Google Fi on primary profile de-activates when switching to secondary profile

Nneoteroinvin · 2025-03-18T15:24:07+00:00

My current setup is that I have an owner profile with Google play services and Google Fi installed and managing the eSIM routed with Orbot, and a secondary profile that I have for daily use with Proton-VPN and the capability of receiving calls and SMS turned on. Normally this has been working fine, but after the 2025030900 update, I noticed that if I lose service on the secondary profile, it is not able to regain service. Switching to the owner profile would sometimes fix this, but after a couple days, Google Fi asked me to re-activate the SIM. I disabled the VPN so that it could do so on the owner profile and after a few tries it was successful and no longer asks me to do that. However, the problem persists. Below is a list of troubleshooting actions I took to try and fix the problem:

Restart the phone: this fixes the issue if the problem persists in the owner profile, but when switching to secondary, it will eventually lose service again.
Uninstall and re-install Google Fi, then activate eSIM: works fine with owner profile, but eventually secondary profile loses service.
Remove eSIM and re-activate: at one point it seemed Google Fi attempted to install a second eSIM as well, so I deleted the first.
Disable VPNs on both profiles, allow data without VPN: Same behavior as above.
Disable data saving of Google Fi: I had a thought that maybe Google Fi was being prevented from accessing the network when backgrounded, so I turned on the unrestricted mobile data setting.
Prevent battery optimization of Google Fi: I had another idea that the battery optimization was killing the service when put into the background, so I turned that setting off for Fi.
Activate airplane mode in owner profile, turn it off: service returns.
Activate airplane mode in secondary profile, turn it off: If the network says "Google Fi" with airplane mode turned on, the service is able to recover. If the network says "No service" it is unable to recover.

The available permissions for Fi are Location, Network, Phone, SMS, and Notifications.

This is still the case on 2025031400 as well. I had another report from somebody with a Pixel 8 pro that putting in a physical SIM did not fix the issue.

other8026 · 2025-03-18T15:44:35+00:00

I see you already opened an issue in the issue tracker here https://github.com/GrapheneOS/os-issue-tracker/issues/5059

Nneoteroinvin · 2025-03-18T16:00:46+00:00

other8026 I did, yes. I figured getting more eyes around may unearth more people who've had similar issues and maybe fixed it some way.

other8026 · 2025-03-18T16:32:03+00:00

neoteroinvin oh, okay. Hopefully if other people have this issue, they will say so here.

Dde0u · 2025-03-18T19:19:52+00:00

neoteroinvin Is this relevant? https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/20700-mobile-data-disabled-for-non-owner-account/9

Nneoteroinvin · 2025-03-18T19:35:04+00:00

It could be, great find! I tried installing Fi to the secondary profile and it seems to fix the immediate disconnect. I'll continue testing and see if I have any more issues. Odd that you used to be able to only have it on the primary, and now you must have it on every profile.
If I continue not having problems, I'll mark as solved.

Nneoteroinvin · 2025-03-28T15:46:12+00:00

After 10 days, having Google Fi on all profiles that receive SMS seems to at least prevent the issue from being a continued problem. The most recent updates don't fix the issue either. After updating, I'd uninstall Fi from the secondary profile, then test the mobile network again. There's also some things like Visual voicemail not working as well. I would say this discussion solves the issue, though as a resolution it's not exactly satisfactory.