Unknown cause for beep sound.. which is driving me insane

[Maxeffortdroid]

Hello Everyone,
If someone can help me with this, I would be forever grateful and buy you a beer! I've tried everything and no one seems to be able to resolve it. Here's the context:

Problem: On most, but not all calls a tone beep occurs about every minute. The tone is loud and hurts my ears while doing (or receiving) a call, not to mention it's extremely annoying.

Phone & Carrier: Has occurred on both my old and new phone. Old phone was LG ThinQ 7 and new phone is Samsung S21 (128gig). I just got the new phone in December 2021. My carrier is Verizon and I'm on one of their regular 5G plans, not pre-paid.

Timeline: It's been happening for about 2 years. When I had my LG phone I could not resolve it even after speaking with both Verizon and LG techs on a conference call. I was hoping it would go away with my new phone since we could never resolve on my old LG, but sadly and maddingly it's still there! Argghh!

Details:
- With old LG phone nothing we did resolved it. Again, I worked with both Verizon and LG techs and no luck. We did everything including removing all apps and even factory resetting the phone.

- With the new S21 phone I worked with Verizon to test everything we could and nothing fixed it. They checked the signal strength and ran network tests. Finally it came down to 2 options: 1. safe mode or 2. factory reset. I had tried those before and they did not resolve it on the LG phone, but I tried again anyway. Strangely enough in trying safe mode for a couple days, I could not get the beeping to occur. So, Verizon thinks its an app on my phone, but I have no idea which one it would be and seems strange that the beeping still occurred on my LG when all the apps were removed with the factory reset. But maybe it's different with this phone. Anyway, I don't put games or garbage apps on my phone as I work in IT so I have at least some knowledge of the technical aspects and I'm very selective what I put on my phone. I pretty much use only well known apps, but there maybe some that don't fit that category. It's a real pain to try and go through removing apps one by one to see if I can find one that is causing the beeping, so I thought I'd post here and see if anyone has had this issue or knows of any apps that are known for causing beeping like this.

- I did not do any transfer from my old phone (like using Smart Switch, Verizon backup & restore, etc). I set up the new S21 from scratch and loaded & configured all the apps manually as well as copied all data/files over manually. I did this to make sure I didn't 'copy over' any issues that might be causing the beeping.

- The beeps occur whether on cell or wifi calling

- The old 'minute minder' that was on previous Samsung models does not come on this phone and I certainly have no loaded it - even if it's available.

- At my location I usually have either 5 bars of 4G or 3 bags of 5G, so that shouldn't be the problem and Verizon network techs confirmed my signal is good my tracking it for a few days.

- My wifi is high speed (225 MB/sec) so that's not the issue, and again, beeping occurs whether I'm on wifi or cell signal.

- My wife's iPhone13 does not have beeping at the same location.

So, the bottom line: It appears it must be some setting or perhaps an app. Does anyone have any ideas?

Thank you in advance for any help you can provide!
best regards,
Jamie

 

[mustang7757]

The Google phone app does the same beeping... sigh...

This probably sounds like your carrier issue

 

[Maxeffortdroid]

Well, that's what I thought the whole time and that is what the evidence showed for the LG phone. However, when I use the safe mode and make calls on the S21 I don't get the beeping, so in Verizon's eyes it's software loaded on the phone because otherwise it would beep in safe mode. The only caveat to testing with safe mode is that I made as many calls as I could reasonably make over a two day period and had no beeping, but the beeping does not always occur so maybe it was just a short stretch of 2 days where I just didn't get the beeping. I'm trying the safe mode again when I can to test further, but not sure the result will change. Such a weird issue...but extremely annoying. Well, I'm open to any ideas at this point.

 

[mustang7757]

Well, that's what I thought the whole time and that is what the evidence showed for the LG phone. However, when I use the safe mode and make calls on the S21 I don't get the beeping, so in Verizon's eyes it's software loaded on the phone because otherwise it would beep in safe mode. The only caveat to testing with safe mode is that I made as many calls as I could reasonably make over a two day period and had no beeping, but the beeping does not always occur so maybe it was just a short stretch of 2 days where I just didn't get the beeping. I'm trying the safe mode again when I can to test further, but not sure the result will change. Such a weird issue...but extremely annoying. Well, I'm open to any ideas at this point.

You can try your sim in a realtive,friend, partners phone if its still happening then its Verizon , 2 devices in a row ?

 

[Maxeffortdroid]

Thanks again for all the help and suggestions... and yes, I thought about that or even just hooking up an old phone on my account and testing. Thing is with my new phone came a new SIM so it's very unlikely I received to bad SIMS in a row with two different phones, but technically that is possible. However, the problem with that theory is that we removed the SIM on this new phone and setup the eSIM and it does the beeping too... so it's not just the SIM. ... I find it really hard to believe I'm the only one who is experiencing this phenomenon. It's really hard to imagine that I'm the only one. That's one of the reasons I posted it in the forum, hoping someone has at least had a similar experience.

 

[B. Diddy]

Do you have any 3rd party apps that have anything to do with calls like a spam blocker app, or TrueCaller?

Try going to the Permission Manager in the system settings and see what apps have Calls permission, and focus on those apps. Try uninstalling those one by one (not counting system apps) and see if you can narrow it down that way.

 

[Maxeffortdroid]

@ B.Diddy Good idea. I checked and nothing unusual just standard apps... only suspect ones might possibly be Android Auto or Samsung Health / Galaxy Watch Plugin / Galaxy Wearable, but I doubt those are the culprits given they are standard issue. And yes, I like your thoughts on elimination specific to call permissions - great idea! I was thinking the same about all apps where I just remove 5 at a time and see if I can narrow it down, since there seems to be no other ideas. I'll give that whirl and see what happens... hopefully I'm buying you a beer soon!

 

[mustang7757]

Thanks again for all the help and suggestions... and yes, I thought about that or even just hooking up an old phone on my account and testing. Thing is with my new phone came a new SIM so it's very unlikely I received to bad SIMS in a row with two different phones, but technically that is possible. However, the problem with that theory is that we removed the SIM on this new phone and setup the eSIM and it does the beeping too... so it's not just the SIM. ... I find it really hard to believe I'm the only one who is experiencing this phenomenon. It's really hard to imagine that I'm the only one. That's one of the reasons I posted it in the forum, hoping someone has at least had a similar experience.

No wasnt thinking bad sim , something with your Verizon account thats why i wanted to see if it travels to one more device not by you .
If your using any Verizon apps for account disable or uninstall for testing, those apps Samsung health and wearable wouldn't have anything to do with that , but can you test also on a wireless head set or buds if still hear that ?

 

[Maxeffortdroid]

@ Mustang7757 Thanks. And yes, that is the only thing I had narrowed it down to - my account, but I had not thought about trying my SIM in another phone, but that's another good idea to try to see if it follows the account that no one so far has thought of... However, the challenge is that they deactivated the physical SIM and activated the build-in eSIM, so I'd have to get Verizon to swap it back. But again, an excellent idea to test the 'account theory.' I'm going to try B.Diddy's call app elimination first and see what I can come up with. ... ANd ya, I didn't think Samsung health, android auto, or any of the others would have any effect just willing to try anything at this point. And the beeping does occur on headset and ear buds. ... I might be buying you a beer soon tool. :O)

 

[B. Diddy]

Another longshot, but see if it goes away if you turn off NFC.

 

[mustang7757]

@ Mustang7757 Thanks. And yes, that is the only thing I had narrowed it down to - my account, but I had not thought about trying my SIM in another phone, but that's another good idea to try to see if it follows the account that no one so far has thought of... However, the challenge is that they deactivated the physical SIM and activated the build-in eSIM, so I'd have to get Verizon to swap it back. But again, an excellent idea to test the 'account theory.' I'm going to try B.Diddy's call app elimination first and see what I can come up with. ... ANd ya, I didn't think Samsung health, android auto, or any of the others would have any effect just willing to try anything at this point. And the beeping does occur on headset and ear buds. ... I might be buying you a beer soon tool. :O)

Try also these settings in phone app toggle off , don't think.it work but try , if has option for noise cancelation turn it off also and any spam/caller ID turn of just incase

 

[Maxeffortdroid]

@ B.Diddy ... NFC has been turned off for a while, so unfortunately that does not fix it.

 

[Maxeffortdroid]

Update regarding testing all the apps that have access to the PHONE app. I've removed almost all of them and only have these few remaining to remove and test. Honestly, I wouldn't think any of these would cause the beeping, but will eliminate soon:
Call Filter (Verizon)
Cloud (Verizon)
Contacts
My Verizon (Verizon)
Phone
Voicemail

Will update on these soon.

 

[Maxeffortdroid]

@ mustang7757 I checked and that option is turned on (i.e. to allow alarms/notifications), so once I'm doing testing the remaining apps with permissions to the PHONE app, I will try this. I would rather alarms that I use for specific purposes be able to go off while in a call (e.g. meeting reminders), but we'll see if this works. I'd be willing to use it to get rid of the accursed beeps even if I have to give up other alarms. I must admit, I wonder why Verizon has never mentioned this setting?

 

[mustang7757]

@ mustang7757 I checked and that option is turned on (i.e. to allow alarms/notifications), so once I'm doing testing the remaining apps with permissions to the PHONE app, I will try this. I would rather alarms that I use for specific purposes be able to go off while in a call (e.g. meeting reminders), but we'll see if this works. I'd be willing to use it to get rid of the accursed beeps even if I have to give up other alarms. I must admit, I wonder why Verizon has never mentioned this setting?

Ok let us know, sometimes they can miss a step or didn't know.

 

[Maxeffortdroid]

Will do. thanks

 

[Maxeffortdroid]

Another update.... Regarding testing all the apps that have access to the PHONE app, I have removed all of them except the ones that require the phone app which include: call filter, contacts, phone & voicemail. Of course, these are all known entities so they shouldn't be causing it anyway.... so no luck here.

So, now I have turned of 'Allow alarms/notification sounds in calls" per mustang7757. Fingers crossed.... or one more step to the insane asylum.

 

[mustang7757]

Ok keep us posted

 

[Maxeffortdroid]

@ Mustang7757

Turning off "Allow alarms/notification sounds in calls" did not fix the beeping...arggh! And I don't use any extra called ID/Spam blocking (just whatever is automatically done by Verizon itself). Any other ideas?

 

[mustang7757]

@ Mustang7757

Turning off "Allow alarms/notification sounds in calls" did not fix the beeping...arggh! And I don't use any extra called ID/Spam blocking (just whatever is automatically done by Verizon itself). Any other ideas?

If i think of anything more ill come back here to post

 

[Maxeffortdroid]

If i think of anything more ill come back here to post

Thank you. Very much appreciate it.