moto g200 5G - microphone/audio input randomly does not work

AmbientCake

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Hi,

This problem seems to have started after the system update to Android 12 - and it's making me so infuriated with the phone that I just want to throw it at a wall. Has anyone else experienced anything like this?

Audio input now DOES NOT WORK RELIABLY any more. Either from the built-in microphone, or a bluetooth headset.

I answer a call (or dial someone) and I can hear them fine. But they cannot hear me. All they get is either silence or a sort of squishy static noise.

The physical microphone on the phone works fine - when I do the hardware self-test to record something and have it play back that ALWAYS works without any problems.

It is ONLY on phone calls that I get this problem.

I have tried disabling and enabling all relevant options - CrystalTalk AI, Wifi calling. Does not make a difference.

Tried resetting various system apps and deleting cached data. No difference.

Tried rebooting into safe mode - again, still get the problem.

Tried using a blueooth headset (a Plantronics voyager). That worked initially, then on the next call I got the same problem - the caller cannot hear me.

The phone is mostly just stock apps - I not have any call-recording or replacement phone app installed.

Rebooting the phone seems to prevent the problem for a while, but I still randomly get the problem. It seems like something in the software path for audio input is deeply broken in some way.

I have *never* had a problem like this with any phone before - even cheap crappy ones have always been able to reliably make and receive calls. At the moment I am looking at just getting a basic Nokia handset (just a plain phone, not an Android) just to be able to take phone calls.
 

B. Diddy

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Welcome to Android Central! That doesn't sound good.:-\ Was this phone purchased directly through a carrier, or unlocked from Motorola? If it was through a carrier, I'd reach out to the carrier's support line, since the update would probably have been at least partially developed by the carrier themselves. If it was through Motorola, then I'd reach out to Moto's support line.
 

AmbientCake

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I bought the phone from Motorola directly (I'm in the UK).

It's still within warranty, but I have a feeling that even if I return it for repair, it will just come back with "no fault found", and the problem will still be there.

For example first thing this morning I received a call, and everything worked fine. An hour later, after the phone had basically just sat doing nothing, I get another call, and the caller can't hear me. Using Microsoft Teams or Skype is actually more reliable than my phone at this point.

Just curious if this is something weird and unusual, or whether other people have experienced problems since the update to Android 12. I know that Android 12 has broken things on other phones - my wife has a Nokia X20 and after that was updated to 12 it developed a bug where it would hard power-off when left on charge. So you have to watch it and unplug when it hits 90% or so. That at least has been acknowledged as a bug by Nokia and will supposedly get fixed in the next patch.

Update: found this old Reddit thread from a year ago with what sounds like the same issue:

https://www.reddit.com/r/android_be...el_5_android_12_beta_21_phone_calls_no_audio/
 
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B. Diddy

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One more thing -- when this happens, can you check to make sure any Bluetooth headphones haven't inadvertently connected? I've seen that happen with my Pixel Buds -- they'll connect when they're not even out of their case, which is annoying, because if I answer a call and don't realize they're connected, the call will connect but no one can hear anything. (But the difference here is that I can't hear them either, since audio is going through the Pixel Buds.)

EDIT: Actually, never mind -- this wouldn't be the case since you said you've had the problem happen even when you're actively using a Bluetooth headset.:-\
 

AmbientCake

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So, I had another instance of the problem today. I received a call when in an area of the house with virtually no cellular signal, so the phone used Wifi calling. This worked fine - I could hear and the caller could hear me. Then I walked upstairs and got a cell signal - and the caller could no longer hear me.

So switching from wifi calling to cellular during a call seems to have triggered the problem.

If the call stays on the same "transport" for the duration I don't think there is a problem - I'm fairly sure I've taken calls on both wifi calling and normal cell calling.

Edit: Tried disabling WiFi calling and just used cellular. Received a call and the other party could not hear me. But, I had not rebooted the phone. So either something is weird with audio on cellular calls, or more likely, when something tickles the bug and it breaks audio input it stays broken until a reboot or something else resets it.

I guess I shouldn't be totally surprised - the Linux audio stack is a complicated beast even when just using a normal desktop PC. But while it might be OK to restart a game if the audio dies, a phone can't really get away with that.

Sometimes I get the feeling that tech is actually moving backwards in terms of reliability and dependability.
 
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B. Diddy

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In the Wi-fi Calling setting, is "Call Over Wi-fi" selected rather than "Call Over Mobile Network"?
 

J Dubbs

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So, I had another instance of the problem today. I received a call when in an area of the house with virtually no cellular signal, so the phone used Wifi calling. This worked fine - I could hear and the caller could hear me. Then I walked upstairs and got a cell signal - and the caller could no longer hear me.

So switching from wifi calling to cellular during a call seems to have triggered the problem.

If the call stays on the same "transport" for the duration I don't think there is a problem - I'm fairly sure I've taken calls on both wifi calling and normal cell calling.

Edit: Tried disabling WiFi calling and just used cellular. Received a call and the other party could not hear me. But, I had not rebooted the phone. So either something is weird with audio on cellular calls, or more likely, when something tickles the bug and it breaks audio input it stays broken until a reboot or something else resets it.

I guess I shouldn't be totally surprised - the Linux audio stack is a complicated beast even when just using a normal desktop PC. But while it might be OK to restart a game if the audio dies, a phone can't really get away with that.

Sometimes I get the feeling that tech is actually moving backwards in terms of reliability and dependability.

It sounds like you've been very thorough with your attempts at fixing this problem... sometimes Android OS updates come with major problems that need a factory reset to fix. That sounds like where you might be at. But before that try a cache partition wipe, they will fix some surprising things ;)
 

B. Diddy

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If you tap the words "Use Wi-Fi Calling" (and not the toggle), do any other options come up, or does it just toggle it on or off? If the latter, then I guess your phone doesn't have the option to select which to prefer, mobile or wi-fi.
@J Dubbs, unfortunately, Motorola phones haven't had the ability to wipe the cache partition since maybe the G5, since they all use dual A/B partitions for seamless updates.:-\
 

Laura Knotek

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Are you able to toggle off the setting I circled in Developer Options?

Yours might look different than mine, since I have a Samsung device.
a9bfef174895aa178c5e0e5a67357036.jpg
 

AmbientCake

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Yes, I have that option in the developer settings panel. On my phone it appears to have defaulted to "off". I can't remember ever changing it.

I can try enabling it and see if that makes a difference, thanks.
 

J Dubbs

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If you tap the words "Use Wi-Fi Calling" (and not the toggle), do any other options come up, or does it just toggle it on or off? If the latter, then I guess your phone doesn't have the option to select which to prefer, mobile or wi-fi.
@J Dubbs, unfortunately, Motorola phones haven't had the ability to wipe the cache partition since maybe the G5, since they all use dual A/B partitions for seamless updates.:-\

I keep forgetting that :confused: I guess I'm not used to Moto phones being that advanced. Our Moto's still have the ability to wipe the cache partition, which I like :p

Although, come to think of it, my wife's G6 and my Z3 Play still have the option to wipe the cache partition. I think those were both 2018 phones, maybe the Z3 was 2019. Still old though lol.
 

B. Diddy

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I keep forgetting that :confused: I guess I'm not used to Moto phones being that advanced. Our Moto's still have the ability to wipe the cache partition, which I like :p

Although, come to think of it, my wife's G6 and my Z3 Play still have the option to wipe the cache partition. I think those were both 2018 phones, maybe the Z3 was 2019. Still old though lol.

Hmm, that's odd, because the G6 was on this (old) list: https://www.xda-developers.com/list-android-devices-seamless-updates/. Are you actually seeing the specific option to wipe the cache partition in the Recovery Menu? You can still access the same Recovery Menu in those phones, but I thought Wipe Cache Partition just didn't show up in that menu (although all the other options do).
 

J Dubbs

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Hmm, that's odd, because the G6 was on this (old) list: https://www.xda-developers.com/list-android-devices-seamless-updates/. Are you actually seeing the specific option to wipe the cache partition in the Recovery Menu? You can still access the same Recovery Menu in those phones, but I thought Wipe Cache Partition just didn't show up in that menu (although all the other options do).

Yep, I do all my wife's phone maintenance (including buying her phones and setting them up for her.. aren't I sweet? lol), manually update her apps (work and otherwise), and wipe the cache partition on her phone about every 2 months... more often if she has an issue. I had to wipe it a while back when an update caused her phone app to start acting up, and yet again recently to get her Google Assistant back on track after an update.

So a 2018 Moto G6 still has the option to wipe the cache partition... but my Moto Z3 Play is an emergency back up line, so it almost never gets used, and I don't remember for sure if I'm able to wipe the cache partition or not. I think I can if I remember right... I should probably check just to get the info out there for future readers ;)

I bought both phones together, direct from Motorola unlocked, so the Z3 should be a 2018 as well. And they're both running Android 9.