Bursts of static

A

AC Question

I've had this problem with 2 phones, a Moto G (1st Gen) and a Droid Maxx 2.

I listen to lots of podcasts. During the summer, I can listen to 6+ hours a day. And it is aggravating beyond words when there is a LOUD burst of static right in my ears!

This morning, the Moto G was making the noise every 30 seconds. This is the first time I've noticed the noise as a regular phenomena. It usually seems to be random.

I've googled the issue and the only thing I find is that people have been having this issue SINCE 2010. Seven years!

Restarting the phone will make the noise go away for anywhere from a couple hours to a couple days. But it will come back.

Does anybody have success dealing with bursts of static?
 

KDulcimer

New member
Mar 10, 2017
3
0
0
Visit site
Thanks for the reply. I only have one pair of headphones. If I turn them off, the noise continues through the phone's speaker.

I should note I have switched to a Moto G4 Play, and it's happening with this phone more than the others.
 

TrunkMonkey99

New member
Aug 2, 2017
1
0
0
Visit site
Same issue with Moto X2 2nd Gen. Seem like this has only been happening for the last few months, perhaps an artifact of the last update, applied Nov 23 2016.

It happens regardless of sound destination - phone speaker, or any of three bluetooth systems (car and 2 sets of headphones). The static must be originating on the device itself. A bad driver?

The only sure way to make it stop, just for a while, is a reboot.

Would be fascinated to hear about a better solution. Perhaps it is time to jailbreak and get a different OS. My phone hasn't been officially supported for a couple of years anyway.
 

Kathryn Perez

New member
Aug 21, 2017
1
0
0
Visit site
I am having the same problem. It happens with the phone speaker, plugged in headphones, and bluetooth headphones. It stops for a while if I power the phone off then on. It is really painfully loud if it happens to start when wearing headphones. Does anyone know how to fix this?
 

oloung1

New member
Oct 16, 2017
1
0
0
Visit site
Here's an example of the sound being played through the phone speaker.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7NRQqeo3ILjb2d2ZXJXR3RTdTA/view?usp=drivesdk

this is the exact same sound that has been plaguing my moto g gen3 for about the last 2 months. i just got my moto g4 in this week and this weekend it started doing the same thing! :mad:

i've factory reset my moto g gen3 twice in hopes of getting rid of the bluetooth static blasts. restarting the devices clears the issue for a short amount of time, anywhere from 2 minutes to 30 minutes. between these 2 phones, i have 2 cars with bt and 2 wireless bt headphones that will all produce the same LOUD static. my phones are on stock rom and Not-rooted.

what i have discovered is that it only happens when the phone is warm or starting to become hot in temperature, whether it is ambient or resource driven, im not sure at this point. when im in the car, if i leave my phone in front of the ac vent the entire drive, it seems to help reduce the static blasts. for reference, "autumn" temps now are still in the high 90s (f).

i have confirmed, aux jack headphones not affected with bt static blasts.

most of the time when im driving, im running either pandora/soundcloud + waze/google maps. when not driving, usually just pandora/soundcloud. also using "twilight" and "nova launcher" apps.

can anyone confirm the overlap of apps used and/or the temperature triggering the start of the loud bluetooth static? im a few paychecks away in jumping ship and going back to apple after my 5th android mobile, not including 3 other-non mobile android devices.
 

stanan

Member
Oct 10, 2017
10
2
3
Visit site
I signed up for this forum when I found this thread. I could have written it. I first experienced the bursts of static while listening to hours of podcasts (Podcast Addict) on a Moto G3. I was sure my phone was malfunctioning. The static was painful in my earpiece. So I switched to my backup phone, a ZTE. A week or two later the static occurred on my ZTE although the noise was not as intrusive. Aha, it is a software issue. I debugged by stopping likely services and apps but nothing seemed to stop the static from occurring every 30 seconds. Until I force stopped Chrome. That solved the issue. I don't doubt that it may start again and if it does I will start changing Chrome settings to look for the problem. What could Chrome be doing every 30 seconds? There is a background sync setting that looks promising. I will report back if I can pinpoint the issue further.
 

stanan

Member
Oct 10, 2017
10
2
3
Visit site
I think I found the solution. Go to Settings - Apps - Chrome - Permissions and turn off the location permission. It appears to have resolved the static burst issue for my Moto G3.
 

kbania2

New member
Jun 13, 2011
3
0
0
Visit site
I have the same problem with the same phone (Moto G3), and that location permission thing didn't solve it. Nor did force stopping Chrome (which I read as a possible solution on another thread).

Currently listening to this sound every 30 seconds ready to take a hammer to it.
 

Rukbat

Retired Moderator
Feb 12, 2012
44,529
26
0
Visit site
Either I'm way off base, or that "static" is the sound used when the camera takes a picture. As far as what's causing it ... that's why software developers go grey and bald at a young age. If anyone could duplicate the effect at will, I'm sure Google could fix it in minutes, (But random bugs are almost impossible to force, which is why they can stay with a system through dozens of updates. You have to be able to reproduce a bug at will before you can fix it.)
 

john whinston

New member
Jan 4, 2018
1
0
0
Visit site
I've had the same problem with my lgk10 it seems to only occur once I've been using Bluetooth (while connected to something) for a long time I will typically hear 1 or 2 bursts of static no more than 5 seconds apart every 30 seconds for an indefinite amount of time through headsets, earphones, and speakers (including the phone's internal speakers) until I restart my phone. When this happens I often notice that the area where the camera and speaker for listening to calls is located feels significantly warmer than the rest of the phone. I have not yet tried the chrome solution but seeing as I often leave chrome running in the background this may be a solution for my phone and I will update if I find this to be incorrect.
 

Unno

New member
Jan 6, 2018
3
0
0
Visit site
Same here. Moto G4 Play. When I listen to podcasts or YouTube or Spotify for an hour with some Bluetooth device (bt headphones or bt speaker) connected, the noise starts happening.

The noise is exactly the same posted by the user who saved the wav file in Google drive in this thread.

I also noticed that Chrome or Chrome based browsers could be the source of the problem, because sometimes I tried to close them and the noise stopped, but I'm not sure about this. And this can't be a good solution, stopping Chrome every time is not acceptable.

Also restarting the phone is not an acceptable solution for me, because I don't want to lose important incoming calls that can happen while the phone is off.

I don't know about heat, because I'm only using Bluetooth devices by 2 months and it's winter here.

Hope Motorola will fix this very annoying problem, because podcasts and Bluetooth are important for me. I will have to buy another phone if this bug will not be solved, and it won't be a Motorola phone.

Best regards to everyone who posted here,
Luca
 

stanan

Member
Oct 10, 2017
10
2
3
Visit site
Same here. Moto G4 Play. When I listen to podcasts or YouTube or Spotify for an hour with some Bluetooth device (bt headphones or bt speaker) connected, the noise starts happening.

The noise is exactly the same posted by the user who saved the wav file in Google drive in this thread.

I also noticed that Chrome or Chrome based browsers could be the source of the problem, because sometimes I tried to close them and the noise stopped, but I'm not sure about this. And this can't be a good solution, stopping Chrome every time is not acceptable.

Also restarting the phone is not an acceptable solution for me, because I don't want to lose important incoming calls that can happen while the phone is off.

I don't know about heat, because I'm only using Bluetooth devices by 2 months and it's winter here.

Hope Motorola will fix this very annoying problem, because podcasts and Bluetooth are important for me. I will have to buy another phone if this bug will not be solved, and it won't be a Motorola phone.

Best regards to everyone who posted here,
Luca
You didn't mention if you tried the permission change trick that worked for me. See comment #10 .

I also experienced the issue with a ZTE ZMax2 phone so I am not convinced it is a Motorola problem to fix.
 

Unno

New member
Jan 6, 2018
3
0
0
Visit site
Yesterday I experienced the same noise with a Samsung Galaxy S3 Neo, when the Bluetooth headphones were connected. So you are right, it's not a Motorola problem.

Disabling the permission which lets the browser to read my position is not a valid solution for me, because I need sometimes the browser to know my position (and I cannot do this on my GS3 Neo, since it has an old version of android). Anyway, I will try your trick, the next time I will connect headphones and speaker to my Motorola.

EDIT: when it happened with my GS3Neo the localisation was entirely disabled in the phone settings, for every app.

EDIT 2: I live near the railway line, I also suspect the problem can be caused by electromagnetic pollution.
 
Last edited:

bzacon

New member
Jan 10, 2018
1
0
0
Visit site
I started noticing this problem at work, through headphone jack, over Bluetooth and on speaker, with my moto g4 play. Factory reset did nothing and I got so agrivated I sent it back for a replacement which i planned to sell, then bought a Kyocera duraforce pro. I'm immediately having the same problem. I have really only noticed the issue at work though, and I'm a cnc operator. Someone else mentioned em interference? Still unacceptable. No idea what to do.
 

Unno

New member
Jan 6, 2018
3
0
0
Visit site
I tried the permission change trick, on every browser installed on my phone, but the noise still happens on my Motorola g4 play. I also tried to entirely disable the geolocalization for my phone but the noise still happens.

(this is for answering the question of the user @stanan)
 

topherjones

New member
Feb 15, 2018
1
0
0
Visit site
This was happening to me as well. I deleted Chrome from my phone and installed Firefox and the problem went away immediately after I restarted my phone.

I tried to send a message to Google about the problem, but got a message saying that I would have to go through their "help" section to report the issue. 10 "help" section pages later, I gave up on trying to report it. I got other stuff to do other than swimming through the Google "help" section to tell them that there is a problem with their product.
 

Latest posts

Members online

Trending Posts

Forum statistics

Threads
942,375
Messages
6,913,740
Members
3,158,380
Latest member
roshanchoudhary