• General
  • Graphene OS intermittently fails to ring for incoming calls

Ducter It takes me a good couple hours to flash Google stock, flash graphene then flash Google stock again to finally flash lineage and get it set up again which is what I've been using in place of graphene.

Would it be possible to just swap the SIM cards for a few minutes?

    de0u yeah, I could try my SIM in his known working phone, at least that would help in determining if its SIM related.

      Ducter I could try my SIM in his known working phone, at least that would help in determining if its SIM related.

      I would swap both, and try calls from a third phone.

        Hello,
        I'm on the current build 2024061400.
        Pixel 8
        Proximus (Belgian network)
        Traditional SIM card
        4G and 5G
        VoLTE on
        Battery saver off
        Do not disturb off
        Wi-Fi on
        Wi-Fi calling on (mobile network prefered)
        Default phone app.

        It happened before the update 2024060500 and after, with or without the original phone app.

        I have the log around the time it recieved the call and no ringing nor vibrating. Is it usefull to someone, or should I just wait for an update from GOS or Google ?

        Thank you

        de0u my phone is currently running lineage, everything works as expected as it does with stock Google. Swapping my SIM into his phone running graphene would help illuminate the SIM being an issue or would point more towards it being an issue. Swapping his into mine I don't know what that would tell us as I'd assume it to work fine. If I'm mistaken, please enlighten me. The issue is with graphene only in my testing but if its build related, an unaddressed upstream change or somehow incompatibility issues with certain SIM cards across various providers I do not know.

          Ducter my SIM in my sons phone running graphene works fine in a brief testing period. Put my SIM in and called the phone from several different phones on different carriers and the phone rang every time. I now believe the issue to be graphene itself as my phone running stock Google, lineage and calyx works as it should, only fails on graphene.

          I know this is a question that likely won't get an answer because likely not readily known but how many graphene devs are testing coming from the latest Google firmware? I've seen mention several times of blame being put on upstream changes, wouldn't that directly impact the other said operating systems? I know at least lineage and stock are up to date on versions and patches, if they changed whatever code to fix the issue should graphene not do the same? Lineage stopped releases for several weeks to rebase and get things sorted, clearly they knew, found, fixed issues.

          other8026
          What makes you think it is impossible to troubleshoot? I think the case is rather simple: As soon as you get the missed call SMS you have two informations:

          1. timestamp of the SMS. This is the time when the phone is back online again. Which event caused the phone to come back online exactly at this time?
          2. time of the call. What happened internally in the phone at the time of calling? In which state was the radio module at the time of the call?

          I am no specialist so not able to read the internal logs. But I am sure this can be narrowed down. Maybe it is necessary to increase the verbose level if the default is not detailed enough.
          In my case I see three calls to voicebox:

          1. Time of call: 26th Jan. 18:25, time of SMS 18:40
          2. Time of call: 26th Jan. 18:37 time of SMS 18:40
          3. Time of call: 12th June 19:52, time of SMS 20:04
          7 days later

          Same issue
          Country: Norway
          Carrier: Telia MVNO
          Pixel 7a
          Physical SIM
          Wifi calling off
          Network selection doesn’t matter
          Stock dialer and Google dialer, doesn’t matter.

          Started sometime this spring. I’ve given up and switched to an iPhone for now, I cannot use the phone if I’m not getting calls.

          This might be unrelated, but I’ve also noticed several times when starting a call that the recipient cannot hear me at all, as if I have muted on my end.

            twine6148

            I've done the same, switching to iPhone temporarily.

            Not sure if this is graphene specific, I don't believe it is but rather is a pixel related issue, but the phone ringing when a call comes in is kind of non-negotiable...

            • Build number - 2024062000
            • Country - Redmond, WA; USA
            • Carrier - Q-Link Wireless
            • SIM or eSIM - Physical SIM
            • Is Wi-Fi calling on or off? - ON (I will test with it turned off)
            • WiFi - ON
            • VPN provider (or "none") - Proton VPN
            • Preferred network type - Mobile data ON; Roaming ON; VoLTE ON
            • Battery saver on or off - OFF
            • "Do not disturb" on or off - OFF
            • Phone app - DEFAULT

            To my knowledge, this has happened twice:

            • June 25, 2024
            • June 26, 2024

            I have received two phone calls that did not ring. ADDITIONALLY, there is no record of a voicemail being left, in spite of the fact that both people did leave a voicemail (they also sent me an email). This is happening randomly for me, as other phone calls (after the missed ones) are coming thru just fine.

            One of the calls was for a job interview.

              Carlito

              For a job interview, jeez. Hopefully you were able to get back to them in a timely fashion, that is unfortunate.

              Carlito ADDITIONALLY, there is no record of a voicemail being left, in spite of the fact that both people did leave a voicemail (they also sent me an email).

              To be clear, if you manually dial the carrier's voicemail number, is the voicemail present? If so, that would suggest that the carrier's message to the phone to turn on the voicemail indicator was lost (perhaps the same way that the call was).

              Can we get a comment from any of the graphene devs that might offer some insight? I'm willing to reflash yet again if a log or something would be of assistance. My phone does not ring at all when testing with family.

              Might as well sign up and chime in as I have this issue too.

              Pixel 7
              Build number - 2024062000
              Country - Australia
              Carrier - Telstra
              SIM or eSIM - Physical SIM
              Is Wi-Fi calling on or off? - ON (I rely on it)
              WiFi - ON
              VPN provider (or "none") - none
              Preferred network type - Mobile data ON (off at home); Roaming ON; VoLTE ON, WiFi Calling on (at home), 5G preferred when in reception areas
              Battery saver on or off - OFF
              "Do not disturb" on or off - OFF
              Phone app - DEFAULT

              I live in on a rural property where the only way I can currently get reception is WiFi calling, except when I go out to town of course. Similar to everyone rise, message comes through to say I missed a call, but no call actually happened. Restarting the phone sure enough fixes it temporarily.

              I will say I've only noticed it happen while at home on WiFi calling, but then again I'm at home most of the time I get calls so it's a little hard to say. Even when it does happen though, I can make calls OUT just fine.

              I had the same symptoms of this issue caused by call forwarding.

              2 months later

              It is sad to see this important issue is neglected by the geapheneOS team. It ocurred to me twice today. After it did not ring the first time (mobile was calling) I immediately triedcalling from a landline and the Grapheneos Pixel did not ring as well. There was no voicebox in both cases and it took a long time until the busy sign came.

              The problem occured much more often with an Airtel Tanzania SIM card. The problem was not present when I put this SIM in any other phone.

              How can we prove where this problem arises?

              • de0u replied to this.

                schweizer It's unfortunate that some users are missing some phone calls. But so far it seems as if Google may have shipped some unstable code several months ago, and then shipped an update that appears to have worked for a great many people, and then a much smaller number of people are still having missed-call issues.

                This sort of problem might be due to multiple factors -- maybe glitches in the cellular modem that miss calls, or glitches in some part of the OS that fail to wake the device, or due to problems in a carrier's network, or thin cellular signal strength. It's even possible, if some users frequently experience missed calls primarily in one particular location, that a particular cell site has a problem (I have personally experienced this). It is quite possible that different users experiencing "the same problem" are troubled by different causes.

                In this thread, since June 16 (so let's say two months), if I am counting correctly, there have been seven user reports. One thing that stands out is that I think 7/7 reports were for physical SIMs rather than eSIMS (though I doubt that's relevant). I think I see 7 different carriers in 6 different countries. Though I am by no means an expert on cellular carriers, to my eyes it looks like maybe two large-ish carriers and then five smaller carriers / MVNOs (where technical expertise may be a little thinner). I think two(?) of the reports are from rural areas, where signal strength may be lower.

                By comparison, when Google shipped janky Bluetooth code earlier this year, the forum lit up with many threads and many people posting. I say that not to suggest that there isn't a problem when an incoming phone call is dropped! But when an issue has multiple possible causes and not a lot of data points, there may not be a quick path toward diagnosing a particular causal factor. If a GrapheneOS user experiencing this problem happened to be nearby a GrapheneOS developer, that would be useful, but it's not clear that's that's the case.

                Personally I live in a bowl on top of a hill, and LTE coverage is terrible. I have a Samsung "femtocell", which makes a huge difference. Amusingly, by sniffing around the neighborhood, it appears that a bunch of my neighbors also have installed femtocells, which makes sense because we all live in a bowl on top of a hill. It's not cheap, but it might be something to try. If a femtocell makes missed calls go away, the problem may have been low signal strength; if not, that might be useful evidence for diagnosing whatever is going on.

                Sometimes a carrier will issue a femtocell for free to a customer who complains a lot, though my sense is that may happen only with larger carriers.

                Edit: Please note that I do not speak for the GrapheneOS project.

                  de0u

                  That is a great summary! One note I'll make (as someone who did experience this calling issue), if I took the same exact physical SIM card out of my pixel and put it in my iPhone 14, it worked perfectly.

                  I think that is what made it seem to many ppl that this must be either a phone hardware or software issue vs. something to do with a carrier or signal strength.

                  • de0u replied to this.

                    treenutz68 One note I'll make (as someone who did experience this calling issue), if I took the same exact physical SIM card out of my pixel and put it in my iPhone 14, it worked perfectly.

                    I think that is what made it seem to many ppl that this must be either a phone hardware or software issue vs. something to do with a carrier or signal strength.

                    That may well be a useful clue. But I suspect it would be useful to the kind of person who drives around in a truck full of $100,000 worth of cell-site diagnostic equipment, much more than it would be useful to the GrapheneOS development team -- who likely aren't RF experts, likely don't have access to cellular diagnostic equipment, and definitely don't have access to cellular-modem firmware source code.

                    There are a lot more iPhones than Pixels. If -- hypothetically but plausibly -- there is a carrier issue that affects Pixels more than iPhones in marginal-signal conditions, a carrier might decide to invest zero effort in fixing the Pixel issue. I think it is plausible, because the cellular modems in iPhones and Pixels, when coupled with their respective antenna systems, quite plausibly behave better/worse in different parts of a carrier's spectrum.

                    Cellular systems are complicated. If something breaks completely, it's often not too hard to figure out what that thing is. But if something -- something in a cell site or something in a handset -- is intermittent, that's genuinely much harder to diagnose, even for an on-site expert.

                    For a user experiencing dropped calls, getting a definitive diagnosis for a complex problem may be completely irrelevant. The best solution for such a user might be switching to an iPhone... or switching carriers... or installing a femtocell. But this problem may well be non-diagnosable by the GrapheneOS team. Even if it's diagnosed, it is likely non-solvable by the GrapheneOS team. I suspect they would like to be able to solve this problem for everybody, but that plausibly is not possible.

                      This happened to me again today. Last time was a couple of weeks ago. Doesn't happen too often for me but still happens.