I had been doing a great deal of tinkering trying to get my phone's battery life back in the last few days, and I made good progress, but I severely jacked up something related to the microphone/speaker/video recording.
PROBLEM:
The problem, as far as I can tell, is that every app that tries to access the microphone can't do it--this shows up when I try to use Google voice input in various text fields with a little "Can't reach Google at the moment." Same with trying to do a search by voice in Google Now--brief brief flash of the microphone red, then back to gray, with "Can't reach Google at the moment". Additionally, my Touchless Input cannot be enabled--the box has automatically unchecked itself, and pressing it makes the button get a little gray, registering the action, but no checkmark will appear.
Additionally, other apps which would use the mic don't seem to have that functionality--Evernote, for example, would crash if I attempted to record an audio clip. This was before I performed a factory data reset last night--and the problem has persisted regardless.
There are two other, seemingly related, issues. First is the inability of the phone to capture videos. The camera opens fine, and I can take fine stills with it, but pushing the video recording button makes the red "record" flash for a moment before a "Not able to record media" message pops up, and the camera returns to the still photo mode.
Second is the inability to play videos. I have tried playing videos in as many formats as I could try, from within several players, including the stock "Photos", "Gallery", and "YouTube" apps. "Sorry, cannot play video" pops up, or the app simply crashes. Similar story for attempting to play music through the stock "Google Play Music" app. And it gets worse. I can't make or receive calls. Actually, let me revise that. I can't hear anything being said on the calls, over the speaker, or through headphones (though I've yet to try BlueTooth). The call appears to connect, but I can't hear anything from them, and they can't hear anything from me.
So--that's the basic summary of the problem--threefold.
1. No audio input through mic
2. No audio output through speakers--my phone doesn't ring when I get a call, although it will vibrate and the options to take the call appear as they normally would.
3. No audio/video playback whatsoever for other media.
I'm running Android 4.4 on a Droid Mini, unrooted, and I just completed a factory reset last night.
ANALYSIS:
Here's the wrinkle. I know this isn't a hardware problem, because I have found a surefire fix that makes all of this work properly if I absolutely need it, it just sucks. Rebooting into safe mode is what does it. Playback resumes as it did before I had the problem. I can play videos, pump music, and Touchless Input works flawlessly--although interestingly, it has me re-enter the catchphrase three times every time I get into safemode, like setting up from scratch.
My consternation comes from the fact that, to my very limited knowledge, all that safe mode is doing keeping any user-added apps from running. Which is all well and good, but I just did a factory reset. Literally when I boot the phone no user installed apps are running, and yet there's a definite difference when I boot into safe mode, cuz everything works there.
So, safe mode must do something more than just disable user-installed apps--and I need to know what that is if I'm going to fix this thing. I have added 4 apps since then-- App Ops, GSAM Battery Monitor, BetterBatteryStats, and Button Savior (Non-root), all of which I know from experience to be very "well-behaved" apps.
Anyone know what safe mode is doing besides disabling user apps? Along those lines, does it revert updated stock apps to their factory state? I ask because very, very briefly, while my phone was slowly trying to upgrade the 40-odd pieces of Bloatware from the Play Store, the microphone was working. Which makes me think that the culprit is one of the system apps in it's updated form. If safe mode runs these apps as they originally appeared on the phone, that might explain it. It would also hopefully let me painstakingly disable these apps, one by one, to find the culprit and disable it.
I say culprit because of something I stumbled across trying to research this--weirdly enough, in a message from the devs of Shazam. devs of Shazam They say that the issue has shown up on 4.4 and the cause appears to be one app somehow monopolizing access to the microphone. I could see this breaking the video as well, and potentially the audio playback if, as I assume, Google uses the mic to help tweak the sound of the speakers.
Anyone know any more about any of the aspects of this? I will be posting back myself as I learn more.
What happens if you factory reset without restoring any apps? In other words, factory reset, choose not to restore your apps (or don't attach to a Google account on initial setup, and do it post-setup). In other words, do you have an app that is blocking this access?
doogald said:
What happens if you factory reset without restoring any apps? In other words, factory reset, choose not to restore your apps (or don't attach to a Google account on initial setup, and do it post-setup). In other words, do you have an app that is blocking this access?
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Click to collapse
Trying this now. Thanks for the suggestion!
Update: Tried this. Did another FDR, signed in to one of my Google accounts afterwards, but haven't updated a thing. The audio/voice/video/bugs seem gone; however, the ****ty battery drain I had before is back. I'm playing around with some settings to find out what can be done. I'm also going down the list and updating the system apps one by one.
Does anyone know a good testing process (ie, should I run the app? do I need to restart after install? run the app and close? etc) that will keep me from getting false negatives (ie thinking an app isn't causing the problem when it is)?
Update again: I'm working down in alphabetical order through the factory apps. However, after the most recent factory reset, it appears that my battery drain is back, and as long as the battery drain is there, the phone works normally. So, not looking good in terms of battery+functionality for me. Went through the 40ish apps that were on the phone stock--after the fresh reset, the phone is working, but the battery life is shot to **** all over again. Not sure what to make of all this, and now back to being frustrated with a 4 hour battery life from the phone that never sleeps. UGH
Update yet once more:
For kicks and giggles, tried unchecking the "Touchless Control" in settings, to see what effect that would have on my battery. But, reasoning that whatever wakelock was keeping my phone up all the time had to be persisting after it was needed, I guessed I needed to reboot to get rid of them. Booting up again, I'm back to battery life without audio/video/etc. Very confused here. Apparently it has nothing to do with the apps installed, period.
Facing the Same problem please someone tell me What should i do
Same problem! No audio call
Inviato dal mio Redmi Note 3 utilizzando Tapatalk
Please help me I have this same problem. No audio, cant play video, nd mic isn't working.
Related
What the hell is going on. I tried resetting and everything, even exchanged the device and the new one is doing the same thing! Also vibrating and force closing it is getting on my nerves! The followig seems to happen after a while I am TIRED of having to turn of my phone and turn it back on! ~ I go to play a .mp3 it says " FIle type not supported"...My .mp3 ringtone does not work the phone just vibrates the selected ringtone doesnt work. I got too take a picture or record video it says "Camera Failed"....I get a visual voicemail....the "play" button is grayed out and I have to turn off phone turn it BACK On just to check my voicemail. Also occassioally my sms wont work either. I turn my phone off and on every morning and throughout day I notice this and its getting REAL annoying !
Well first off, this isn't a software flaw, this is specific to you, as we have many users here including myself who are using these phones daily without the issues you are describing.
You had said that the issue was with an mp3, can you upload that somewhere for us to test on our phones?
As far as the camera and visual voicemail, I've never heard of that issue before, perhaps you ended up with a bad phone again?
I am getting the frequent force close with messaging. I also have had problems with the camera and idk about the mp3 stuff I haven't put any ringtones on the phone yet. This is getting really annoying I agree.
I don't have any issues with mine? Have you guys done anything like rooting or flashing anything?
Nope, completely stock. The most I have done is take a screen shot lol.
hmm maybe some have a defect? It's not all SK4g's though, as some of us have no issues at all. I would suggest getting it replaced by T-Mobile, as this is a factory defect. not sure why that happened to you guys. has anyone else had these issues and found any fixes?
That's kinda tough the hearest t-mobile is like 4 hours from here /:
One of my friends who went with me on the trip to get the SK also got one and he says he's never gotten a force close so you may be right. But could it have anything to do with the amount of texts I send/receive? Because I have to admit it is pretty excessive. The failing to send messages when I am receiving one simultaneously is expected, but not the force closes in my opinion.
It shouldn't force close on you. I know mine fails to send every once in a while too, as I text a lot (kinda the reason I got the phone). failing to send isn't as big of a deal, as it notifies you and you just have to click resend. Not entirely sure why it's force closing though? I wonder if a logcat might help? if you have adb installed, you can try adb logcat and see what shows up when you force close? if we can find the issue there, it might be fixable from our end. all depends on where the flaw lies/if it's just a bad apk somehow or if there's an actual hardware issue or something.
I'll do a log next time there is a fc, I'm having another issue or it may be related, but this one is with WidgetLocker I believe. Sometimes when I go to unlock the phone it'll freeze up and then I dont know how to explain it, but it almost seems like it resets but it really doesnt. The phone will blackout for a little then the homescreen will pop up and service will gone for a while until the cards are read just like if I rebooted.
That might be a function of WidgetLocker, I used it on my old G1 and it always hung and black screened at me.
sduvick said:
That might be a function of WidgetLocker, I used it on my old G1 and it always hung and black screened at me.
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Yeah I know it does that from time to time, but on my previous phone it wouldn't do that reboot thing where it would lose connection then resend my latest text messages once it reconnected.
I'm not sure why it's doing that. My guess would be that the issues are caused because the SK4G doesn't use a normal lock screen. widgetlocker uses some modification of the system file for the lock screen, and perhaps it's not sure what to modify? just my 2 cents.
sduvick said:
I'm not sure why it's doing that. My guess would be that the issues are caused because the SK4G doesn't use a normal lock screen. widgetlocker uses some modification of the system file for the lock screen, and perhaps it's not sure what to modify? just my 2 cents.
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That's what I was thinking too, I'm gonna uninstall it for a bit and see if anything changes.
is anyone else having an issue with notification volume? everytime i reboot my SK, my notification volume gets pushed all the way down to nothing, so i don't get a sound notification for texts, emails, etc, until i move the notif. volume back up in my settings. i did root with the one-click for the Epic 4G.
This is a new UI so alot of the apps i.e. widgets you may put on will cause issues. If you like certain apps contact the dev so your device is supported correctly. Still to new to get mad at it till sum of the bugs get worked out. I did notice a couple of times when I left screen on in pocket on accident that when I go to use it again it doesn't respond to any touch but can move courser around till rebooted then its ok. If some don't already know the sk4g is almost the same as the epic. The sk4g is still a badass phone for 100bucks.
Same as the OP
I know this is a little old, but I've experienced the same problem as the OP so it seems they are not alone with this problem.
I actually tried two different newly formatted SD cards (because I thought it may have been the SD card), and still would have the problem. Then I actually did swap phones about a month ago and it seemed the problem would now take several days to resurface instead of several hours. And I could deal with that.
Since the OTA update about 2 weeks ago, the phone has been back on it's original BS as the OP posted and it's driving me nuts. I actually missed some emergency calls last night because the mp3 ringtone didn't work so I'm finding a solution to this issue today or trashing this phone.
My belief is that there is something interfering with the phone's ability to read the SD card for media. Because other apps I have that save to the SD card or read from it work fine. So I'm going to master reset it and not download any of my apps and see what happens when I set an mp3 ringtone. If it makes it through the day with no hiccups, I'll slowly add back one app at a time until hopefully I can find the culprit.
bipoler if you'd like, we can exchange via PM what apps we both have downloaded and see if we have some in common that may be problems.
I'll post back with any progress.
I've been having the problem with ringtones not working, just getting silence when I get a call. for me it seems to happen when I set a ringtone from the app Zedge, I don't think it happens when I use ringtones from the Android System, which would make sense if the issue is related to reading the sdcard. gonna go back to a system ringtone and see what happens today.
Yeah my phone had all those problems, but I installed the Lightning rom and all those problems went away, except for the ones about messages failing...I text A LOT
Lightning ROM
Thanks for that info on the Lightning Rom. I will check that out. Phone has been working flawlessly all day with the mp3 ringtone and no extra apps besides the master reset. I might give it until the morning before I start putting them back on.
On stock id install so many apps that ran on the background that id get delay from opening closing swiping and turning onthe phone.. so I wiped it installed a custom rom and just kept the essentials.. havnt had a problem since... well.. occasionly ill have to odi but that's on purpose
Sent from my SK4G
alright, so i bought the nexus 5 month or so ago.
the issue i'm having:
i go in maps. say i'm rather close over berlin. i enter "Munich" in the seach bar. the "flyover" starts. however it doesnt finish over munich, it stops halfway through.
on my device its reproducable. no matter what destination i enter, the flyover just stops somewhere around halfway through, always at the very same spot. it i then go back to the search bar and tap on the "go" button again, the flyover continues, but still doesnt end. it takes me 3 times tapping on the "go"/"search" button until munich is visible. however it is still not centered. even after 5 further clicks its still not completely zoomed in.
this really bugs me. i dont use maps very often, but when i do i have to see this crap.
not quite sure if related, but i'm playing family guy lately. whenever you order a character to do something, the camera usually locks on the character while he walks to wherever he has to go. on my device, the camera just stops following him after a few seconds. seems the same/similar issue than whats going on in maps.
any idea what it could be? i really dont want to root and install a custom rom on the nexus 5 until google supports it.
i already cleared the cache, cleared the data and uninstalled all updates. in every version in every configuration this bug persists.
murfi said:
alright, so i bought the nexus 5 month or so ago.
the issue i'm having:
i go in maps. say i'm rather close over berlin. i enter "Munich" in the seach bar. the "flyover" starts. however it doesnt finish over munich, it stops halfway through.
on my device its reproducable. no matter what destination i enter, the flyover just stops somewhere around halfway through, always at the very same spot. it i then go back to the search bar and tap on the "go" button again, the flyover continues, but still doesnt end. it takes me 3 times tapping on the "go"/"search" button until munich is visible. however it is still not centered. even after 5 further clicks its still not completely zoomed in.
this really bugs me. i dont use maps very often, but when i do i have to see this crap.
not quite sure if related, but i'm playing family guy lately. whenever you order a character to do something, the camera usually locks on the character while he walks to wherever he has to go. on my device, the camera just stops following him after a few seconds. seems the same/similar issue than whats going on in maps.
any idea what it could be? i really dont want to root and install a custom rom on the nexus 5 until google supports it.
i already cleared the cache, cleared the data and uninstalled all updates. in every version in every configuration this bug persists.
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Click to collapse
First step I would try is rebooting your phone into Safe mode. If the problem persists then you can eliminate 3rd party apps from the equation. If it's fixed then you can assume one of your apps is causing the issue.
bblzd said:
First step I would try is rebooting your phone into Safe mode. If the problem persists then you can eliminate 3rd party apps from the equation. If it's fixed then you can assume one of your apps is causing the issue.
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sorry, forgot to mention: i tried safe mode. problem still persists.
murfi said:
sorry, forgot to mention: i tried safe mode. problem still persists.
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Have you tried different Locations settings? Does the same thing happen during High Performance, Battery Saver, and Device Only?
Only other thing I can think to try is resetting the phone to factory default.
bblzd said:
Have you tried different Locations settings? Does the same thing happen during High Performance, Battery Saver, and Device Only?
Only other thing I can think to try is resetting the phone to factory default.
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i have all locations settings turned off. but tried it with them turned on, still the same.
i suppose a factory reset is whats left to do... :/
i might as well root it, while i'm at it
All,
First time poster, frequent visitor of XDA Forums. I've come across an odd issue that I don't know how to solve and I'm hoping some of you smarter than me folks can get me squared away.
I have a Galaxy S8+ from AT&T running Android 7.0 and Samsung Experience 8.1.
Problem:
I've recently noticed a delay or completely non-updating interface on my phone. It updates on occasion, but I can't determine what triggers an update. For example, I will pick up my phone from the desk and when I press the power button it shows the accurate time. When I unlock the device, the sense flip clock I use on the main home screen shows an earlier time (could be 30 minutes... could be a few hours). I don't believe it's just the Sense app because I noticed this issue where I checked a facebook messenger app that came and and when I closed the app, it still showed I had 1 notification. I went back in thinking I had another new message, but I didn't. So it was still hanging on to the notification. It happened a couple times with a text message as well. Most importantly, my calendar doesn't alert me prior to an appointment either, even though it's showing in my calendar and an alert is active. If I save an event, and exit, I can normally see the event appear on the on widget immediately as well... but that hasn't been happening. I have to press the widget to open it and confirm it is there (which it always is). Eventually it refreshes and shows up. But that delay is likely the reason why I'm not getting my alerts.
All of this did seem to happen after a recent update Samsung/AT&T pushed out but I don't know for sure. I tried clearing the cache from the boot menu but it doesn't seem there is wide success with that.
And perhaps I'm just not a good enough user, but everything isn't all backed up in the cloud so doing the factory reset to me is always a fairly large task as I have many things to manually transfer out and then back in. Not sure if there are great tools that help with this on a stock phone.
BUMP
try disabling battery optimization for those apps.
It seems that you have several bugs and if they all start happening after you have installed the latest update, then expect a patch coming soon.
MINTED7 said:
try disabling battery optimization for those apps.
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I have actually done that. Found very limited success. I'm also finding very few results on this topic. Surely it's not just me though.
And I'm dreading the idea of a hard reset as I have many things on my phones, not all of which is sync'd to the cloud so it's a task to back things up appropriate. Specifically regarding "encrypted" apps like my password keeper app etc.
It would be great if there was a software application that allowed you to backup whatever is necessary to not lose data, then wipe the phone and instead of just simply restoring the full phone (which is likely to create the same problem one had before the hard reset), you could simply dump back in app data as needed. It would also help diagnose if the problem lies in a specific app's data.
High level overview of issues...
I have the Ring Doorbell app. I get notifications after "live". Could be 5 minutes, could be 1 hour... or possibly not at all. I have the app setup on my wife's iPhone and she gets them immediately. If I restart the phone, I will get notified right away (it's like it runs the app again and then I get the notification). Keep in mind, this is AFTER i disabled the battery optimization feature for the Ring app.
I also notice it occasionally with texting. I won't have any text notification in the notification panel, nor will my messaging icon have a little red circle indicating a message is there. But if I open the app, a specification conversation will have a red circle indicating a new text is unread.
All of this is leading me to believe the Samsung UI itself is not updating and therefore notifications that actually have arrived (from whatever app), are not displaying because of the UI and not because of their own delay.
Because of this concern I have turned off battery optimization for "System UI", "Themes", and "TouchWiz Home". I have not seen any change however.
[Solved]
I was able to determine by various other threads around the web (thought for sure I'd find it here, but I didn't) that the culprit might be the Google app. Supposedly it was fixed in some prior release, but it's not on my Galaxy S8+ w/ AT&T.
Once I disabled the Google app all the odd issues with notifications and clock interfaces and app icons not updating went away. The downside to disabling it is that I lose the Google Assistant functionality which stinks but otherwise there is no impact to using the phone. I re-enabled it at a later date and it worked fine for a few days and then started acting up again. Once I disabled it, the problems all disappeared. Clearly Google app is to blame.
Hey guys
I'm having strange problems with Android Auto on Honor 8x.
Sometimes, it works great. The navigation bar shows up, and when I click the audio button, I can see Pocket Casts and Spotify as intended.
However, about 2/3rds of the time, Android Auto doesn't work properly. Either, the bar at the bottom is blank, or my audio apps are not recognized, and pressing the audio button gives the prompt 'Pull over and install android auto apps when it is safe to do so'.
I'm trying to figure out why it works sometimes and other times not, but I can't for the life of me figure it out. I've tried making sure spotify is open before connecting the phone, I've tried making sure it's fully closed, wiping caches of android auto and google apps doesn't seem to make a difference after the initial set up either.
Anyone else?
I'm having exactly the same issue except for me Google play music always appears; just Spotify is sometimes there/sometimes isn't
I initially thought it was a Spotify issue and downloaded Deezer which had exactly the same issue after a few days
I've found sometimes that rebooting the phone works but I've also resorted to reinstalling Spotify at times
I'm just sitting waiting patiently in a hope that it's some "feature" which gets fixed when pie is rolled out, but who knows!
Let us know if you find a fix! ??
I've given up
Mine was just weird full stop! Screen goes weird and kept locking up, half the time 'hey google' wouldn't work amongst other things. I ended up deleting it.
Glad to see it's not only me. It's great when it works, but it's always when I'm about to head out on a long drive that it ****s the bed. The 15 minute journey to town of course, everything's mint..... Having other problems with the phone as well with it's heavy-handed regulation of pretty much everything. No DNS-based or VPN-based adblock can seem to stay alive either. Tried them all! I really hope a decent custom ROM comes out one day, but if not I will probably cut my losses and head back to Moto. Shame really, because it's great value for money and an AOSP version of same hardware would be mint.
My wife and I both have Note 20 Ultras. Mine is fine. Her microphone randomly turns on. She'll be sitting there working or watching TV and it will suddenly think she's talking to it. She can see what it thinks she's saying on the bottom. I've checked it top to bottom (as best I can) and I found nothing wrong with it. I scanned it for malware using multiple apps and none of them found anything. I checked to see what had permission to use the microphone and there was nothing there.
Does anyone have any ideas about what could be going on with it?
Thanks
If it's not Bixby, Google Assistant, etc all of which I never allow to run, than it's likely a rootkit or virus. Device Care>memory, clear cache then see what apps are cache at the top next it happens.
Likely something she installed or perhaps got by the browser or inadvertently downloaded.
Virus scans don't find everything... WYSIWYG. Find the cause or factory reset it, change passwords and reload with caution. Social media apps and other trashware shouldn't be installed on the phone.
The longer malware is allowed to run, the more damage it can do. I give myself 2 hours maximum to find/erraticate or otherwise fix before a factory reset if I suspect malware.
Tic-tok Mr. Wick...
Thank you!