Pixel 3/Pixel 3 XL call quality issues (not working as actual telephone)
1 Recommended AnswerHello,
I'm having major issues with my Pixel 3 XL, rendering the phone useless for it's primary function (calling people).
When calling people, sound quality on my end is fine but the quality on the receivers end is terrible. Sufficiently bad that I can't actually talk to people at times. Symptoms include choppy audio, words being cut off, extreme echo and tinniness, periods of complete silence, words being 'stacked' and more. This issue is now present on 100% of calls, including calls to landlines, mobile services and VoIP services.
I have tested to confirm the symptoms by calling another phone right next to me, an Oppo R9 on the same phone network (Optus, Australian network). The Pixel can hear the Oppo fine but the Oppo hears the sound from the Pixel cutting in and out, breaking up and becoming metallic, having echo effects and delay on some words leading to them 'stacking' (for example saying 'sound test', the word 'sound' is delayed and both 'sound' and 'test' come out at once).
This issue is present in handset mode, speaker mode and using the Pixel buds.
Issue previously present on 80-85% of calls. After using the cloudfare 1dot1dot1dot proxy, issue subsided for less than a week and has subsequently returned to affect 100% of calls.
Issue presents in various manners - sometimes at onset of call, sometimes after 10 minutes of call, most often after 4 minutes of call. Time of calling has no change of issue. Rebooting phone does not solve problem. Confident this is not a reception issue - the Pixel/Oppo test case were within 2m of each other on the same mobile network. Changing SIM from Pixel to spare phone (a different Oppo) and making the same call immediately fixes the issue, with identical reception and ambient noise conditions.
Issue present straight out of the box, since day 1 (November 1st launch in Australia).
Issue reported by other users here - https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/9w30ee/call_quality_issues_pixel_3_xl/ (please note I am original poster of this thread)
Previously spoken with Google technical support, list of trouble shooting included below.
- Check for latest updates, then power cycle.
- Take off any cases and make sure nothing is in the way of the microphone.
- Turn off Bluetooth.
- Ensure the volume on the handset is up.
- Reboot into Safe Mode.
- Factory reset.




Currently testing calls within safe mode to reduce an app causing the problem.



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