're putting inside.
|
| https://www.ramayes.com/Refurbished_Radio_Frequency_Shiel
| ded...
| michaelt wrote:
| You can get things like [1] - an RF blocking box with a
| window and attached RF-blocking gloves. This equipment is
| not at all exotic.
|
| And if you don't like that option - you can also place
| test calls to 911 [2] by calling their non-emergency
| number and arranging a time. It would be easy to perform
| a once-a-month test call.
|
| [1] https://jretest.com/product/jre-1812f-forensics-
| analysis-enc... [2]
| https://www.911.gov/calling-911/frequently-asked-
| questions/
| mlyle wrote:
| What it seems like they really need is some general
| black-box testing time to try and better identify what is
| going on, along with looking at logs from devices of
| users who had the problem.
|
| A screened room with a few devices and a simulator seems
| like a good resource to have, and it's a reasonable thing
| to procure at a center or two if they don't have it. It
| just costs several tens of thousands, not $10k.
|
| It seems like at this point 911 usually works on Pixel,
| and there's probably even good unit test and automated
| integration test of a lot of the components-- prearranged
| test calls with a given carrier's 911 impl isn't likely
| to fix it. But "usually" isn't good enough: Google needs
| to actually figure out what's going on, no matter what.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| $50k is chump change for Google. Regardless, there are
| costs and regulations associated with making a phone, and
| if you aren't willing to adhere to that, you'd better
| keep making search engines and other websites.
| mlyle wrote:
| > $50k is chump change for Google.
|
| c.f. my comment:
|
| > > > It shouldn't be _too_ expensive, but
|
| People just don't read and understand that you can agree
| with the broader scope of comment but not the details.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Our primary concern is dialer crashing! I don't
| understand why you're trying to shift the blame away from
| Google. That's just stupid.
| mlyle wrote:
| > Our primary concern is dialer crashing!
|
| Yes, so being able to use the phone UI is important for
| qualitative testing.
|
| > I don't understand why you're trying to shift the blame
| away from Google. That's just stupid.
|
| I feel like you didn't read my comment. I stated that a
| screened room isn't prohibitively expensive, but can't be
| delivered for the suggested $10k. In another comment, I
| said "Society spends a few billion dollars a year on E911
| and related infrastructure. To have faith in it eroded
| because of a little bit of slipshod validation by phone
| vendors is a false economy."
|
| Why isn't it possible to have nuanced discussions-- to
| condemn Google's failure here, but also to suggest that
| the capital expense to give people realistic test
| environments is probably higher than others are
| suggesting?
|
| Frankly, you're being abrasive.
| numpad0 wrote:
| You must have the UI? Call your factory, ask them make an
| extra ICE and hook it up to the simulator through an
| attenuator and shielded cables. Easy. Cost couple cars
| worth, so what. Add noises, simulate phasing, handover,
| do anything you want to. premises is, you're a top mass
| market smart phone manufacturer, and Google, both of that
| at the same time.
|
| No, you're trying to find a way to make it sound
| impossible. But what you're saying is more along,
| probably, "finding a parking lot to test brakes is
| impossible even for a car company". Something real stupid
| as that.
| mlyle wrote:
| No. I'm just saying that it costs like $40-100k in
| practice to get a screened room into operation, not $10k,
| but that this is still a reasonable expense.
|
| But you're too boiling over in vitriol to understand
| nuance. Somehow, _in your mind_ , saying that you can't
| do it for $10k appears to be me defending Google.
| throwaway12046 wrote:
| Even if it costs $1M, Google either has to do it or stop
| selling phones and recall sold units.
| zja wrote:
| > the only way to test is... to call 911
|
| You should be able to use 933 to test emergency services.
| https://support.bandwidth.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/210291778-Th...
| snazz wrote:
| Is that only a service that Bandwidth.com offers or would
| it work on a regular cell network?
| zja wrote:
| I think it depends on the carrier you use, but a lot of
| other carriers support it.
| mlyle wrote:
| I'm guessing pretty much all are carriers that are using
| Bandwidth.com for 911 service.
| waveBidder wrote:
| I've been wondering how to test this, thank you
| denysvitali wrote:
| Okay, but that's not going through the same paths of a
| 911 call, is it?
|
| And by that I mean the emergency mode of the modems
| bisby wrote:
| Completely tangential to testing that the service
| connects: I have a young child and we've done practice
| "what do you do in an emergency" things, but are there
| any "fake 911" type services where a young child can call
| to practice a 911 call, so they can experience how the
| operator will talk to them, so in a real emergency it
| would be a bit less jarring?
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| How does every other phone manufacturer do it then?
| numpad0 wrote:
| You don't need a full concert hall to test 911, the
| simplest LTE test equipment can be just couple sandwiches
| big. They're also not expensive at Google scale. It does
| concern me that there were anecdotal posts that read to
| me like that, developing firmwares and not blatantly
| violating basic assumptions and principles and core
| premises of Google MDM cannot occur simultaneously. If I
| somehow had to, I would bet that that to be on the path
| to the root cause. I mean, a lot of software jockeys have
| to be explained that IP address isn't assigned to a CPU
| socket.
| denysvitali wrote:
| You need a special room as well - you can't accept that
| someone near your building might end up having his 911
| call routed through your test infrastructure.
|
| Alternatively, I think you can somehow connect the device
| antenna to your equipment, so that the signal doesn't
| even have to be transmitted over the air (or at the scale
| of a femtocell). Still, rather "expensive" to setup in
| multiple locations for just a team that develops a
| dialer.
|
| Additionally, you'd have to test this across multiple OS
| versions, and devices. Still doable, but most likely not
| incentivized by the managers at Google
| numpad0 wrote:
| I don't see why it would be expensive, for no other than
| Google, to set up a microwave oven with a factory rooted
| phone and a femtocell inside on ~dozen locations
| worldwide. There's no special legal or financial
| complexities in doing that.
|
| And selling phones that can't pass certification is just
| irresponsible. If you can't make a product work, you're
| free to be responsible and cancel a product. It's on
| Google to do businesses legally.
| db48x wrote:
| The faraday cage in a microwave is good for its purpose,
| but not good enough at blocking cell phone bands. They
| would need something slightly more expensive, anywhere
| from $1000 to $50k depending on how fancy they wanted to
| be. Of course Google should have no problem affording any
| of that, but these details do matter.
|
| I suspect that the problem must be more complex than a
| bug in just the phone or the OS; for one thing, the
| problem is intermittent and doesn't affect every phone.
| Still, the lack of action from the FCC is disturbing.
| anarazel wrote:
| Can't you stand up your own test network for that? Other
| phones won't connect to that, so you don't need to fully
| rf isolate, as long as you have some trust in the test
| network not doing crazy things. It's well over a decade
| ago, in Europe, and I was only very peripherally
| involved, but it didn't seem that hard to get permits for
| such a test network indoors.
| notpushkin wrote:
| I think the problem is, 911/112 calls are routed through
| the best cell network available. This means that if
| somebody is close enough to your lab, their phone would
| still try to use your femtocell.
| anarazel wrote:
| From very dim memory: I think there's some flag you can
| set that marks your test network as not suitable for that
| kind of thing. But even if not, IIRC you can set routing
| information for stuff like 911 on a subscriber basis in
| your test network - which you'd just do for the handset
| you're testing.
| denysvitali wrote:
| In that case, you'd just be changing yet another variable
| and not test the emergency mode of the modem - which
| might actually be broken due to a software update, right?
| yardstick wrote:
| I believe some places you provide emergency services the
| number you will be calling from to test, so they can
| handle it appropriately.
|
| Ultimately with a system like 911, you will always have
| to do final testing on the real deal. Because this is
| just too serious to get wrong.
| [deleted]
| guraf wrote:
| In any other field, engineers would be held responsible and
| after so many "mistakes" they would lose their license.
|
| Software engineers will fight tooth and nails to keep their
| privilege is being called engineers whilst having none of the
| responsibility when it comes to the harm they're causing.
| stock_toaster wrote:
| In most fields with "real engineers" do they also get told
| by management to ship things broken and/or with arbitrary
| deadlines, or do they have the ability to push back on
| things, with some legal recourse or means to avoid the
| threat of losing their jobs if they say no to something,
| that software engineers lack?
|
| I don't think things will change until corporate management
| changes (via being forced to, or otherwise).
| paulddraper wrote:
| Really? Who lost their engineering license from Firestone
| tires? Toyota gas pedals? Hasbro easy-bake oven? Graco high
| chairs?
|
| Stop trotting out the same baseless comment over and over.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| In my country, engineers are legally responsible for
| their work to the point where insurance is required to do
| engineering. And yes, engineers that are negligent are
| held responsible. Just because you're ignorant doesn't
| mean it doesn't happen.
| paulddraper wrote:
| Certainly liability insurance exists.
|
| Let me know if find answers to my questions.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| You know any software engineers with liability insurance?
| Also, you would have learned of many examples had you
| gone to engineering school, we have whole courses
| dedicated to laws and ethics.
| pohuing wrote:
| My bet is on Google doesn't give a shit. The pixel 4a is a
| second tier device with constant ui crashes, glitches and
| design obviously not made for it.
| dvngnt_ wrote:
| > If it was my product I would have made damn sure the 911
| experience was perfect before shipping
|
| not absolving Google, but this is easier said than done
| LinuxBender wrote:
| _If it was my product I would have made damn sure the 911
| experience was perfect before shipping_
|
| For what it's worth, every telco switch upgrade I performed
| _ages ago, early days of GSM_ the first number I tested was
| 911. I made sure the dispatcher could hear me. I don 't know
| whats going on with the phone development side of things.
| That seems like a QA and customer feedback review problem. It
| probably also does not help that wireless vendors are
| slow/hesitant to update phones. There is a fear of bricking
| phones and customer support nightmares _their words, not
| mine_. I could flash update a phone over the air but this was
| in the 90 's. No idea what that process looks like now. I
| assume they stage an update on a CDN after hopefully testing
| it extensively. Do all cell phones have two boot partitions
| in the event the upgrade process _is sub-optimal(c)?_
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Some 911 operator online once mentioned that most of the calls
| they get are "butt dials."
|
| And then when I called months back I got an answering machine
| and waited what felt like an eternity (was one minute) to be
| routed to someone who then routed me elsewhere after
| determining what my needs were.
| Popeyes wrote:
| This happened to me, it was the emergency shortcut on the
| phone. Press the power button four times and it calls the
| police. You can turn it off. It was the button that kept
| triggering rather than a software fault.
| linux2647 wrote:
| A bit OT: but TIL you can schedule a test 911 call.
| turminal wrote:
| Why would they design the system in a way that enables an app
| (Microsoft Teams) to interfere with emergency calls?
|
| I know this part is supposed to be fixed, but it's insane that
| this was part of the problem.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| Teams is a telephony app, so perhaps Google's dialer tried to
| route the call through it and reacted incorrectly to failures.
| milosmns wrote:
| It is possible to intercept a lot of Android system broadcasts.
| In the B2B world, we often had weird requests to take over the
| whole phone experience and do something different - made
| possible by the same core Android APIs that they ship both to
| business devices and personal devices.
|
| I'm also not surprised to read that Teams was to blame, because
| Skype had the same functionality back in the days.
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| There should be some kind of test number twin of 911 that works
| exactly the same (without SIM, supplying E911 data), but just
| plays a pre-recorded message optionally with some "debug" info.
| milosmns wrote:
| I remember from my days building SIP clients that a lot of
| carriers support 933, which is exactly what you're asking
| about. You can try googling a bit to see if your carrier
| supports it.
| IshKebab wrote:
| That is such an obviously good idea I'm surprised it doesn't
| exist. Apparently the official way to test it in the UK is to
| email them and schedule a test. They say they use the real 999
| because that's the best way to guarantee that it works, and
| that's true - but there's definitely utility in having an
| almost-real number that you can test at any time guilt free.
|
| They probably just can't be bothered to set it up tbh.
| anticensor wrote:
| For maximum lore, that testing number should be set to +44
| 118 999 88199 9119 725 3.
| catgirlinspace wrote:
| yes!!!!! best emergency phone number. i heard the drivers
| are better looking too
| yardstick wrote:
| Maybe, but you would still need to test that 911 itself works.
| hot_gril wrote:
| The article says to test by calling the non-emergency number,
| but that seems like a really unrealistic test. Even if they
| offered a test version of 911, I wouldn't trust that it works
| exactly the same as 911.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| If you follow the link you'll see the procedure is you call
| the non-emergency number to ask for a time and location slot
| where you're allowed to call the real 911 number for test
| purposes. This let's them schedule you for a time where they
| predict lower demand. Seems sensible to me.
| milosmns wrote:
| Interesting. This might not be a bug in Google's dialer (or the
| OS, or hardware). Based on my past experience building B2B SIP
| clients, I remember that there are ways to intercept many of the
| Android system broadcasts. I'd bet on that being the root cause.
| Intercepting would look like the app is crashing, when instead it
| would be attempting to re-route requests to a different app;
| someone else mentioned they detected Microsoft Teams doing that.
| I remember Skype also had this feature, so it sounds plausible.
|
| In the B2B world, we often had weird requests e.g. to take over
| the whole phone experience and do something different - this was
| made possible by the same core Android SDKs that they ship both
| to business devices and personal devices.
|
| For example, we were required to move each 911 call to our app
| first, then check if we can route it quicker through the internal
| PBXs, and if not - send it back to the native/built-in dialer.
| This was possible a couple of years ago, we built it. I assume
| it's still possible because it's really rare that you need this
| kind of functionality... releasing such an app also requires a
| special review from Google. Maybe Google sees it as a low risk to
| the user experience and allows some apps to still do it, at least
| until something like this issue happes.
| mostthingsweb wrote:
| If Google employees actually used the phones they build we
| wouldn't have a lot of the issues we have them. I'm still annoyed
| that the little weather icon on the home screen has about a 2x2
| pixel hitbox.
|
| Edit: hitbox not hotbox...
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| When it appears at all. What kind of UI designer thinks it's OK
| not to show the weather most of the time when the user
| explicitly configured the settings to show it?
| [deleted]
| usr1106 wrote:
| [flagged]
| wunderland wrote:
| Who is downvoting this? It's objectively true
| fluidcruft wrote:
| Selling info to ambulance chasers and private first responders
| is probably a pretty good model. To fix everything all we
| really need to do is let Google sell the gravy.
| subjectsigma wrote:
| This was the final straw for me and why I switched from a Pixel
| to an iPhone. I refuse to die because my $800 smart device
| couldn't get me help that would have otherwise been available.
| Apple may be a scummy company just like all the other ones but
| the one thing they do seem to take very seriously is safety. I'm
| sure other people feel the same way but it doesn't seem like this
| message is getting to Google.
| d3w4s9 wrote:
| To be fair, Samsung produces much more reliable phones than
| Google, especially their S series phones, if you wanted to stay
| in the Android system. They are also quite good with system
| updates and security updates -- not the best but top tier by
| Android standards.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| I did the exact same thing last year when I first heard of this
| (recurring) issue. Safety is not part of a promo packet, so who
| at Google cares to fix it?
|
| I hate how Apple infantilizes the user, but at least they have
| vision of making a product. Not a collection of promotion
| producing ideas.
| snazz wrote:
| Safety is definitely one of Apple's key marketing points--you
| might have seen their ads for fall detection/emergency SOS on
| the Apple Watch or car crash detection on the iPhone.
| thereisnojesus wrote:
| Nope, I have not
| snazz wrote:
| I guess I'm jealous, then :)
|
| But more seriously, they do spend a lot of money and
| effort marketing those features and it must work well
| enough to be worth it.
| basisword wrote:
| I would like to see this lead to corporate manslaughter charges.
| I swear I've seen reports of this for years for multiple Pixel
| phones and the fact it's still ongoing is incredibly negligent.
| user_7832 wrote:
| It's really absurd how such a problem still exists. Couldn't a
| separate method be used for emergency calling? For example drop
| to 3g, don't use the dialer app but a separate "emergency" app.
| d3w4s9 wrote:
| Probably not exactly what you are looking for, but when one is
| in such a situation and they happen to have an app like Skype,
| people can use it for emergency calls (support in the US)
| covercash wrote:
| It would be great if when 911 is dialed the phone dropped into
| a "black box" state where all unnecessary functionality is
| suspended to maximize battery and signal. It could alert
| emergency contacts w/ location pings, start recording voice and
| video, and go into a heightened security mode to avoid
| tampering.
| readams wrote:
| No you definitely don't want the phone doing confusing and
| weird things during an emergency. You want it to behave in
| the way the user is accustomed.
| usr1106 wrote:
| I thought 3G networks have been shut down in the US? (Not
| living there but I remotely maintain some devices with cellular
| modems over there, so the topic has somewhat of professional
| interest.)
| spacebouy wrote:
| They have not. 2G networks have been shut down, however.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| Incorrect, T-Mobile's 2G network is active until this
| coming April. Both their 3G networks (theirs and the Sprint
| legacy one) are shut down as they used more spectrum.
| Keeping GSM going the spectrum use is minimal.
| chrismorgan wrote:
| If talking about the US (though it's not the only place that
| uses the number 911, and I would _imagine_ that other
| countries' numbers would be affected): all the major 3G
| networks have been shut down, so your current options for major
| networks are T-Mobile's 2G network (which I successfully dialed
| 911 with a couple of months ago while in the US, but it's only
| spottily available, and it's being shut down next year), or 4G
| networks.
|
| More generally, though, using different code paths for
| emergency dialing is the root of the problem in the first place
| --you want to minimise special handling of things like this,
| because less-tested paths are much more likely to be buggy.
| Consider also: error handling code is pretty much the buggiest
| out there, because it's seldom tested.
| alerighi wrote:
| The problem with 4G (and 5G) is that it supports only
| internet traffic. Phone traffic is passed trough VoLTE that
| is VOIP on the network. Is something that is fairly new, few
| years ago only a couple of operators in my country even
| supported that, and thus phones had to drop to 3G to handle
| calls. Also VOIP is not that reliable and presents problems
| especially with different networks.
|
| The problem is when the internet connection is not so stable,
| and thus VoLTE doesn't work that well. The safer option would
| be to drop to 3G or even 2G if available to complete
| emergency calls.
| kiwijamo wrote:
| I think you missed the point in the post that you are
| replying to saying carriers have dropped 3G and the only
| remaining 2G network is also on its way out. Where I live
| all carriers are planning to phase out 3G by the end of
| 2025. All but one carrier have already phased out 2G.
|
| We need to forget about falling back to 3G or 2G as that is
| not a viable solution in the long run. The carriers and
| phone manufactures have a responsibility to make
| emergencies calls work well over VoLTE.
| usr1106 wrote:
| At least 2 decades ago when I worked with phones the phone as
| a list of emergency numbers which could be updated to
| country-spefic values. Often 000, 112, and 911 were always
| present.
|
| Once the software notices one of these numbers dialled call
| handling will go a completely different code path than normal
| calls.
|
| I have no idea how things work in Android, where you
| obviously must have VoIP hooks?
| joecool1029 wrote:
| >I have no idea how things work in Android, where you
| obviously must have VoIP hooks?
|
| Yes, there's emergency IMS (basically volte/vonr version of
| SIP) profiles the phone is supposed to register to and all
| the carriers towers advertise emergency numbers in their
| signaling.
| phh wrote:
| Having dedicated code path for 911 is literally the problem. It
| makes it legally almost impossible to test in many countries
| (since in many countries you're not allowed to dial 911 if you
| don't have an emergency)
| phowat wrote:
| The article explains how to schedule a test call to 911.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Just call nearest Rohde & Schwarz office and get a signaling
| tester... If you're doing phone firmware, there should be
| couple extra briefcases of cash for that. No need to call
| actual 911 just to test a dev branch build.
| toast0 wrote:
| Which countries? Where I live, in the US, if you want to make
| a callback to a police detective, you have to call 911 and
| ask to be transfered. It's clearly not an emergency, and the
| detective will tell you to do it. This police department
| doesn't have a phone system that allows the public to call a
| non-emergency number and have their calls routed.
|
| But most places I've lived in the US had a non-emergency
| police number, and non-emergency 911 calls were very
| discouraged. If you have a good reason to make them for
| network or device testing, you'd just need to schedule a time
| to make a test call, stay on the line and tell the operator,
| etc.
|
| Device development would be well served by using a tower
| simulator in a Faraday cage, as a sibling suggested. But a
| responsible developer would do a few tests on live networks
| during release acceptance testing.
| colanderman wrote:
| Test in a Faraday cage with an isolated base station.
| thrillgore wrote:
| Incredible. My phone does everything except the make calls part.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| I'm just wondering when Google will sunset the 911 dialing
| feature. /s
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| New meaning for Killed by Google.
| 1023bytes wrote:
| Analytics indicate that only a small percentage of people still
| use it and the engagement was low
| sgt wrote:
| Plus, the users occasionally have a tendency not to remain as
| users of Google services for very long after.
| kotaKat wrote:
| We'll bring it back as an RCS-reliant chat app and then waste
| half our time mocking Apple for it.
| lionkor wrote:
| When my OnePlus 8T lags, I sometimes press the power button a few
| times, because I'm impatient and I'm trying to get the screen to
| turn on.
|
| Pressing the power button 5 times dials the emergency service
| number by default, so I've almost called emergency services a few
| times already. I usually manage to cancel it before it dials, but
| wow.
| mook wrote:
| FWIW, you can disable that in settings (both the power button
| thing, as well as the auto-dial if you prefer to get to that
| page via buttons). At least, if the 8T is similar to other
| phones.
| klausjensen wrote:
| Just tested on pixel 7a.
|
| When I click the power button 5x, a screen appears with:
|
| - A large circle in the middle of the screen, which I have to
| press and hold for 3 seconds to initiate the call.
|
| - A slider to cancel the screen entirely
|
| So just hitting the powerbutton 5x does not actually make the
| call on Pixel 7a, just makes it easier.
| exabrial wrote:
| When I had a Pixel4, I witnessed a car accident in which someone
| got hurt quite substantially.
|
| Hard as a tried, the process of dialing 911 failed multiple
| times; the phone app simply crashed and left me with a blank
| screen or the home screen. I put a complaint in with my carrier
| but nothing was ever done. And of course Google could give 0
| fucks with their customer support.
|
| A few months later, I needed to call 911 for an emergency and it
| did work, but yeah... we got "Eventual Consistency" for an
| emergency.
| ouid wrote:
| [dead]
| TerrifiedMouse wrote:
| > A few months later
|
| I'm surprised you kept the phone. I would have gotten a new
| phone if I discovered my current one couldn't dial 911
| properly.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Well, how many times in your life do you call 911? I am in my
| forties and I maybe used my local equivalent 3 times and in
| every occurence someone else could have made the call.
|
| And I've only used my mobile phone since my late 20's, it is
| not like I buy smartphones for emergency purposes.
| kmlx wrote:
| you only need it to fail once...
| hfjjbf wrote:
| [dead]
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| Someone could put all of these reports together along with the
| paper trail of unresolved complaints to Google through
| discovery and likely end up with a great class action case or
| even a criminal negligence case.
|
| 911 is one of those things that absolutely must work and most
| phones will allow you through using any available network if
| you are out of range of your primary carrier.
|
| The fact that this is unreliable on any mobile phone is
| completely unacceptable.
| bufio wrote:
| Software is a mess.
| freitzkriesler2 wrote:
| Send a complaint to the FCC. The carrier will notice.
| 1024core wrote:
| Again? I feel like I've heard of this bug before.
| tenken wrote:
| I had a Bluetooth keyboard in a backpack turned On in the trunk
| of my car while driving .... random key presses while driving
| from bumps in the road managed to dial 911 ... or make the phone
| think it was an emergency and 911 was called. Not fun.
|
| The keyboard was spamming gibberish, eg NN nZzz1457_+-5hhhsvb
| .... etc
|
| It took me a while to figure out why the phone appeared
| possessed...
| nneonneo wrote:
| This article is about an incident from just last month, but the
| fact that there are 20+ failure reports over just Feb 2022-Jan
| 2023 (https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/y039zn/i_comp
| i...), across multiple Pixel models, is insane. There's something
| seriously wrong here.
| shawnz wrote:
| Is there any data on how often this occurs with other brands,
| or what the failure rate was (i.e. how many attempts to call
| 911 succeeded in that time?) Otherwise 20+ reports certainly
| sounds bad but I don't really have a perspective on how bad it
| is. It could very well be that 20 failures across a year is
| within the expected failure rate due to unavoidable transient
| network issues.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| The author of the linked Reddit post was unable to find
| anything for other Android brands, and only three cases
| across ten years for iPhones.
| nneonneo wrote:
| And, it's worth pointing out that the sales volumes of
| iPhones and just Samsungs (not counting any other brand)
| are many times that of Pixel, so if there was an issue even
| nearly as frequent with those phones it would definitely
| have been noticed by now.
| mcbrienollie wrote:
| If you would be isolated on a random place and given the chance
| to bring only one item, you would most probably pick the phone.
| On both ethical and user-experience cases, this is completely
| unacceptable. Google is just bringing the trust issues for such a
| silly bug.
| matchbok wrote:
| Android is such a mess - this should have criminal penalties.
| Anyone working in the Android SDK knows how poorly designed it
| is.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| What does this have to do with Android? Other Android mobiles
| do not have any difficulty making emergency calls.
| matchbok wrote:
| They certainly have in the past. There are core issues with
| how Android deals with phone apps and prioritization. Quite a
| few threads on here about previous 911 issues.
| noonething wrote:
| Guess I'll pray-to-dial 911 now!
| shrubble wrote:
| It shouldn't be allowed to be sold and Google should be facing
| fines for each day the functionality is missing, assuming it is a
| software problem.
| koheripbal wrote:
| Some people hate so much they favor disproportionate penalties
| teeray wrote:
| These are penalties carriers face if 911 doesn't work.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| This isn't disproportionate. This should be a baseline
| requirement for selling a phone.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Disproportionate? Google must be worth what, a trillion
| dollars by now? And they can't get emergency service dialing
| working worldwide? There's clearly not enough legal liability
| to get them to do what society expects them to be doing.
| People are going to fucking die because of their negligence.
| Literally every minute is precious when someone is having a
| heart attack, we don't have time to fuck around with Google
| bullshit. Society should start calculating that damage and
| making Google pay all of it multiplied by 10.
| m-p-3 wrote:
| For a mild inconvenience that would be disproportionate, but
| this could be a matter of life or death here.
| chrnola wrote:
| What kind of response would be appropriate then for getting
| them to take this issue seriously?
| sgc wrote:
| I own one, and reading this I most definitely want a refund.
| It is utter bolox. Sure, every once in a while your car
| brakes fail, but that's not really the point of the car, is
| it? It's made to go forward! Anyways, we will get if fixed
| eventually. Do you like our newest, just released paint
| colors?
| patmorgan23 wrote:
| Im on my 3rd pixel and will not be purchasing another one
| after learning this (and a a few other issues with the
| direction the line has been taking)
| kkielhofner wrote:
| To think that they are prioritizing support for TikTok or
| whatever and thinking of 911 as an afterthought is
| horrendous and disgusting.
| Libcat99 wrote:
| This is a life or death matter and should be treated as such.
| Dobbs wrote:
| Being able to call 911 is an essential part of a phone. To
| the point that Apple (and I'm assuming Google) both allow
| calling emergency services while the phone is locked.
| ben-schaaf wrote:
| In lots of countries it's also possible to call emergency
| numbers without a sim card.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| It's not just possible, it is a feature of the GSM
| system. As far as I know it is a requirement in Europe.
| mig39 wrote:
| When you take the SIM out of an iPhone (or turn off your
| eSIM), it displays "SOS" instead of a carrier ID.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Yes, because 3GPP defines requisite emergency call flow,
| and FCC require phones able to make emergency calls
| without SIM. It's not a gesture of generosity.
| kkielhofner wrote:
| Omnipresent use of 911 has been arguably the most impactful
| killer app since cell phones first emerged over 40 years ago.
| It has saved countless lives. In the days of not having a
| landline this is completely unacceptable.
|
| To have issues utilizing 911 from a cellular device in 2023
| is exactly the kind of thing regulators should make painful
| for device manufacturers who can't even get this right.
|
| What's even more puzzling is the brand and reputational
| damage when stories emerge in the press of people dying
| because their $500 (or more) device couldn't do something a
| free phone without a SIM card can do.
|
| You'd think they'd take this seriously if for no other reason
| other than self interest.
| charcircuit wrote:
| >has been arguably the most impactful killer app since cell
| phones first emerged over 40 years ago.
|
| I strongly disagree. Most people aren't buying a phone so
| that they can use 911. It isn't a killer app.
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| That tends to happen when the party to be penalized shows how
| much it doesn't give a shit until it starts to hemorrhage
| money, because fines are just a _cost of doing business_. So
| let the blood flow.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| Some people love so much they dismiss critical issues? Apple
| got fined for extending the life of old phones without
| notifying the users, where do you think this issue sits in
| relation?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| We recall baby products after they kill just a few babies.
| Why not phones that can't call 911? It's just as likely to
| kill people.
| patmorgan23 wrote:
| How's that boot taste?
|
| Contacting emergency services is the one thing a phone must
| not fail at.
|
| We mandated legacy telecos to maintain switching offices with
| a weeks worth of battery power so landlines could work in a
| natural disaster.
|
| Google is a trillion dollar company if you want to get their
| attention you have to effect them on the order of millions of
| dollars.
| figglestar wrote:
| > We mandated legacy telecos to maintain switching offices
| with a weeks worth of battery power so landlines could work
| in a natural disaster.
|
| Not disagreeing with the topic at hand but this isn't even
| consistent anymore. When they switched to FttN for DSL in
| my area I noticed the batteries for the nodes only last a
| day before they die and I lose landline service.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Radio certifications should be suspended if there are protocol
| conformance issues, I think there are precedents to it.
| J_Shelby_J wrote:
| We need to introduce a stochastic manslaughter charge.
|
| I have trouble believing this hasn't caused a death. And
| someone at google knows about it. They should be held
| responsible.
| kkielhofner wrote:
| Exactly. If the FCC (or someone) said "your certification of
| these devices is revoked and any further imports are banned"
| I GUARANTEE Google would instantly spin up a dedicated,
| capable, and prioritized 911 team.
| tremon wrote:
| Why the caveat? Isn't the Pixel hardware designed and sold by
| Google as well?
| bell-cot wrote:
| It seems pretty odd that liability-lawsuit lawyers haven't
| managed to monetize this "feature" enough to push "removing" it
| further up the priority list. Anybody have some insight?
| sdo72 wrote:
| My Pixel journey from 1 to 6A ended a few months ago, I can't no
| longer trust Pixel phones. Even though they seem very fast and
| responsive at first, they're not reliable in many situations like
| calling 911, getting Wifi signal, receiving calls, ... All of
| Pixel phones I got since the 1st version have some kind of major
| issues. I trusted Google with the software and I thought I could
| continue, but I had to switch to iPhones.
| surfingdino wrote:
| This is unacceptable. They should loose certification for the
| device.
| NonAnonCoward wrote:
| My experience has been Pixel phones suck for calls in general. I
| know of 3 people with Pixel 3As that intermittently can't receive
| calls. Often it takes 2-3 calls to these people in order to get 1
| to go through. Setting the phones to prefer 4G has so far fixed
| the problem most reliably but the whole calling stack on pixel
| phones needs some work IMO.
| _trampeltier wrote:
| I have a Samsung Note10+ and I also have to try often 2 times
| to make a call. The first time there is mostly no Sound.
| denysvitali wrote:
| To be fair, from experience the issue is not with Pixel phones
| per se, but with Samsung modems. They're really bad.
| withinboredom wrote:
| This is one thing I miss about the old Windows Phones
| (Nokia/Metro interface sucked, but damn) because it was a phone
| first, computer second. Most phones these days are computers
| (or cameras) first, phones last.
|
| For example, the WP would progressively disable things to keep
| the phone on for as long as possible. At 2am, after a night
| out, I'd usually be the only one who had a working phone to
| call a cab (pre-uber days) -- but that was the last feature to
| stop working before it died. IIRC, you could disable this
| functionality, but I don't know why you would want to.
| hackmiester wrote:
| BlackBerry had this too. May it rest in peace.
| marcod wrote:
| I'm being snarky, because I'm nto in a 911 emergency right now,
| but using my cellphone to call people is usually the least used
| feature :p
| larntz wrote:
| I have a pixel 6 pro and this has been my experience since they
| day I got it. I even had it replaced and still have to reset
| the cellular modem several times per week because I get the no
| service `!`.
|
| Starting to believe it is a T-Mobile service issue in my area.
| Previously had a pixel 2 on Verizon and never had a problem.
| Planning to leave T-Mobile in the near future.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Same issue for me! After my previous Pixel bricked due to a
| flash chip wearing out (wtf?) I'm swearing off the Pixel
| line.
|
| I'm in the Northeast USA on T-Mobile. You?
| larntz wrote:
| I'm in South Florida.
| beart wrote:
| I have a 6A on T-Mobile. Exact same issue for me.
|
| Do you use wifi calling when you are at home? It has been my
| experience that T-Mobile WiFi calling is absolutely terrible,
| and I've oftentimes wondered if something in the software
| "locks" into WiFi instead of switching to cellular data,
| until the phone is rebooted.
| larntz wrote:
| Yep! I work from home and use WiFi calling. When I leave my
| house is usually when I have the issue.
|
| Sometimes it'll work fine for a while after leaving and a
| few hours later I notice I don't have service.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Pixel 6 on AT&T, I don't think I've ever had this experience.
|
| Phone calls sound much better than my previous carrier (some
| cheap mvno) and things generally Just Work.
|
| Only complaint is that it's missing some things I hadn't
| realized were not stock Android, such as per-app volume
| control. I just might switch back to LG after this one dies,
| though the battery seems to be holding up much better so who
| knows.
| mook wrote:
| Switching back to LG might be difficult; they are no longer
| making (Android) phones.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Electronics#Mobile_devices
| zdragnar wrote:
| Well, there goes that plan :(
| imchillyb wrote:
| "BEEEERRRRREEEERRREEEEEP! This is a test of the emergency
| broadcast system. This is only a test. BEEEERRRRREEEERRREEEEEP!"
|
| Certainly this could be implemented with a feedback system, in
| order to guarantee access to emergency services?
| syntaxing wrote:
| I tried to use my old pixel 3 recently as a hotspot. Blows my
| mind how it's been broken for a while (according to online) and
| won't ever be fixed since there's no more software support. I
| ended up buying a used iPhone SE instead.
| diego_sandoval wrote:
| I use a Pixel 3a with GrapheneOS as my daily driver.
| syntaxing wrote:
| How is it? Was debating rooting it and loading it but it was
| easier to get a cheap used iPhone SE.
| naranha wrote:
| They are so lucky. My Samsung Phone already called 911 several
| times, while I had it in my pocket. And every time I have to
| explain why. I guess I'll get a Pixel next time.
| d3w4s9 wrote:
| As in my other comment, this likely comes from the fact that
| lower end phones use "virtual proximity sensing" instead of a
| real proximity sensor, and they have a lot of issues when the
| phone is in a pocket. You need to either disable the double tab
| feature or upgrade to a "real" flagship like S23.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Samsung makes some of the stupidest devices I've ever owned.
| Back when I had Samsung phones, they did all sorts of things
| while in my pocket. I experienced multiple butt-dials, music
| randomly playing, etc. Fortunately, mine never dialed 911. But
| I could have lived without those moments where death metal
| started blasting from my pocket because I leaned the wrong way.
| And let's not get me started on their TVs. Maybe it's not so
| bad now that their phones support fingerprint scanning, but I
| wouldn't put it past them to screw that up, too. I sincerely
| believe that most people who continue to own Samsung devices
| simply don't know better. Such flimsy bloated crap for products
| that are supposed to "compete" with Apple, Microsoft, and The
| Google.
| gwynzel wrote:
| Had this issue awhile ago, out of nowhere it just started
| dialing 911 while in my pocket. Turns out some setting was re-
| enabled after a recent update. Went to Settings > Advanced
| features > Motions and gestures > Double tap to turn on screen
| > Disable and I think that finally fixed it. This is on a
| Samsung A71 5G.
| naranha wrote:
| Thanks, I disabled it! I'm on the A52. I use the double tap
| feature often enough, but I guess I can live with the lack of
| convenience, thanks ;)
| d3w4s9 wrote:
| Yes, I ran into the same problem and this "fixed" it. The
| issue doesn't come from the feature itself but from the fact
| that the lower end model uses "Virtual proximity sensing"
| instead of a real proximity sensor which is often faulty. It
| sucks that Samsung chooses to cut costs in these places.
| anthonyryan1 wrote:
| If it's possible the power button is getting bumped repeatedly
| in your pocket. You could search your Android settings, and
| make sure "Emergency SOS" is turned off.
| mkl wrote:
| I don't see a way to turn that off. I could sort of do it
| using the option to change the emergency number.
| MereInterest wrote:
| It's also possible that there's a hardware failure that is
| making the power button erroneously report button presses,
| leading to the Emergency SOS. This happened to me on a Pixel
| 3, which resulted in repeated calls to 911 with no user
| input.
|
| * Can't power it off for the night, because the flaky power
| button turns it back on.
|
| * Can't pull the SIM card, because emergency calls don't
| require a SIM card to connect.
|
| * Can't consistently use the "slide to cancel" option, as the
| phone was also trying to initialize the camera at the same
| time. (IIRC, 3 button presses for the camera, 5 button
| presses for SOS. The flaky power button managed to trigger
| SOS while the camera was still initializing the GUI, so the
| camera GUI took focus.)
|
| * Can't access the settings, because the flaky power button
| either turns the phone off, opens the camera, or sends an SOS
| faster than I could search the settings.
|
| This all started at about 10 PM. So, instead of going to
| sleep, I needed to spend the next two hours baby-sitting my
| phone as it mostly was repeatedly rebooting, with occasional
| calls to 911, until the battery finally died.
| [deleted]
| leesalminen wrote:
| That would be the point where I take a hammer to the phone.
| MereInterest wrote:
| Believe me, if it hadn't been for 2FA tokens that I
| needed to get off of it, I would have been dropping
| cinderblocks on it to get it to stop.
| freedomben wrote:
| Aegis Authenticator has been a lifesaver for me:
| https://getaegis.app/
| BaculumMeumEst wrote:
| It seems absolutely insane to me not to immediately get a new
| phone the first time that happens.
| naranha wrote:
| Well I have to now, because the screen also stopped working
| 90% of the time, except when I put it in the freezer for 15
| minutes. Just 2 months that the phone is conveniently out of
| warranty. I guess it's the last Samsung Phone I'll ever buy.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| It is "absolutely insane" that people don't spend $500-$1K on
| a new phone the "first time that happens?"
| sjkna wrote:
| [dead]
| Aachen wrote:
| Do explain why! Is there a shortcut on the lock screen that you
| can't turn off or how?
|
| Two or my four smartphones have been Samsungs and, while I
| could call 112 on purpose, I don't know what might cause pocket
| dialing. Your comment about this being a feature rather than a
| bug on Pixels is funny though =)
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Yes, it's possible to dial 911 from a locked phone. I assume
| that's a legal requirement; on its face it's pretty
| reasonable.
|
| I never used to lock my phone at all, but starting with the
| Pixel 3a I've been forced to do it by the fact that the phone
| interprets rubbing against my leg through my pocket as a
| stream of commands. I wish manufacturers would go back to the
| non-crazy screens they used to make. Anyway, since locking
| the phone doesn't disable the ability to call 911, this is a
| constant risk, though I don't believe I've made an accidental
| call yet. (Or maybe I would have, if my phones weren't
| Pixels!)
|
| I have mangled a text note I was keeping on my phone beyond
| recovery when I once put my phone in my pocket without
| manually locking it first.
| naranha wrote:
| No, I can't turn it off and it was always from a locked
| screen, I think it's a legal requirement in the EU. I now
| keep my phone always with the screen turned away from my leg
| in my pocket and that seems to prevent it well enough, even
| though I still often get to almost calling 911 when I take it
| out of my pocket with my hand.
| Aachen wrote:
| > I can't turn it off and it was always from a locked
| screen, I think it's a legal requirement
|
| But my question was: what is the _it_ that your phone has?
| I don 't have such a button on my lock screen. There's a
| camera and a flashlight shortcut (too few shortcuts for my
| liking but better than bare android with zero shortcuts)
| naranha wrote:
| There is a large button underneath the number pad where
| you enter your PIN and it says Emergency Call. It works
| even when the SIM is still locked.
| Aachen wrote:
| Ah, right yes that makes sense. I don't want to bother
| with entering a password on a device I use dozens of
| times a day so never set one, that explains why I don't
| see such a button: people can just get to the dialer if
| they need to call a number while I'm incapacitated
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Surely it is a legal requirement that mobile phones be able to
| call the emergency services? If it doesn't do that then surely a
| crime has been committed?
| thesis wrote:
| A crime? Not sure I agree in a isolated incident.
|
| But I feel like it should be a crime to ignore a known issue
| like this.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| Possibly related issue that LOS patched not too long ago:
| https://review.lineageos.org/c/LineageOS/android_packages_ap...
| yolovoe wrote:
| I used to have a Pixel 2 XL and then later a Pixel 5a. Went
| through them really fast as the hardware was pretty bad and the
| phone would just decide to stop turning on at some point. Same
| thing happened to a relative I gave a Pixel 5a. Phone didn't last
| a year.
|
| Don't get me started on the Pixel buds. I got tired of contacting
| customer support for replacements.
|
| That's when I decided not to buy hardware from Google again, and
| also stopped using Android. Experience in iPhone has been great
| so far. Phone's fast despite being several generations behind,
| don't have to worry about not getting security updates.
| milosmns wrote:
| Another anecdotal example here:
|
| Nexus 4, Pixel 2 XL, Pixel 4 XL, Pixel 6 Pro - never had any
| issues whatsoever, all phones still alive and kicking at my
| grandparents' places. Yes, most of them tied to the wall now...
| but hey, they're fine for showing some photos and displaying
| current time or setting alarms.
|
| Interestingly, I also used Samsung's Note 9 and 10+, iPhone 12,
| iPhone 14 Pro Max - daily, also with no issues... other than
| disliking Samsung's software.
|
| (I was/am doing a lot of mobile work so I test a lot of phones)
|
| After years of doing this kind of testing, it's hard for me to
| believe that the entire batches of phones are so fundamentally
| broken... I'd rather bet on software issues, but who knows.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| I will say I have had plenty of similar issues across my iPhone
| devices. For a variety of reasons these phones fail to make
| calls. Drop calls or can't dial 911. I suspect voice calling
| itself has become network deprioritized or still has trouble
| selecting between calling tech.
|
| I worked on dialer for pixel and and am deeply familiar with
| these problems. Voice call tech is easily one of those mostly
| worthlessly convoluted spaces in mobile. That being said while I
| was there we put a huge priority on emergency calling -- however
| the exec overseeing the space often complained about how hard
| dialer was and bemoaned all the required work because it never
| helped her promotions.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| Emergency calls should have the highest priority on networks.
| sentientslug wrote:
| I'm going to be the one to say that you definitely didn't have
| the same issue with an iPhone. As much as people love shitting
| on Google they love shitting on Apple 100x more and it would be
| front page news for days if what you are saying is true.
| hot_gril wrote:
| I like using a heavily scrutinized phone. When Apple
| throttled my iPhone 6, there was so much media backlash that
| they responded by adding an option to disable the throttling.
| Android issues like this would likely get swept under the
| rug, especially with a non-Pixel device where someone else
| makes the hardware and both sides avoid blame.
| nneonneo wrote:
| When did you have problems dialing 911 with an iPhone? It seems
| like something worth reporting - feedback to Apple, public
| posting, etc.
|
| Dropped calls etc. do happen for a variety of reasons, but
| there have been next to no reports of iPhones being unable to
| dial 911 (assuming a decent cell signal, etc.), and that would
| be a much more serious issue.
| fluidcruft wrote:
| All cell phones with 911 functionality should have a way to
| periodically test that the 911 feature is fully functional. The
| reality is that I rarely even make a phone call anymore... but I
| don't even know whether being able to make a call implies 911
| works? And I don't know if its still true but there used to be
| pretty significant fines for calling 911 so I'm not just going to
| dial 911 and say "making sure this still works!" The phone should
| just be doing various deadman switch type tests on the
| network/911 health-checks and report to me whether it is working
| or not working. It has a freaking GPS and can identify cell
| towers, so it should be pretty trivial to maintain test data and
| schedule. Relying on life-critical devices that can't be tested
| seems really sketchy.
| londons_explore wrote:
| > I rarely even make a phone call anymore
|
| This is true for many young people. Turns out phone calls are
| pretty much the only time the earpiece speaker gets used on a
| phone. Lots of people have killed their earpiece speaker by
| filling it with sand, salt, water, lint, etc. Speakers seem to
| die more easily when never used, presumably because use
| vibrates dirt out. End result: When they call 911 they can't
| hear anything.
|
| My phone currently has a dead earpiece speaker, and I just know
| that if I need to call 911, it better be on speakerphone.
| gok wrote:
| [flagged]
| unethical_ban wrote:
| No, this is entirely untrue.
| metiscus wrote:
| https://www.911.gov/calling-911/frequently-asked-questions/
|
| From that link: Test calls confirm that your local 911
| service can receive your 911 call and has the correct
| location information. Test calls can be scheduled by
| contacting your local 911 call center via its non-emergency
| phone number.
| im3w1l wrote:
| I'm sure that's labor intensive, and the only reason they
| can provide such a service is that almost no one uses it.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-09-30 23:01 UTC)