Most of the discussion here is related to 911-specific bugs in Pixel. But there's also generic cellular communications bugs, and based on what I see on Reddit it's widely experienced but not well understood. The symptom I see is nothing cellular works sometimes until I put the phone in airplane mode and back again. Networking software bug? Problem with the cellular tower? I have no idea. But it seems very common on Pixel 6. I probably won't buy another Google made phone because of it.
Issue dialing 911 on Google Pixel 6 cell phones
151–160 of 265 posts
Re: Issue dialing 911 on Google Pixel 6 cell phones
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not like months-long delays to get security updates isn't also incredibly dangerous.
Life safety dangerous is different than "malware steals your nudes" dangerous.
Malware can do more damage than a broken 911. It depends on the circumstances.
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.
Re: Issue dialing 911 on Google Pixel 6 cell phones
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m in a similar position. I used iPhone for years but after they started to remove important apps from AppStore I decided to move to pixel. UX is terrible and unpolished. Hardware is just bad. But I can sideload and that’s more important.
What app did they remove that you used?
Fortnite is another good example, or a native build of Firefox with its own rendering engine, or video game emulators..
Re: Issue dialing 911 on Google Pixel 6 cell phones
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
The way I see it, this just moves the responsibility for safety to the manufacturers instead of the network. It's on the specific company then to provide adequate QA for their firmware before they release updates, or it reflects badly on them. This fiasco for example, tells me to never buy a Google phone since they apparently don't test their devices properly. I'm not sure why it would be on the network to test devic…
"The way I see it, this just moves the responsibility for safety to the manufacturers instead of the network." 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 c…
A lot of people never use the phone part of their smartphones, and just block/silence the phone part anymore.
Well, until there is an emergency anyway. But folks not knowing how to deal with emergencies is not that uncommon anyway, unfortunately.
Re: Issue dialing 911 on Google Pixel 6 cell phones
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
The way I see it, this just moves the responsibility for safety to the manufacturers instead of the network. It's on the specific company then to provide adequate QA for their firmware before they release updates, or it reflects badly on them. This fiasco for example, tells me to never buy a Google phone since they apparently don't test their devices properly. I'm not sure why it would be on the network to test devic…
This is probably like the fourth or fifth time issues calling 911 has come up for Pixel phones too. Google simply isn't capable of producing life-critical software.
That's obviously true, after all Google's principal role in life is to make money though advertising not through saving lives.
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.)
Re: Issue dialing 911 on Google Pixel 6 cell phones
#156When I used to work for a large mobile network, we would spend ages testing the firmware of new devices. Even giants (at the time) like Nokia would release phones which couldn't dial the emergency services, or put out more than the legal limit of radiation, or were in other ways defective. We'd test, send a report back, wait a few weeks, get a new firmware, test again, repeat until everything worked. It took months.…
How would you have tested 911 dialling? Did you go all the way to a real operator?
I don’t know if cell carriers support it, but we test our PBX with 933. It functions like 911 but doesn’t route to emergency dispatch, instead it reads back out E911 data. I also don’t know if, for cell carriers, it functions enough like 911 that issues on the phone like reported here would be evident.
Re: Issue dialing 911 on Google Pixel 6 cell phones
#157In these United States, there are now two emergency numbers which can be dialed: 911 and 988, for mental health crises.
The last time I removed the SIM from my Android phone, I tested 988; unsurprisingly I was not able to contact the service because the phone denied access.
If your phone doesn't recognize 988 as a bona fide, legitimate emergency number, it's time to request a firmware update. 988 has been years in the making, and firmware developers should have made it a priority to put it on the whitelist.
Re: Issue dialing 911 on Google Pixel 6 cell phones
#158Frankly, that this situation happened at all is outrageous and certifying bodies should take steps to ensure it's no longer possible for it to happen. The solution is to mandate that emergency numbers be hardwired into phones and thus their operation could not be overwritten by any software whether it be the phone's operating system or any user app. Moreover, it would make sense for all phones, irrespective of countr…
This has nothing to do with the problem of different numbers.
Re: Issue dialing 911 on Google Pixel 6 cell phones
#159I used to be REALLY into modding / jailbreaking / rooting / installing custom ROMs on android phones, until I witnessed a car accident, tried to call 911 on my iirc galaxy s3, only for it to crash. Luckily my friend was able to call, but I tried again a couple times later and sure enough, dialing 911 on whatever ROM I had simply crashed the phone.
As much as I miss having root on my phone, I'm never taking the risk again. Being able to use payment features is a nice extra plus I guess.
Re: Issue dialing 911 on Google Pixel 6 cell phones
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google's reply to the reporter in the story says it all: We don't have any comment to provide. They do not care, people need to stop trusting their lives to this company.
Oh come on. "No comment" is always what a company says in a situation like this, where saying anything else might hurt them in a future lawsuit. It doesn't mean they don't care, it means they have lawyers with the bare minimum level of competency.
I've seen statements that at least pretend like the company cares and the steps they are taking to deal with the issue.
Something along the lines of "the safety of our users is our highest priority and we are investigating these reports", no admissions, no legal risk, but they couldn't even do that much.