Nexus 4 Unusable for VoIP Calls | Hacker News Reader

Nexus 4 Unusable for VoIP Calls

code.google.com

123 pointscdoxsey68 comments

I have a Nexus 4.

I don't use the OS native sip functionality on it, but I do use GrooveIP and I have run into this issue. With GrooveIP you can work around it by fiddling with the various echo cancellation options GrooveIP supports at the cost of introducing a voice latency on your outgoing voice that is just long enough to be annoying (but usable once you acclimate to it), in my experience.

There are generally a lot of audio related issues with this phone with various users unable to get loud-enough volume from the device either on calls, from the speaker or via the headphones Seems to be a software bug as many people report if you root the phone and run alsamixer you can boost the audio up to decent levels, but this isn't a great fix because any time an app adjusts the volume at the SDK level the problem returns.

https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=41042

Google's stellar customer support consists of no-questions-asked replacing your device (which is great) with one that has exactly the same problems out of the box (which is not so great). Haven't seen any kind of official acknowledgement of this as an issue despite it being very commonly reported online (google: "nexus 4 volume too low")

An otherwise great phone hampered by a pretty serious fundamental issue.

I have no audio issues with my nexus 4 whatsoever for normal calls. It's quite great actually audio wise.

But yes, GrooveIP is unusable. I bought it for 4 bucks or something and hardly use it since the voice quality is terrible.

I get GSM quality calls on my Nexus 4 (at minimum) via cSIPsimple, pbxes.org, and Google Voice, usually over a mediocre repeated WiFi connection. If there's interest, I'll write it up.

Mild configuration hassle but reliable. Helps to move Google Voice to an account where where you never IM.

I'm interested, please write it up

Noted, will do.

As someone who has spent some time tweaking this same setup , with limited success, I'm very interested to hear what you did!

see how well it works making call over wifi with any BT headset... bet you'll change your mind re. issues

I don't understand how bug reports can sit around for months with dozens (if not hundreds) of comments on them without a single response from somebody with an @google.com username. I feel like I've seen this happen for all kinds of Google products, not just Android. Or am I missing something here?

No. Google's customer service is legendarily bad.

Do you think something changed when somebody with an @google.com username involved? Or when the issue is serious enough?

https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=18565

So how does Google get away with "legendarily bad" customer service while EA cannot? I guess in a way EA charges a good bit for the games and good support is expected, but still. I paid $300 for a Nexus 4, I should get something more than a message board.

This is as opposed to the bug reports you can file with other smartphone makers?

I'm not trying to be snarky (well, a little bit), but you simply can't file a bug about an iPhone. You can go to the Apple Discussion Forums and see threads that go on for pages and pages with no involvement from anyone from Apple at all.

The only difference is that Apple releases one model at a time, so if there's a problem, everyone has it at once and it garners enough media attention to warrant a response.

I have no idea how one would file bugs about Windows Phone 8 either.

That Google makes their bug tracker visible doesn't mean they're doing any more or less than the other guys.

Apple's bug tracker is accessible to developers: https://bugreport.apple.com

About Windows Phone 8 there are "suggestions" at http://windowsphone.uservoice.com/forums/101801-feature-sugg...

Google's customer service is absent. EA's is actively hostile.

Absent would be better than lying. http://things-linux.blogspot.ru/2013/04/the-fine-art-of-corp...

Did the author of that post actually called? "Word has" doesn't inspire much confidence. Not that I believe Google doesn't lie, sure they do.

My experience with EA's customer support has actually been rather good. I pretty stupidly bought Battlefield 3 Premium, thinking it included a copy of the actual game (I already owned it on the 360 and was switching to the PC). When I realised it didn't and that I'd need to shell out another £30, I sent EA a grovelling email asking for a refund.

They refunded me, no questions asked, within the day. I've had a similar issue with Steam in the past, and they flat out refused to refund me for a mistaken purchase.

I suspect that EA customer support, for many people, is perfectly decent. You only ever hear about the complaints because people who are satisfied don't make a big fuss of it.

You would think that Google could afford to hire some people to do bug triage. Users reporting bugs are trying to help Google (and themselves, admittedly). Presenting users with a "write-only" bug database is worse than no bug database.

Indeed! Allow me to hijack this thread with one more example of a serious bug report that got the silent treatment from Google:

Galaxy Nexus with EMMC chip V3U00M of 08/2012 or 09/2012 (+others) needs fstrim'ing (or mounting with discard option). Android does not do fstrim in Galaxy Nexus, therefore phone becomes unusable after simply using most of the storage, and the user has to root their phone to fix it.

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=39154 http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=43081

The status is listed as "new." I suspect that were this bug to be reviewed, it would end up "not a bug" because it depends on software that's not part of Android. That is, like a phone that's missing a GPS driver, that function will fail for lack of what should be OEM provided drivers/firmware.

Yes, it is bad that this bug has lingered without attention. But I also see how it could fall to the bottom of the priority list for review.

Tl;dr: It doesn't work because it's not implemented.

Argh, this smells like the audio latency issue. An issue with 500 comments pleading Google to do something about it for 4 years. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you issue #3434:

https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=3434

There has been some improvement lately but it is hard to find devices that support the "special" low latency mode.

This sounds like a similar thing. Just pointing out the level or response and engagement you'd expect from Google (hint: almost none).

I have a Nexus 10. It crashes about once a week restarting the gui (adb restore backup does so too). Playing audio via Bluetooth is choppy if the device hasn't been rebooted for a few days. It feels like several years ago when I had a Blackberry (no data service though) and a poll question was "which app do you use to daily reboot your phone?" I'm on the verge of writing one for Android.

This is one of the issues keeping Android from being an excellent platform for music applications. Coupled with the general hackability of Android devices (Accessory Development Kit, etc.), it could be an amazing platform for digital audio workstations, synthesizers, samplers, and audio effects processing.

iOS is better in this regard, but still not perfect. Audio routing between applications is a dicey affair (done through a 3rd party app that runs in the background), and it's not possible to charge while using USB accessories, like audio interfaces or MIDI keyboards.

Yup this basically led us to abandoning Android and switched to iOS and Windows tablets.

Yep. Say what you will about Apple products, but it's no coincidence that professional audio applications are so much more prevalent on Apple products. Core Audio is a fantastic base for developers to work with.

Looks like the audio latency topic is just too complicated for the company who cannot solve the task of delivering SMS to right recipient for 3 years.

Incidentally USB Host is also crippled on Nexus 4 [1]. Surprising to discover another big feature broken on a flagship Android device.

[1] https://android.googlesource.com/device/lge/mako/+show/f608d...

Crippled in hardware - there's no +5V line so even when you patch that code you need to use a Y cable.

I was sincerely thinking that buying an "official" phone mean't zero problems

(currently having a very bad experience with my LG O2X, where I'm still running CM7 - announced as the "world's first dual core smartphone" or something).

I bought a Nexus One and the only problems I never had the any unexpected problems with it. (The extremely limited memory for app storage seriously hampered its usefulness, but that was a design limitation that I knew going in.)

Normal calls work fine, of course. Zero problems is a pretty high bar. Audio manipulation that 3rd party apps require doesn't seem to be exposed by the device.

I had a Nexus S and it was really perfect in every way. I handed it off to another family member and, for a 2 year old phone, it still feels very "current."

In addition to the echo, background noise is really bad during VoIP calls. This comment has some interesting details:

https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=41626#c20

I have not paid much attention to SIP recently but aren't the implementations of theAEC and other components up to the OEM to create or license, as much as, say, baseband firmware, graphics drivers, etc. are the OEM's responsibility?

If Google actually had their own unencumbered implementations, wouldn't they be in the AOSP source tree?

EDIT: please disregard.. I have been getting complaints, but they may not be related to this issue.

This would seem to explain all of the 'echoing' complaints I've been getting when using google voice on my N4.

I thought Google voice didn't use VoIP.

It doesn't. The parent may be using GrooveIP or another GV-SIP gateway?

I guess that just as with the native email client, there's not much development happening on the native SIP dialer.

Instead of improving the core Android apps, which would benefit other phone manufacturers as well, Google is mostly working on their web service frontends (Gmail, Google Plus, probably Google Voice as well) nowadays. The result is a platform packed with features that only work half the time.

Did you know that the native Email client doesn't even set the In-Reply-To header, i.e. breaks threads?

As someone in the google thread point out, latest csipsimple nightly is worth a shot http://nightlies.csipsimple.com/trunk/ if you are experiencing this issue.

Well, maybe I'll hold off on buying one for a little while. Yikes.

If you are holding out more than a few months, might as well wait for the next one.

If they're really planning on the "Nexus 5" having 256gb of internal storage at $299... I'm definitely waiting! Thanks for the advice

How is that even possible? 256GB SSDs just came down to less than a dollar per gig. I'm sure flash chips are priced separately but even 64 gb USB 3.0 flash cards can't be had for less than $40, it seems.

It probably isn't, I got that number from a rumor blog.

I wouldn't pay much attention to the rumor blogs at this time. I like mine, even with a shattered back.

I highly doubt that. They are trying to get people to use the "cloud" more for storage, and have been decreasing / removing external sd card slots in their phones.

You better buy now, Nexus 5 will contain even more bugs considering the process of dealing with them at Google.

Well maybe I'll just buy a Windows phone :|

thumb up!

Well maybe you would think again.

Where on Android you can fix something by reading XDA, installing CM or other custom build, change the application (thanks, Intents!), or just patch the source code, on WP8 if something doesn't work or just doesn't present (like VPN, call log grouping or even call duration info!) all you can do is just buy another drink.

Sorry, I thought the ":|", and mention of "Windows phone" implied sarcasm. Perhaps that was too subtle.

Ah, sorry, I thought everybody have adopted new mnemonics for sarcasm - http://pseudotrue.com/2013/04/10/a-new-punctuation-to-highli...

I have a N4 and I'm not noticing the issue at all. I've been using Vonage and GrooveIP.

I would normally pick up on it from the 3 years of VoIP and other real time audio work I did.

I didn't get a chance to read everything but as a I recall some of the codecs used could have some serious echo side effects. Did someone mention the codecs being used?

On this reddit thread some solutions like using SIP gateway with echo cancellation were discussed.

http://www.reddit.com/r/nexus4/comments/15ip1v/is_voip_just_...

The problem is that:

1) Software echo cancellation doesn't work as well as hardware echo cancellation.

2) The phone uses a second microphone to cancel out background noise during calls. This isn't used for any voip calls. I'm told it is extremely loud when a car drives by, and a little bit of wind make it sound like I'm in a hurricane.

Is there some hardware reason they can't open up access to this chip? Does audio for calls get routed directly to the gsm chip, so we don't have access or something?

I know it is probably unrelated, but this made me think about the power Google has and could use to affect third party sw...cough...skype....cough...

Anyway, I have a Nexus 4, looks like a good suggestion never to rush with upgrades... if it works dont touch it?

Nexus 4 also cannot do wifi-calling, seriously degrading its usefulness in spotty celular zones. http://support.t-mobile.com/thread/38694

I have a Nexus 4. I use it with GrooveIP. I don't experience the issues described in this issue.

i bet a lot stems from this (forgive if other people already mentioned it)

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=41631

Can't use BT with WIFI at same time!!! all nexus 4, 4.22 OS, just plain sucks

Do they mean unsuitable for speakerphone calls?

Because why not a bluetooth headset?

I've a Galaxy Nexus and the cellular operator's 3G usage pop-ups in screen make my life hell. It just keeps on receiving them. Whenever there's a background transaction of data, even a kilobyte. That means if my phone is kept for 30 minutes and I get a call, I need to click through those 10-20 accumulated pop-up windows on my Android screen to receive the call or do anything on my phone. On mornings when there's no Wi-Fi I usually get some 70-100 such pop-ups. I counted. Sometimes I better switch off and then switch on the phone to avoid clicking through those pop-ups.

The cellular operator (Airtel India) says it's a feature and argues that every operator has it and that iPhone, BlackBerry and Windows (etc) users don't have this problem. True.

Samsung support says - this is Google feature and then is quick to add - but we never sold Galaxy Nexus in India. No support there. Sorry, bye-bye.

I go to raise a Google-code issue just like this. Well, there's one already logged - years old. Of course without a fix or response from Google!

I'm an Android developer(day job) with a laaarge OEM but I doubt an Android is going to be my next phone. I am not comfortable with paying for anything very expansive then being on my own.

This is how Google provides support. They don't.

> This is how Google provides support. They don't.

This is a completely unrelated issue caused by your carrier. Why are you posting it here?

>>completely unrelated issue

Technically, yes. One deals with AG, RIL and call app another deals with Notification management.

>>caused by your carrier

No, it's not. The carrier has to send the updates. It's upto OS on how to handle it and they ought to handle it the way other mobile OS do.

>>Why are you posting it here?

Because the nature of issue is same and so is the reason/origin. Left by google. OP's issue is old. Used to crop up in Galaxy Nexus too. I worked on an OEM work around for Europe model and it was there in S3 too.

I have to say that it's (mostly) the carrier's fault.

I have the same issue sometimes with Airtel India, and I'm pretty sure this notification was turned off 2 years. [edit or maybe i just had a good data connection then]

Also, this issue is not consistent. I'm guessing what happens is: carrier sends usage alert when you "turn off" data + bad connection that keeps dropping => many notifications even though you never turned off data.

There are a few apps that convert USSD alerts to notifications - try these - but it would be nice if this was a built-in feature.

>>the carrier's fault

As I said the behaviour is present in other operators too. I've asked a friends on Idea and Vodafone too(with Android). I just called a friend(before writing this comment) and he confirms that he is not facing this issue on Idea+iPhone5(he faced the issue on Nexus S with Airtel and then Idea too).

I had asked a friend with a Lumia and on Airtel and he said he doesn't have to do this.

>>carrier sends usage alert when you "turn off" data + bad connection that keeps..

No, it sends whenever there's 3G transaction and the usage period ends. I've observed that when I am using browser, I usually get the alert after I close the browser.

Airtel technical team(I was told they were the tech team) also confirmed that it is based upon usage and usually many apps/features rely for background syncing/net-access solely upon 3G/data so that is what makes the number of pop-ups too much. They also confirmed that it happens even when the phone is continuously on WiFi(I concur).

>>There are a few apps that convert USSD

Tried. Actually the most famous one is developed by an Indian guy(makes me think he was a victim himself). Didn't work.

Planning to root it. Google will push probably the last upgrade with 5.0(if at all). Will see if there's any ROM that handles it.

I just polled some friends on chat:

- iPhone + Vodafone Bangalore - SMS notifications - inconsistent frequency

- Galaxy Y + Airtel Bangalore - SMS alert only

so it seems carrier/plan dependent to me!

> it sends whenever there's 3G transaction and the usage period ends

Sure - what I was guessing is that sometimes the phone is on a "single" 3G connection all day & there's no alert, and some days the phone makes "many" 3G connections & there are lots of alerts. (or perhaps it does not work this way & there's some other cause - not a telecom expert!)

[EDIT: oops both friends say they get SMS not USSD alerts]

I might be wrong but imo, this problem exists with prepaid connections only. Try a postpaid SIM in your phone and if it works, ponder switching to postpaid.

I had this problem on a Whited00r-installed iPhone 3G with airtel prepaid. Never noticed with iOS 5 or 6 on my iPhone 4S.

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