Enabling Call Screening.

pgraph

hemlockiv Have you set it in the main profile or in a user profile?

In my case, the main profile uses the stock phone app and the user profile has Google phone app installed, set as default and is still not able to receive calls via the Google phone app :-/

hemlockiv

pgraph Oh, I use Google phone app in main profile, since it doesn't require a Google acct to use

RaMe

@hemlockiv Ahh, thats a good one! Just switched from Samsung to GraphenOS on Pixel8a and have been missing call screening. So lets see, if it works by just using the Google Phone app, didn't had this in mind :-)

nkm

pgraph Any update? Did you ever get it working?

PaulDavis

I used to use Truecaller. For numbers that were unrecognised, there were options to kill the call, send it to voicemail, play a message, or let it "ring" but not bother you. It would also try to find a company name associated with that number if you allowed net connection, so that if you didn't know the number as it might be an alternative of theirs, then you could see it was "Bloggs Builders" etc, and choose one of the previous options for it

PaulDavis

PaulDavis too late to edit.
Another feature is that you can block by prefix sequence, so you could block by country, state, city, company (where they have many numbers in a sequence), block mobiles by their network code, or if you really want, by the individual number. You could even block using words from their name, just in case a branch from a different town calls you.
But if your doctors etc are withholding their number, then hound them to get an outgoing only number for the switchboard

fph

There is also Yet Another Call Blocker.

DamianS555

I wanted to like the Yet Another Call Blocker, however it seems it is not developed anymore. It is effective however in Spam identification.
As an alternative I tried SpamBlocker
If you manage to attach some good database to it, then it works pretty well.
If you want to give it a try, then enable "Query API" function and add something from the github wiki page
I did try the database for numbers from Poland, and it works like a charm. If only those databases were added to the app by default, then it would be perfect.

fph

DamianS555 Thanks for the recommendation! The online database you set up is the exact same that is used in YACB, so the two solutions are going to be equally effective in practice. And those 4 years of extra security patches in SpamBlocker might well be worth the additional work to set it up. :)

secrec

ConflagratedK9 it's toothless and incredibly ineffective.

The concept is laughable. The only people who will respect it are legit businesses who don't want you to hate them. India and China don't give a crap about do not call lists.

RossTheNinja

pgraph
Legend
I did all this then when I opened the settings in the Google phone it asked me to install a few more dependencies. A minute or two later I had the all the fancy pixel options, including screening and hold for me.

hemlockiv

RossTheNinja Do the fancy pixel options WORK, though?

I have visible buttons/options for stuff like Call Screen and Hold For Me, but if I actually try to USE them, they just fail immediately and give a generic error message. Have you tested the features out in real phone calls yet?

chenxiaolong

hemlockiv Those features can't work when Google Dialer is running as an unprivileged app, even if the settings show up. They require access to the call audio (uses the exact same underlying APIs as for call recording), which only works if the CAPTURE_AUDIO_OUTPUT privileged permission is granted.

That permission can only be granted if Google Dialer is bundled with the OS along with a special privapp-permissions config file (which is what the stock OS does).

LeslieFH

I use "Should I answer" with a popup in front of the dialler when somebody is calling and it usually works.

(It also has its own dedicated dialer that one can set up as the default dialer, but then the call record function of the GOS stock dialer is not available, so I'm using the popup screen)

hemlockiv

LeslieFH I've never seen that feature. Just to confirm: are you sure you haven't installed a separate app called "Should I Answer?" ?

LeslieFH

hemlockiv This is not a feature, this is a separate app (the one you linked to).

hemlockiv

chenxiaolong only works if the CAPTURE_AUDIO_OUTPUT privileged permission is granted.

That permission can only be granted if Google Dialer is bundled with the OS along with a special privapp-permissions config file (which is what the stock OS does

That's really informative, thank you! Is it possible to grant that privilege or bundle the app and config file using AFSR?

hemlockiv

hemlockiv

chenxiaolong only works if the CAPTURE_AUDIO_OUTPUT privileged permission is granted.

chenxiaolong If I remember correctly, the gmscompat layer blocks privileged apps from talking to the unprivileged Google Play Services by default. Code changes are needed to allow that communication.

Thanks for explaining. This seems like the final nail in the coffin, then.. That IPC would be necessary for all those fancy pixel feature

Not so fast!! I tried granting Google Dialer the permissions android.permission.CAPTURE_AUDIO_OUTPUT from an elevated shell, and it worked.

Hold For Me and Direct My Call WORKED.

ashley05

I played with this over the weekend. I can get phone installed from the play store. Along with its dependancies (aicore, private comute services, and at least one more I don't remember)

It properly detect the phone and provides the options for enabling these features when a US sim card is inserted. most/all of the assistance features can be enabled.

the problem is that it won't download teh aicore models. I get the error "trouble downloading .... try again later" error
I tried every fix I found on the internet for this and was never able to get the aicore to download its models. this happens in the background and has no user interface to start a download.

I even tried to do this with a rooted and relocked bootler graphineOS install but couldn't get it to work.

Suposedly this feature will work when installed on other compatible OEM phones.

This is the only feature preventing me from switching to GraphineOS. I would really like to see it working.

dawt

hemlockiv

You're probably better off doing your own grapheneos build that whitelists the app. Check @chenxiaolong 's repo for an example. Otherwise if you just try to load google dialer as a priv-app, you get weird selinux errors.

chenxiaolong

hemlockiv It's been a while since I last did this (for reverse engineering T-Mobile's visual voicemail protocol that Google Dialer uses), but I don't think just bundling the app and sysconfig file are sufficient. If I remember correctly, the gmscompat layer blocks privileged apps from talking to the unprivileged Google Play Services by default. Code changes are needed to allow that communication.

hemlockiv

ashley05 Curious. Do you have any links to any of those claims (like the "reliable" one)? I'm still doubtful but would like to see what they said. I do wonder whether they mean the features actually worked during a call, or if they just saw the settings for the features appear, like I have.

chenxiaolong If I remember correctly, the gmscompat layer blocks privileged apps from talking to the unprivileged Google Play Services by default. Code changes are needed to allow that communication.

Thanks for explaining. This seems like the final nail in the coffin, then.. That IPC would be necessary for all those fancy pixel features - call screen, hold for me, call transcription, everything. Unless the GOS devs carve out an optional hardening compatibility setting to unblock it (seems unlikely) then there's zero chance of any of that stuff working.

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