Pocket Dialed from Signal w/ Locked Phone?

dregrinfuces

Not sure where this would go. My phone was locked and in my pocket as I was walking around. It had been there in that state for at least a half an hour. Apparently, it somehow spontaneously did an outgoing Signal call to one of my Signal contacts (not even one I've used recently). I have no idea how that's possible. I see nothing on the lock screen that would start a Signal call. It looks like I'd gotten an incoming Signal message from a different contact at about the same time as that outgoing call. But, I can't figure out how that would allow a pocket dial from Signal to another contact. Any ideas? Any suggestions on how to stop such things?

BoredHusky

dregrinfuces Curious. I have not experienced a pocket call like you, however, I have noticed that Signal can go to the account deletion section by itself during calls and while being locked. As soon as you unlock the phone, the account deletion page disappears and you are back seeing your contacts or mainpage.

Another user just reported the same as you though through a normal call instead. Very curious.

Onlyfun

I doubt its possible to initiate an outgoing call by tapping the touch screen when pixel is in a pocket, my p8 screen locks in a minute after pocketed or even put on desk screen facing down.

Doesn't yours? Test it to see. If it locks as expected, you might be facing something interesting.

dregrinfuces

Yes. My phone was locked. I always double-check before putting it in my pocket. I've also got the lockscreen "Tap to Check Phone" option turned off. I can't come up with any way the phone could have gotten to Signal to initiate a call without either a password or a fingerprint to unlock the phone. Very odd.

dregrinfuces

Prior to this, I'd had the "Screen Protector Mode" turned on under Settings > Display (I don't have a screen protector, but the 9a insisted on not noticing my finger on the sensor, so I turned it on to increase the sensitivity). After this event, I turned that back off (it looks like one of the recent updates fixed that sensitivity issue). Perhaps the display's extra sensitivity allowed whatever happened to happen. But, the probability of random bumps against my leg hitting the power button to wake the phone up, swiping up to the password screen (I assume there's no way it could simulate a fingerprint), entering my password, opening Signal from my Home screen, scrolling down to where this Contact was and then tapping the phone icon within that is so low that the heat death of the universe would happen first. Even if I'd reached into my pocket (which I hadn't done) and accidently unlocked the phone with a stray finger bump, the probability of all the rest would have been vanishing small.

But, who knows. Maybe Screen Protector Mode had something to do with it. If it happens again, I'll report back.

LevelTop5362

dregrinfuces Nope, you're correct it almost certainly didn't have anything to do with physical interaction. Take a look at the circumstances of my similar incident: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/26354-unsolved-mystery-why-did-my-pixel-randomly-initiate-an-outgoing-call-by-itself
(Thanks for connecting the dots, @BoredHusky )

Are you completely de-Googled or do you also have Play Services installed? Also who's your carrier?

dregrinfuces

I've got a Pixel 9a running GOS v 20250908, have Sandboxed Google Play installed with T-Mobile as my carrier.

I saw your thread, too. Pretty interesting that we had similar issues at around the same time.