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So this is the second S5 I've had and same issue. First one, people could hear me if I called, but if they called me 90% of the time they couldn't hear me on the 1st call. If they called right back or I called them it was fine, usually. I've seen a lot of complaints about this on the S5 online. I even have a copy of the my youmail voicemail that I made on my S2 that was crystal clear and more louder/pronounced if that makes sense, and the voicemail I made on my S5 was all fuzzy and kinda garbled like I was talking 4 feet away from it. Replaced with another S5, and it started happening again except now I'm rooted so no more warranty and they can't/won't do anything. Stock or rom, it happens. So I know a few S5 owners, 3 of them have the same problem. All different networks so not specific to any provider (like if it were an at&t issue etc).
I tried clearing the pin hole at the bottom but didn't seem to make a difference. People think the S5 does this maybe b/c it's water resistant and theirs a membrane inside that hole for the mic that makes it garbled. Speaker phone it works fine. Just pissing me off, I love the phone otherwise, but this is my work phone as well and it's so nice and professional to keep playing phone tag with clients .
This doesn't make a lot of sense. You say that this is a well known, widespread problem that happens on various carriers. Which is hard to reconcile with the fact that I haven't heard of the issue and few people here or anywhere else are complaining of it? We have over 500 S5's deployed in my workplace and zero reports of this nature. XDA has 6 million members and we don't see a trickle, let along surge of reports here either.
This is highly unlikely to be a hardware issue or we would be hearing about it a lot. Likewise if the issue showed up with any frequency due to a specific firmware version. It's most likely user settings and you provided zero details about your configuration. Or I would have said a carrier issue, but you not only didn't tell us who your carrier was but you dismissed this out of hand saying that you see the problem all over, including three S5 owners that you know yourself using different carriers.
Making user settings, how you use the phone the most likely cause.
There isn't much to work with unless you provide detailed information about your configuration. How about some links to the frequent occurrences of this problem that you said you see all the time. Link us to a recording of a representative call where the problem occurs. And any information that might suggest or exclude patterns, e.g. what carrier you use, what carriers your other 3 friends use, what time of day does this happen. Does it happen only in fringe areas, only with strong signals, only with wifi calling, et cetera.
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fffft said:
This doesn't make a lot of sense. You say that this is a well known, widespread problem that happens on various carriers. Which is hard to reconcile with the fact that I haven't heard of the issue and few people here or anywhere else are complaining of it? We have over 500 S5's deployed in my workplace and zero reports of this nature. XDA has 6 million members and we don't see a trickle, let along surge of reports here either.
This is highly unlikely to be a hardware issue or we would be hearing about it a lot. Likewise if the issue showed up with any frequency due to a specific firmware version. It's most likely user settings and you provided zero details about your configuration. Or I would have said a carrier issue, but you not only didn't tell us who your carrier was but you dismissed this out of hand saying that you see the problem all over, including three S5 owners that you know yourself using different carriers.
Making user settings, how you use the phone the most likely cause.
There isn't much to work with unless you provide detailed information about your configuration. How about some links to the frequent occurrences of this problem that you said you see all the time. Link us to a recording of a representative call where the problem occurs. And any information that might suggest or exclude patterns, e.g. what carrier you use, what carriers your other 3 friends use, what time of day does this happen. Does it happen only in fringe areas, only with strong signals, only with wifi calling, et cetera.
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Click to collapse
Pry exaggerated as a bit frustrated. Away for business and on phone right now. I just googled various call issues and saw same/similar on other phones, quite a few S4 reports (like googling S5 can't hear me, or can't hear calls, or android can't hear calls etc). Again not exactly the same but similar, found older Android phones people talking about the same. S5 people I saw post in various threads on different forums, not necessarily made a thread of theirs (like they found an issue like that and bumped thread even if it was a different phone). I'm on AT&T, 3 friends one is T-Mobile and others are Verizon. Though theirs isn't near as bad as mine, theirs happens infrequently on both ends which makes me think maybe carrier related, whereas mine is almost always the caller on my end not hearing me well on the first call. I have two employees with S5s as well and no issues with theirs like this.
I don't know what user config info you want? I've rooted and flashed android for years, I hardly ever touch anything volume/call mod related. I don't know what settings you'd be talking about, stock or rom is the same (didn't install viper, didn't do anything with volume controls on DK as their borked on this version etc). Changed background noise on/off but didn't do anything.Not sure how I use the phone would do anything, they call, I answer, I call, they answer? Happens anywhere no matter signal, whether full bars at house, or office, or lose a few bars when traveling, time of day doesn't matter happens anytime. I just had a conference call where I ended having to use speaker phone for them to hear better but they still said it wasn't clear. Wife just called me and she said through the phone or speaker it's like I'm talking through a towel (speaker not as bad). My AT&T store said they've had a few people come in with complaints of call issues on their S5 but in various ways, and sometimes a factory reset worked, sometimes not. Which didn't work for me, and I blew a canister of air and use a small pin like some said they did to see if anything was clogged in the Mic port but no difference.
I'll be back in a bit, but I could try to record a call with my wife. And I'll upload the files from youmail voicemail where you can hear how loud/pronounced and clear my message is from my S2, and the garbled message from both S5's.
Think I fixed it, let's hope. So I went into safestrap, tried a few things, fix permissions etc. No difference. Restored a few times, no difference, did 3 factory resets, no difference. Each time I either message someone to call me to test, or I logged into youmail to record a new greeting and heard it fuzzy/garbly. Did one more factory reset, msg'd wife to call again, she called and first thing she said was omg it's way louder and cleaner sounding like I'm not muffled. I logged into youmail, did a new greeting and yup it's 100% normal sounding. So no clue why this worked all of a sudden with all my other tries today and before. My first S5 they tested at the AT&T store and it luckily did the issue there so they could hear what I meant and note it. They gave me a loaner and it was sent in, and I guess luckily it was reproducing that same issue when it was checked as they did a replacement since the phone was only 2 months old. And now that I think about it I doubt the tech or whomever was checking it out sat there and did multiple restores/resets like I did, and I guess I was really lucky they didn't get it and test only to have it operate normal like the 10% of the time or whatever it did.
Being rooted now sending in was pointless, as knowing people over the years that have even if sent with stock rom, warranty was denied. F'd up thing is they have to prove rooting caused the issue, I don't have the time nor want to deal with that crap. Example I love cars/trucks and mod everything we have, and with the Magnuson-Moss Act they have to prove your "mod" directly affected the failed part/problem. In the phone world you end up just getting transferred around and dealing with crap trying to sort that out. I have one of my cars modded (ctsv) with pulley swap, full exhaust with lt headers etc, custom tune yada yada, one of my trucks has custom tune/intake/headers/no cats/custom exhaust etc and neither had problems with getting warranty work done, b/c doing a custom tune and pulley etc isn't going to make your radio or nav fail. In the phone world on the other hand they'll tell you to pound sand, root and mic fails, oh that'll be our diagnostic fee part replacement $ have a nice day. lol
i'll try to upload audio files from youmail showing the sound quality difference when I get a chance. I know one of my friends tried a factory reset and didn't work. Guess I'll tell him and the other two to keep doing resets over and over till it works lol, whether that means 5 or 10 times. Why it didn't work on the 1st or even 2nd try is beyond me
***See Kevev's excellent workaround to this problem in post#8 below***
I believe we need a thread dedicated to troubleshooting this problem. I know there are a very few others that touch on it but no one place to discuss possible solutions. Additionally it's quite hard to look for answers using google as thread titles don't specifically mention the issue. If mods think this does not warrant its own thread do as you must.
If you have T-Mobile paired with this device you know call quality sucks, and sometimes randomly. Personally I have had excellent to terrible call quality since the MM upgrade with Volte on. Choppiness on my end with some Roms, choppiness on the other end with other Roms. I don't use the phone feature too often on the phone so it has taken me quite a while to 'test' Roms looking for good call quality.
Yup Moto/Lenovo sux. I'm done with them. Gave the phone to my Mother with VoLTE disabled.
One thing to note for any Devs willing to look into the issue, it occures when using the earpiece. It does not happen when on speakerphone call and headphone call. When the issue happens pressing the power button to wake screen or pressing either volume button fixes the issue for a few seconds. My guess is this is a power management issue and maybe the bus speed for the audio system is too slow. I wonder if we can prevent sleep while in a call.
Maybe some can try this app?
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.thedarken.wl
I'll play around with that this weekend, thanks.
And as luck would have it I'm on 12/22 aicp with no calling issues after calling 2 people in a different area and one landline.. all without modifying any settings or running the wakelock script. So I'll run this rom over the holiday and see how call quality is. Good news certainly, we'll see how long it lasts. FWIW I always full erase and re-download apps
Make sure you test in known congested areas.
Anyone interested in testing my wakelock script on stock MM for MXPE please send me a PM. I am looking for users who regularly have VoLTE issues on T-Mobile or MetroPCS. The script does NOT require root. I don't want to post the script until I am sure it works. Also please don't share the script until it is released publicly. Thank You.
OK I am pretty sure the wake lock script works. My mother has been using it for 3 days and so far no choppy audio. The script will need to be imported into the Automate app. Start the script and set Automate to Run on startup so that the script is running after reboots. Also be sure to install Telephony permissions from within the Wakelock script screen in Automate. Good luck.
Automate:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.llamalab.automate
Script:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B2M_XoBZxi1iRUlvb3pNemI3WFU
I can add my confirmation that Kevev's script works great. I don't use the phone much so it took a while to get a dozen or so calls that worked with the script.
This is definitely the best workaround for T-Mobile subscribers until Moto fixes (fingers crossed) the issue in nougat.
Awesome. Glad to know it works.
Hey guys,
I've searched the forum and I have not found a satisfying answer to my question, so I decided to start a new thread. Please forgive me if the answer to this can be found in the forums after all
Frankly, I never really used my Nexus 6P (firmware 8.0.0) to make phone calls. However, my new job requires me to make occasional calls so I just recently found out that the 6P is amazing doing a lot of things, except making calls. Rants about Google aside (how can you not fix this in over 2 years though ), the noise cancellation mic on the back seems to be the problem. I've tried cleaning the mic, wiping the cache and about every other potential 'fix' but nothing has worked yet. The final fix that I have yet to give a shot is rooting the phone and manually disabling the noice cancellation mic, but I got some questions about this.
1) Will I be able to go back to the stock version while keeping the noise cancellation disabled? In other words, can I get the phone back to the state if would be in if it just came out of the box, except that the noise cancellation is disabled? I bet you can do tons of cool stuff on a rooted device, but I'm not interested in any of that. I just want my phone to be able to make calls and still receive software updates from Google.
2) Would I have to walk through all the steps in Heisenberg's brilliant guide? (https://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-6p/general/guides-how-to-guides-beginners-t3206928). I really only want to change persist.audio.fluence.voicecall=true into persist.audio.fluence.voicecall=false, I'm not interested in running custom firmware or apps or whatever.
3) What is the best way to 'unroot' my phone so it basically goes back to being a stock version of the phone, with the 1 mentioned modification? Is this even possible? Would #11 (How To Flash The Factory Images (Return To Stock But Leaving Internal Storage Intact)) in Heisenberg's guide do the trick?
This will probably be my last Google phone ever. I really love the Nexus 6P but this particular problem is just idiotic. If you're going to charge us a premium price for your product, at least make sure its primary function is working correctly. Not fixing the problem even after knowing about it for about 2 years really just adds insult to injury. I figure it wouldn't be that hard to just add an option in the settings menu that allows you to enable/disable noise cancellation, but why'd you service your customers if it's cheaper not to, right?
Anyways, I hope you can help me and I'd like to thank you in advance!
1. Yes
2. Just the sections for unlocking bootloader and installing custom recovery.
3. SuperSU and I believe Magisk (Used for rooting) have full unroot option in settings.
I sent my 6p to warranty service because of this noise cancellation. Service ordered some spare parts to fix this problem. It's interesting to see how it works when it comes back from service
I struggled with the same problem for a while, until I sent my 6P to warranty service because of the infamous early shutdown problem and mentioned the problem with the noise cancellation too. They changed the screen and the motherboard on my 6P and everything has been working great ever since.
After you've rooted, check your build.prop file. Look for the line "persist.audio.fluence.voicecall" and set it to false. That should disable noise cancellation and fix your problem.
I received my warranty fixed 6p. Service told me they "changed part". I don't know which part they changed but now my noise cancellation works without root, audio fluence etc. I also noticed, that my bluetoorh strength improved, I have cheap bt earphone which struttered before, now it works fine.
You may try my fix:
1) Dismantle bottom cover at the back.
2) Loose two screws at the centre. (don't loose it completely).
3) Cover it back to your phone and completed.
I heard this fix from nexus forum and really fixed my muffled voice issue, not sure the mechnism for this phone and how it fix the phone conversion, all blame goes to the designer of this phone.
RoyzzTheGinger said:
Hey guys,
I've searched the forum and I have not found a satisfying answer to my question, so I decided to start a new thread. Please forgive me if the answer to this can be found in the forums after all
Frankly, I never really used my Nexus 6P (firmware 8.0.0) to make phone calls. However, my new job requires me to make occasional calls so I just recently found out that the 6P is amazing doing a lot of things, except making calls. Rants about Google aside (how can you not fix this in over 2 years though ), the noise cancellation mic on the back seems to be the problem. I've tried cleaning the mic, wiping the cache and about every other potential 'fix' but nothing has worked yet. The final fix that I have yet to give a shot is rooting the phone and manually disabling the noice cancellation mic, but I got some questions about this.
1) Will I be able to go back to the stock version while keeping the noise cancellation disabled? In other words, can I get the phone back to the state if would be in if it just came out of the box, except that the noise cancellation is disabled? I bet you can do tons of cool stuff on a rooted device, but I'm not interested in any of that. I just want my phone to be able to make calls and still receive software updates from Google.
2) Would I have to walk through all the steps in Heisenberg's brilliant guide? (https://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-6p/general/guides-how-to-guides-beginners-t3206928). I really only want to change persist.audio.fluence.voicecall=true into persist.audio.fluence.voicecall=false, I'm not interested in running custom firmware or apps or whatever.
3) What is the best way to 'unroot' my phone so it basically goes back to being a stock version of the phone, with the 1 mentioned modification? Is this even possible? Would #11 (How To Flash The Factory Images (Return To Stock But Leaving Internal Storage Intact)) in Heisenberg's guide do the trick?
This will probably be my last Google phone ever. I really love the Nexus 6P but this particular problem is just idiotic. If you're going to charge us a premium price for your product, at least make sure its primary function is working correctly. Not fixing the problem even after knowing about it for about 2 years really just adds insult to injury. I figure it wouldn't be that hard to just add an option in the settings menu that allows you to enable/disable noise cancellation, but why'd you service your customers if it's cheaper not to, right?
Anyways, I hope you can help me and I'd like to thank you in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I ABSOLUTELY agree with everything you said. After I got bored with rooting and went all the way back to stock, I totally forgot about echoing during calls. As much as I love Google, there's just too many flaws about their phones considering how much $ they cost (not to mention Pixels) and I'm afraid it's finally the time to give up. Unfortunately, there aren't many good replacements
I'm found that cleaning the bottom speaker and mic fixed the issue this was perform at the store the technical man told me that he only cleaned the mic at the bottom
This problem remains forever, doesn't matter what custom rom you're using, it'll be still there.... I've tried a lot of thing to fix it, some doesn't work like this or that thread, however, this worked for me (not completely, I'll explain why...)
Well, the last one didn't work for me because after every new update/build, the fix is cleaned and you need to flash it again every new build/update. How to deal with it?
I need go give my phone to one of my parents and they don't know how to flash. I was happy because, at least, LineageOS updates itself automatically (except by the fix which need to be done manually). Unfortunately I don't know any other custom rom that has OTA updates working (and of course, updates itself automatically) and the audio is working normally.
I don't use the stock due to sluggishness, errors, being outdated since 2017. So, I need to flash a proper rom but it seems to be hardcore issue.
I need some help.
Get a pin and shove it in the mic hole
Get all the rubbish out & you might have to pierce the filter that's on the other side too like I did
After doing that I had no mic issues
The issue in itself is quite straightforward, and I must confess I haven't gotten to the bottom of it yet. Essentially the phone seems to be generating a random echo for the person at the other end of the call (they can hear themselves talking when on the line with me). The issue seems to come and go unpredictably, at times lasting a couple seconds or up to a minute.
If I start to move the angle of the phone, the echo usually goes away, although I have also been told the echo happens even when using headphones (and so far it has proven to be the case when calling on both Signal and Whatsapp, so I doubt it's an issue with the apps themselves).
First of all has anyone else encountered this issue? And could it be related to LineageOS 16, or is it a hardware issue related to the speaker/microphone? Potentially I could reinstall the stock rom and find out if the problem persists, although I am still fairly new to the custom rom/recovery scene and I would rather ask around first.
Thank you very much for your help and suggestions!