2XL Speakers suddenly garbage - now I will get my 6th 2XL? WTF google

[OUGrad05]

My 5th phone (4th replacement I believe? Hell I'm losing count on this POS) suddenly started having major speaker problems. It was fine Tuesday morning.

I take a plane ride, land in Denver, come out of airplane mode and notice the speakers are somewhat distorted, sound is "pingy" and "buzzy" it's also super quiet. I missed a couple calls because I couldn't hear it ring despite ringer volume being at 80% (about where I've always had it). I've tried restarting, updating, charging, shutting down for long periods, the phone is now almost unusable as a phone or media device.

It's hard for me to believe this is software in nature, seems more hardware and it's making this thing damn near unusable.

My level of frustration with this phone and Google are just through the roof right now. I've swapped devices, had to set them up again and again, reboots, factory resets for various problems. Why can't Google just send me a good phone?

Any thoughts on the speakers would be welcomed.

 

[Rukbat]

Thought on Google bug first - just keep having phones with bugs replaced. I've had 7 sent to me so far - all the problems were things I could have fixed (or did fix) myself if I had known how to before talking to them. They don't care? Then I don't care. (None of my problems kept me from using the phone for very long, except the first one, but they kept sending me phones [and, of course, I always returned one for every one sent - 6 of them were the ones sent].)

The speakers - could it have something to do with the change in air pressure? (Which should have showed up in the plane - air pressure in modern airliners is usually about 5,000 feet altitude.) Have you tried gently tapping the area of the phone where the speakers are on a desktop? (And remember, neither Amazon or LG actually manufactures the speakers - LG gets them from some component manufacturer.)

 

[OUGrad05]

Thought on Google bug first - just keep having phones with bugs replaced. I've had 7 sent to me so far - all the problems were things I could have fixed (or did fix) myself if I had known how to before talking to them. They don't care? Then I don't care. (None of my problems kept me from using the phone for very long, except the first one, but they kept sending me phones [and, of course, I always returned one for every one sent - 6 of them were the ones sent].)

The speakers - could it have something to do with the change in air pressure? (Which should have showed up in the plane - air pressure in modern airliners is usually about 5,000 feet altitude.) Have you tried gently tapping the area of the phone where the speakers are on a desktop? (And remember, neither Amazon or LG actually manufactures the speakers - LG gets them from some component manufacturer.)

Pressure change may have something to do with it when I landed back in Tulsa last night it was even worse. It's downright terrible now.

 

[Eggmundo]

Why the hell did you even give that many chances to Google?

 

[OUGrad05]

Because it's under warranty and I spent $860 on this piece of crap and don't want to buy another phone yet.

 

[J Dubbs]

Because it's under warranty and I spent $860 on this piece of crap and don't want to buy another phone yet.

Once you get on the return/exchange for someone else's problem refurbished treadmill you never get back off. If you can't get a new replacement the first time you're pretty much screwed.

 

[OUGrad05]

That's been my experience. I have requested new in the past and been denied. This time they kept telling me to factory reset my phone which is a waste of time. Clearly a hardware issue.

 

[Mooncatt]

Once you get on the return/exchange for someone else's problem refurbished treadmill you never get back off. If you can't get a new replacement the first time you're pretty much screwed.

I call this refurbish roulette, and it's the same for all manufacturers. I've had similar cases with both Motorola and Samsung, and seen stories from other users about other manufacturers.

That's been my experience. I have requested new in the past and been denied. This time they kept telling me to factory reset my phone which is a waste of time. Clearly a hardware issue.

As much as it sucks, you'll have to factory reset the phone before sending it in anyways, so may as well try and see what happens. I've done enough warranty claims now that I pretty much know the troubleshooting steps customer service will go through. If I can't fix it on my own, I'll factory reset before I even call about a warranty claim just to save time on the phone. I'll mention everything I've tried, including the reset, and they pretty much skip half their script and set up the exchange. (This is with Verizon, so YMMV)

Though, I am reminded of another thread from years ago where people had a similar sounding speaker issue. The solution that worked for many was to use your mouth to lightly suck and blow into the speaker opening. Somehow it freed up the speaker. I'll go see if I can dig up the link.

 

[Mooncatt]

Here's the link. It started for the Droid Bionic, but many others reported success on other phones.

https://forums.androidcentral.com/showthread.php?t=269415

 

[Mike Dee]

My 5th phone (4th replacement I believe? Hell I'm losing count on this POS) suddenly started having major speaker problems. It was fine Tuesday morning.

I take a plane ride, land in Denver, come out of airplane mode and notice the speakers are somewhat distorted, sound is "pingy" and "buzzy" it's also super quiet. I missed a couple calls because I couldn't hear it ring despite ringer volume being at 80% (about where I've always had it). I've tried restarting, updating, charging, shutting down for long periods, the phone is now almost unusable as a phone or media device.

It's hard for me to believe this is software in nature, seems more hardware and it's making this thing damn near unusable.

My level of frustration with this phone and Google are just through the roof right now. I've swapped devices, had to set them up again and again, reboots, factory resets for various problems. Why can't Google just send me a good phone?

Any thoughts on the speakers would be welcomed.

Does it do it in safe mode?
I doubt it is I'll make a difference but it's the first to start. If it still does it safe mode do a factory reset in case something is corrupt.
Believe it or not that solved a similar problem for me once with headphone audio.

 

[OUGrad05]

Ya it does it in safe mode.

It's gotten better the last two days very slowly. Either air pressure or moisture from the bathroom were the culprit I suspect.

 

[Mike Dee]

Well then I hope it clears up

 

[B. Diddy]

Either air pressure or moisture from the bathroom were the culprit I suspect.

Do you customarily have the phone in the bathroom when there's lots of water vapor in the air from a hot shower? Avoid doing that -- it can affect any phone, not just a Pixel.

 

[OUGrad05]

Do I usually? No, from time to time yes, and it's never impacted any other phone I have had.

Small hotel bathrooms steam up easily.

 

[GeorgesBlazah]

I feel your pain, Im on my 4th one, waiting to see how much longer this one lasts. lol

I feel like after 3 replacements you should be able to get a new one or at least heavily discount an upgrade. Its a crap way to treat customers and I dont know if ill ever give them another chance once this warranty runs out.

 

[OUGrad05]

I feel your pain, Im on my 4th one, waiting to see how much longer this one lasts. lol

I feel like after 3 replacements you should be able to get a new one or at least heavily discount an upgrade. Its a crap way to treat customers and I dont know if ill ever give them another chance once this warranty runs out.

Yeah I agree, if they had offered me a discount on the Pixel 3 XL I may well have taken it. As it stands now I'm probably jumping to the dark side later this year.

 

[Zedd]

this thread scares me, never had any troubles with my P2XL. good luck y'all.

 

[J Dubbs]

Yeah I agree, if they had offered me a discount on the Pixel 3 XL I may well have taken it. As it stands now I'm probably jumping to the dark side later this year.

Nobody can blame you for that :O

 

[OUGrad05]

this thread scares me, never had any troubles with my P2XL. good luck y'all.

If you have and yours for a year plus with no issues I wouldn't worry.

 

[J Dubbs]

this thread scares me, never had any troubles with my P2XL. good luck y'all.

Yep after reading this thread I went and stuck my perfectly functioning since new pixel in an OtterBox Defender case I picked up for 8 bucks on clearance It's actually very comforting to know I could use my phone as a basketball without any fear of damage :-D