Issue dialing 911 on Google Pixel 6 cell phones
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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.
Testing is one thing, but in my first hand experience, many carriers used this "testing" as a convenient way to block phone updates without preloaded bloatware preferring their services or apps they were paid to put on the phones.
How were you involved with the update process to know this?
Basically part of the reason Apple went with AT&T was they were the only carrier willing to let them control the user/feature layer of the stack.
The other telecoms would have this giant requirement document they dictated to handset manufacturers - which is why your crappy Motorola flip phone had three way calling buried 7 menus deep that nobody could use.
Things got magnitudes better when Apple leveraged their power to take away this control from telecoms. Though they still did agree to adhere to the minimum specs wrt safety/security.
The crappy Motorola rockr phone that Jobs hated is what happened when you tried to work with the telecoms.
AT&T had much worse commissions for selling iPhones than new lines for a reason. Meanwhile, Verizon, Sprint & T-Mobile played the long game and waited to sign volume commits and financing terms with Apple.
The carrier specific iPad financing promos where they sell you a tablet well below cost (even factoring in the 2 year data plan cost) is a situation created by these minimum volume commits.
We know this because both versions would end on XDA Developers.
I'm not sure why it would be on the network to test devices anyway, it's not like every net card needs to be approved by ICANN or something. There should be standards to adhere to, if those are breached on either end, fines should follow.
I was stuck with a broken-down car at night before and needed to see my location on a map. Google had opted me into some A/B test on Google Maps that broke the entire app and made it unusable, I couldn't find any way to get out of this test.
Friends iPhone worked perfectly fine and ended up being used instead.
This was probably the biggest factor as to why I dropped Android and got an iPhone, you simply can't trust Google's software quality.
As I've said elsewhere, ultimately it's the responsibly of the regulator in each country to ensure that phones can connect to emergency numbers irrespective of what operating system or apps are installed on them—so that's where the problem ought to rest.
That said, it's clear that that view doesn't sit well with a number of commentators here, for within seconds of posting it together with a solution and the reasons for why the comment was voted down sans comment. With attitudes like that about one can expect Google to prevaricate.
That leads me to think there's more to this than just a clash of software nuking emergency numbers. If I were the regulator I'd be asking for the source code from Google on threat of future non-approval of Pixel phones to see what nefarious antics Google is up to. (It's clear to me that it's just too coincidental that blocking 911 would happen unless Google is specifically monitoring the number for some other unspecified reason.)
When someone dials 911, there is a ton of context data that needs to be collected, analyzed, and added to Google’s profile of the user to ensure the most relevant ads can be served in the future.
There’s location data, whether the user is driving, connected Bluetooth accessories, other phones in close proximity. All of this needs cutting edge ML processing so the user model can be updated with e.g. “likely domestic violence victim, recommend self defense courses” to improve the user experience the next time they search for a pie recipe.
Given the heavy lift of this advanced algorithmic processing, it’s inevitable that some minor bugs will creep in to ancillary functions like connecting the user’s phone call to emergency services. Even when that happens, it’s still a >95% success for the scenario.
If you are selling a phone, you have to comply with phone regulations and it’s your responsibility to make it do phone things.
Blaming the regulator for Google’s error is a neat idea though.
Perhaps so in the current circumstances, but ultimately it is the responsibly of the regulators to ensure the emergency numbers work.
As witnessed here, a number of commentators seem to have forgotten that their smartphones are first and foremost are telephones and not playtoy computers. Unfortunately, the computer aspect now seems to dominate—if this weren't a fact then these unfortunate incidents wouldn't have happened.
I don't think that's true. A few years back when I was comparing phones, many reviews don't even mention how good they are at making calls. Both Millennials and Gen Z are notably phone-averse. [1][2] I think a modern smartphone is a portable network computer/camera/sensor-package, with the telephone bit being something like the human appendix.
As somebody in Gen X, it looks to me like the whole notion of "phone call" is a dying concept that only existed due to the technological limitations during the period 1880-2000. Think of it sort of like faxing: it made sense at the time.
[1] https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/why-millennials-ignore-calls
[2] https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/health-and-wellness/call-de...
A modern smartphone is a convergence of two devices: a PDA and a cell phone (this is more obvious with older devices like the Palm Treo 650). Once the telephone bit is no longer relevant (probably replaced by a data-only cellular modem), it will go back to being just a PDA.
Isn't this kind of already the case? I thought past 4G there were no separate channels for call audio, it was effectively just VoIP
It's a bit like saying "most car reviews don't review whether the car stays still when parked in a garage or not!"
Also, splitting hairs over phone audio quality is beside the point. The point of a phone is to be a phone, smart or not. I would be livid if my fridge could play games but not provide cooling. A smart fridge doesn’t negate the primary function.
I also think your "smart fridge" analogy is hilariously off target. Survey data indicates that the actual phone calls are a relatively small fraction of smartphone use: https://www.reviews.org/mobile/cell-phone-addiction/
I agree that the primary purpose of a cellphone was once making calls. I'm just saying that day is long past. That transition started as texting became popular, but smartphones drastically accelerated it.
Speaking for myself at least, I can tell you that it's not so much that I forgot as that I don't care and also you're wrong. Yes, it's good - perhaps even important - that the computer I carry in my pocket every day can also theoretically make phone calls, but it is most certainly first and foremost a computer.
Well, until there is an emergency anyway. But folks not knowing how to deal with emergencies is not that uncommon anyway, unfortunately.
That's why networks test firmware. Because they face the complaints and chargebacks when the phone breaks.
Mobile networks are, in effect, private networks. Your employer may prohibit certain devices from connecting to their in-office LAN. Or they may insist on specific devices which they know work well with their equipment.
Mobile networks can ban equipment which is stolen. I assume they can also de-register an IMEI if the handset if interfering with the network. Most countries have a regulator who can issue fines for disrupting the airwaves. But they are often unable to investigate non-systemic issues.
As such, all networks must support all devices for the system to retain some shred of functionality and standardisation is key. Providers can't just pick and choose what to support if they want to maintain credibility. I would imagine it makes far more sense for some international org to do reviews, but at the absence of that the manufacturers themselves need to guarantee compatibility or they will be pushed out of the market by those that do.
In the case of a phone with defective emergency calling software/firmware/hardware they must have a means of detecting and blocking such phones from making spurious calls, right?
If they already have this capacity in place then detecting and blocking out-of-network phones from roaming should be trivial.
1/ Roaming is a big factor (before COVID, and now in a post-COVID world too). I’ve spent more time on carrier networks which are NOT my ‘home network’ in the past 3-4 weeks than not, in many different countries, managed by many different regulators. I didn’t need a new phone for each country, a software update for my phone, instead it just worked.
2/ I’m not unique in buying devices from the manufacturer directly - specifically, I use the iPhone Upgrade Program. Lots of friends buy direct from Apple or via electronics stores like Best Buy but every 2-3 years. I hear very few people who “got their phone from Verizon” (but I’m sure this still happens, too!). [1]
3/ At least in the Apple ecosystem these days theft and loss is handled with Activation Lock, which is IMO more effective than IMEI blocking because it works regardless of cellular network and without relying on any assumptions networks may share a blocklist of reported stolen IMEIs amongst themselves.
[1] https://9to5mac.com/2020/10/29/iphone-upgrade-program-popula...
In USA perhaps, the mobile telcos are powerful there, yes. Which is why Nokia never got popular there.
Here in EU, its gone down. Especially here in NL.
> And when someone goes wrong, customers complain to the network - not the manufacturer.
If they bought it at the mobile telco; of course. I mean, they bought it from that store, not the manufacturer.
If I buy my smartphone at Amazon, Amazon is inclined to give me support. At least, that's how the law works here in NL, YMMV.
It was considered the utmost priority for a call to 911 to be clear enough for the other side to hear that you are an employee at a testing facility verifying that the device does work and the other person can hear you and NOT dispatch emergency services....
Cops/EMTs show up, your firmware is junk.
It was really bad around the VolTE roll-out because the firmwares were pretty junky at that point (like a 10-1 failure rate) so we started doing testing calling from a phone to another (working) phone before doing the emergency services call.
This leads to lots of misconceptions too.
With a local Rogers SIM from a high building in Toronto, my phone will only see Canadian networks on a network scan. But when I put in an EU SIM, same phone and same place, a network scan will see several US networks and even prefer connecting to them (probably cheaper roaming rates), even if the connection is ultra-weak.
Feels like there’s some geo-fencing preferencing, or maybe time-distance bounding going on.
This is a patently false thing to say.
https://www.fcc.gov/general/cell-phones-and-specific-absorpt...
India has its own in 1g of tissue but I don't know the threshold value off the top of my head.
Let the network operators continue to certify phones, like hardware manufacturers do with hard drives, memory, etc., dimmer manufacturers do with LEDs, etc.
Make the certification tests, steps and costs transparent to both device manufacturers and the public.
(A couple of decade ago now - my memory might be inaccurate.)
You call the regional center (the 911, or in our case, 112 responders), you negotiate a timeframe for your tests (so that there's enough operators there), you tell them the phone number (and other data) that will be used for testing (because the responders get the approximate location of the caller, and might still send someone to check after a call, even if the voice doesn't get through), and then call 911 (112 here) a bunch of times.
Also, emergency calls have to work even without a sim card inserted, or with a simcard but still locked (via sim pin), or with an unlocked sim but locked screen, so that had to be tested too.
Somehow I manage to swipe the screen up and press the relatively small 'Emergency' button, all without touching the phone. It's really weird.
Admittedly this is roughly once every 2 years, but still I’m about at the point where I’d like to disable all automatic emergency services.
I had to do this because the kids discovered that if they held down power off and then slid the bar over a nice woman would talk to them and then a big truck would show up!
Came downstairs to hear them talking about calling 911 - when I picked up the phone there were four outgoing calls!
Fortunately the big truck did not show up, so I guess the operator was able to figure out that there was not actually an emergency (or maybe the phone was too old to communicate its location).
This resulted in the phone doing various things, such as opening the camera (double press of power), trying to turn itself off, and, worse: activating the "I'm in danger mode" (5 power presses in succession) and counting down to calling 911.
I caught it and cancelled before it dialed, then turned off the phone. However, as you might guess, the phone turned itself back on!
Fortunately I was able to (with much aggravation and accidental swaps to the camera app), eventually get to settings and disable the feature.
I have a friend who used to work on cell towers and he'd need to do a test call after certain types of maintenance, and might visit a few towers a day to do that work. On the other hand, a particular phone model probably only needs one or two live test calls per firmware release, so there's probably a lot fewer of those calls overall, even if you're at a dispatch center that serves an area including people testing phones.
Cannot have FCC etc. uncertified phone connect to normal networks - that would be a mess.
I’m not aware of any western provider saying “oh, that block of IMEIs aren’t allowed to connect to the network”.
Canadian government shadow-banned sales of a bunch of Xiaomi cell phones, but local providers have no issues authing them onto the network. Can’t say no to that juicy roaming revenue even if it means putting your network at risk.
I don't think they'd block them from roaming if the device has a foreign network sim that's authorized to roam though. Of course, major US carriers basically don't allow their subscribers to roam to other major carriers.
When bringing up a new tower, we had a bazillion tests to run, and one of the very last was 911. When that day arrived, my supervisor would call the non-emergency line at the PSAP and check in; sometimes I was in the room for this call. Basically we'd make sure they weren't short-staffed, that they had capacity for the calls, etc. Just a formality.
When testing actually began, I'd simply tell the operator "This is not an emergency, I'm a tech with Verizon making a test call, do you have time to take this call?", and if they were bouncing off their limit, they'd say no, and I was done for the night.
If they said yes, I'd ask them to read back my E911 data. I'd transcribe what they said for later comparison against what was expected, and ask again if they figured they had time to take a few more in the coming minutes. If so, I'd move to the next sector on the tower, lather, rinse, repeat.
It was really quite straightforward, and sometimes I'd get the same operator over and over, they'd recognize my DN and just start rattling off coordinates. At the last call of the night we always made sure to thank them, but briefly, and that was that. My report would go back to the datafill engineer, and that was the last step before unlocking the tower for customer traffic.
Apple preventing network operators from breaking their software on purpose was a huge step forward.
Why do customers care about the firmware version?
It's not "life safety dangerous" to leave the house without a phone, and in almost all situations a complete lack of phone is more dangerous than a phone with broken 911.
> 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.
Something critical like 911 should have one handler. Heck, I’d argue the phone system shouldn’t be allowed to be overloaded by a 3rd party at all. That just sounds like a bowl of buggy spaghetti.
"The FCC requires that providers of interconnected VoIP telephone services using the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) meet Enhanced 911 (E911) obligations. E911 systems automatically provide emergency service personnel with a 911 caller's call-back number and, in most cases, location information.
To reduce possible risks to public safety, the FCC requires interconnected VoIP providers to:
- Automatically provide 911 service to all customers as a standard, mandatory feature. VoIP providers may not allow customers to "opt-out" of 911 service. "
Can Teams make phone calls?
[1] https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/voip-and-911-service
- Teams (or other 3rd party) is allowed to take over calling duties from base software. But, only one call handling system can be active at a time.
Personally, I’m not sure why I’d want multiple handlers, or even a single alternate handler, so I’d pick the first option. If I’m missing a common use case, I’d like to hear it.
Person is in an emergency, they pick up the closest device and dial 911.
That needs to go through, complete with location information.
The specific triggers for the rule were old-landline handsets plugged into VoIP boxes routing through carriers that didn't have E911 connections. A child would pick up the phone, dial 911, the other end wouldn't have the address, and the child wouldn't know it either.
This rule would appear to include _anything_ capable of making a call, including things that don't look like phones (tablets).
That is mixed with the desire for carriers (and others) to intercept long-distance and other calls (no signal, cheaper rates, etc).
Microsoft used to sell something which would automatically intercept and redirect calls to other private numbers off of the cell network. This allowed higher quality codecs and lower costs.
If the handset maker only supports 911 when there is a cell signal, then this runs afoul of the FCC rule. The handset could be used in a location with wifi (but no cell signal), and be used to make calls. Someone picks up that handset, tries to dial 911 and is denied.
Microsoft, since they're a VoIP provider, needs to deal with E911. Google, needs to be fault-tolerant in the 911 dialing path and have good fallbacks.
Having this functionality integrate with the OS is much handier than the clunkiness of dealing with individual apps, and this idea of replaceable parts is a key advantage of Android in general.
Emergency calls probably warrant special care and maybe more rigid handling, I will grant, but there's no reason not to support this in general.
Yep: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/voip-voice-o...
It doesn't, but the interaction of registering a bunch of 3rd party voip services interacts with the emergency call system in interesting ways, as explained in detail in the links Ars Technica article.
If that still doesn’t happen then it’s a job for the regulators to step again because, again, this is a life and death situation.
Let's say for the USA, the chair of the FCC (hahahahahahahahaahah) decided to do this, could they even? Isn't power dispersed enough to make this impossible? (immediately challenged by courts, or, unable to determine which regulatory agency in USA actually has authority to do this, etc?) Or say an American state, perhaps Texas, decides to protect its citizens by threatening to ban sales of google phones if they don't fix this bug tomorrow, and force a recall, would that be possible? I mean... via what mechanism could that even happen? A governor executive order immediately challenged by a local court or even the USA federal government? A state law, that gets vetoed? Etc.
This leaving aside the fact that Google can just do fat campaign donations to whoever can throw a monkeywrench into this kind of consumer protection action.
As much as the deregulatory agenda is ascendant, the FCC does have authority to regulate … wireless carriers and interstate commerce.
In particular, 47 USC 618(a)(6) provides an explicit right of mandamus if the FCC fails to act (I suppose this is mainly for venue). I’m not a lawyer but I’m pretty sure you could compel the FCC to, however indirectly, compel Google to act.
There are businesses running on software that makes Teams look like a paragon of performance, stability and user-focused UI/UX.
I've used much worse, almost always enterprise software.
That doesn't excuse Microsoft, but ultimately I just make sure my personal life and my jobs stay as far away from their software as I can.
Those (probably) aren’t trillion dollar businesses.
Short of that, boycotts could be organized. Maybe a senior executive at T-Mobile loses their kid in a car accident because the 911 call didn't go through. So they decide to drop Google for 2 years or something.
Soon this sort of B2B boycott could be illegal:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/11/alec-anti-po...
More and more avenues that help common working people stand up to monopoly/duopoly, wealth inequality and other forms of power imbalance are being deemed political.
Their profitability compared to profits is a more logically consistent comparison. If they recognize a billion dollars in profit while shipping brain dead bugs it goes to demonstrate their lack of respect for customers.
Or there are two completely different 911-related issues.
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.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ProjectFi/comments/9ijq9p/911_probl...
I hate so much about the Apple ecosystem, but screw Google. If it is not a KPI product promotion package, evidently it is not worth the time.
They do not care, people need to stop trusting their lives to this company.
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.
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.
No comment is the worst way to avoid that risk, and should be looked down upon.
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"?
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.)
But here you know what worked really well? Google tracking me all over the Internet… that never once failed!
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...
"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-team...
The Teams issue will cause generic connectivity issues because Teams says "I can call this number!" but then can't; the Android issue is an emergency issue because the Teams app shouldn't indicate the ability to call emergency services but Android tries to use Teams regardless. Even if Google fixes the 911 bug, users may still be unable to call if Microsoft hadn't fixed the registration issue.
Both problems should be fixed by now, but it's possible Google and Microsoft haven't updated every single device out there. It's also possible a different bug has shown up.
A phone OS should never have to rely on good app behavior to not collapse like a house of cards. Much less one made by a corporation with a 71% worldwide market share.
The integer overflow issue was part of a very flawed last resort branch of a piece of sorting code. It did underflow, but the underflow happened in a piece of code that basically sorted two objects by their memory addresses at that point. There was no way to recover from that, the problem should've been caught way before instead.
It's awful that code this important is this buggy, but no code is entirely bug free and hard coding behaviour would only hard code the bug further. This is a problem that can only be solved with higher standards, better testing, and better code analysis tools.
It should not be possible for installed applications (even malicious ones) to prevent calling the emergency services using the cellular network
In the worst case it might try some other options first, but whatever is registered or set up the phone should use the SIM information to call on the network. The network operators have a load of regulation to meet (and special prioritisation of emergency call channels etc.) so why do the phone makers not?
Teams is a cause of this problem, but we're talking about it because it's a widely installed app. What other niche VoIP or similar applications are also causing this problem? The whole value we are sold of the restrictive "app" model is it is meant to protect the phone user from things the app might do.
That said, if I install a carrier's app on my tablet that enables calling and adds the necessary emergency services support, I don't see why it couldn't be used as the fallback for emergency services. Sometimes I have WiFi but no mobile signal (VoWiFi is finicky as hell) so if I need to reach emergency services, an "internal dialer only" approach would actually prevent me from getting help more than it solves the problem.
The code was buggy and not tested enough. Teams didn't specify that it could handle emergency calls. The method that sorts the apps that are capable of dealing with emergency phone numbers simply forgot to verify that the numbers in the list were all emergency capable: https://medium.com/@mmrahman123/how-a-bug-in-android-and-mic...
If I install a dialer, I expect it to be able to dial 112/999/911. I don't expect it to try to re/activate the vendor dialer I disabled, switch my system settings to give it its call permissions back, and call the number. Hell, with multiple dialers, this behaviour may even cause a loop by itself.
Bugs in the core framework can't be fixed by hardcoding specific dialers, you'll only hardcode the buggy, often barely updated dialers. Even after my phone goes EOL, I can fix problems like these by simply installing a better, fixed dialer, and that's a pretty good feature in my opinion.
Thank goodness our team mostly uses Slack instead. What a shitshow.
The OS has near complete authority over the device. If a user dials an emergency number android has to choose to give it to a third party app and that should never happen.
(I am also not sure that it would be a fix at all. From the description above it seems like android would try to start Teams, even if it was closed.)
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.
Google doesn't seem to care that dead people don't make for good customers.
Although I'm not sure how there's no legal repercussion here?
A company who fucks up this badly is not worth my money.
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...
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/
Same difference while in UK, but good habit for travelling.
This entire class of problems wouldn't exist if anyone could run an integration test.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
I was under the impression that (successful) 911 calls aren't recorded in the call log.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'm not going to suggest third parties can't screw with a phone and make it effectively unusable, but why isn't emergency calling a separate code path in the dialler app and OS that just ignores everything that third parties have done? It should be impossible to change the behaviour of that small bit of the phone. Don't fire any OS level events, don't call any callbacks, ignore any registered intents.
This is on a Pixel. Google can have complete control of the OS and dialler if they want to. They should be able to effectively isolate this from the rest of the phone. Blaming third parties doesn't really explain it.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/01/google-fixes-nightma...
This is horrifying and stupid and horrifyingly stupid.
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.
That's great, because I didn't want to say that!
The point is that "something very scary happened" is less useful than "X happened" when everyone intuitively understands that situation X is very scary.
> Third-party apps or not,
Maybe that's another misunderstanding: I think Google's excuse is lame. Perhaps you thought I cited it as a legitimate reason?
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"
Indeed, the phone has a life-threatening defect and I would never own one. "Failure to dial 911" is a scary defect for a phone.
Where the title makes a logical mistake and is misleading in order to be sensational is that, assuming "dialing 911" as given context, "phone doesn't ring sometimes" is probably the least scary issue possible. In fact, it's the most common way dialing a number can go wrong. It's easy to imagine countless worse things that will radically worsen your outcomes in a life or death situation (such as: phone bricking itself, phone exploding in your hands, phone becoming subsequently unable to make any call, phone making loud noise that alerts the attacker that you are making a 911 call, so on so forth).
Perhaps for a native speaker it's not as obvious that "'very scary' issue dialing 911" here is a semantically illogical construct, but I assure you it is. Example of one that isn't: "'very scary' issue with a Pixel phone involving 911 calls".
Second, the Note 7 exploding is also scary, but to the average population (in the US anyway) a phone that bulges and physically explodes is as dangerous as not being to reliably summon emergency services.
> a phone that bulges and physically explodes is as dangerous as not being to reliably summon emergency services.
If you are putting forth that a phone exploding when you make a 911 call is an issue of the same magnitude as a phone occasionally not ringing when you make a 911 call, I don't see what else we can discuss...
I wrote:
> title implies "911 doesn't ring sometimes" ∈ "very scary issue dialing 911", that is incorrect
to summarize why the downvoted comment said the title is clickbait. (As in, it’s a scary issue with the phone, but if we limit to the domain of issues when dialing 911 then 'not ringing sometimes' is not scary, it's mundane.)
And you didn't just say it could mislead, you called it illogical, and that's not right. You're being pedantic about a rule you made up.
It very well sounds like a horror movie.
Clickbait is where you have to click through for the essential-but-omitted information, written in a way that makes you want to know. This is that. It doesn't mean it's not also accurate.
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.