I had this happen a few times, so I spent some time trying to figure out how to repeatedly reproduce it. It wasn't too hard.
1) Turn on a youtube video (I think that anything that used the phone's loud speaker would work).
2) Turn your media volume up to max.
3) Hold down the search button to bring up Voice Search.
I suddenly hear static and garbled audio.
4) Cancel (because I only accidentally pressed that button in the first place)
and the static and garbled audio stays around.
After that, I can go to most any audio app (visual voicemail, music beta, pandora, etc) or just get a notification sound from my phone and it will be complete static and garbage.
The first time I fixed it by playing a voicemail via visual voicemail through the normal speaker and then changing it to the loud speaker. That doesn't work every time though. I'm guessing that a reboot would also fix this.
I tried to reproduce this on my other TMO SGS2 both with the Voice Search shipped with the phone and the update from the market. On the one phone it happens with both versions and on the other, it never happens. I'm not sure that this is a hardware issue but I don't have a good explanation either way.
I've tried this a few more times today with a number of different apps and Voice Search and it hasn't reproduced itself. Most apps, like Google Music and Pandora, stop audio output when Voice Search is activated. Only YouTube seems to just ignore the Voice Search and keep going.
Edit: I exchanged my phone and this doesn't happen on the new one. Seems like a bad hardware issue.
Anyone notice that the incall volume is too low? I noticed this when I was listening to Pandora in my car with the AUX input. A call comes in, I can barely hear the caller even with the incall volume at 100. I pump up the stereo to be able to hear, then the call ends, and I have Pandora blasting my ears off.
Tried apps, the service menu isnt the same as I've seen online in other posts, so frustrated......
babokd said:
Anyone notice that the incall volume is too low? I noticed this when I was listening to Pandora in my car with the AUX input. A call comes in, I can barely hear the caller even with the incall volume at 100. I pump up the stereo to be able to hear, then the call ends, and I have Pandora blasting my ears off.
Tried apps, the service menu isnt the same as I've seen online in other posts, so frustrated......
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Click to collapse
Hey babokd,
Though this is my first post on XDA, I have been "trolling" quite a while and sucking up all the useful information I can. That said, this is the first time that I think I may have an answer. I hope this helps.
Bottom Line: If you have Google Voice installed, try uninstalling it and then make a call.
I will offer the troubleshooting I went through below so that anyone reading this can guage the validity of this and provide better commentary. I am not half as technically smart as the rest of the people here!
I have been having the same issue with my T-Mobile SGSII. I went through great lengths to figure it out. I noticed that on my phone the volume rocker works during calls to turn up and down when connected to auxillary and on speaker. However, the volume does not actually change.
I believe this issue stems with the KL1 update that I obtained through Samsung Kies. I reverted back to stock and the volume worked fine. I updated again to the KL1 update and reloaded all my apps, etc. Volume was broke again! (note: I did not install Google Voice when I reverted back to stock, so this could be an issue in the stock version as well).
As you suggested about the service menu... I am not sure if this is a KL1 issue, but on my T-Mobile variant of the SGSII (T989), the service codes that a lot of people are talking about do not work as well. It says "menu does not exist" after entering the codes.
In attempt to find a better answer for the T-Mobile variant, I updated to KL1 and installed all my apps one by one, but making a phone call after each app was installed. In my case, I found the culprit:
Google Voice
As opposed to other posts that I have seen saying Google Voice helps increase the call volume, I suggest that it does not. On the contrary, it makes the volume stick at low volume with no way to turn it up in speaker or auxillary. I uninstalled Google Voice and voila!, volume works again.
After all of this, I will still note that my SGSII volume is still not at the level I want during calls, but it is a whole lot more acceptable. Unfortunately, I can't use Google Voice for my calls now because I have it uninstalled just so I can make calls while driving.
I hope this was semi-insightful and helps you and others. At the very least, I hope someone else that is more tech-saavy chimes in!
Do any options help in the call settings like hearing aid or TTY? Seems like these might affect the volume output.
I was just on a call and the volume seemed to be max on the earpiece. Pressing the volume switch shows the increase and decrease as pressed but the output volume stayed at max. I made a second call and the problem went away. Not sure what the deal is, maybe related to the rom i am using (beastmod)
Are you running a custom rom or stock? Most custom roms I have run are too loud and I end up having the volume between half way which is nice to have wiggle room.
I am running.
[ROM]▐[22.JAN.12]⁞★★Seanster_GBaxe EX v1.4.1:Taste of ICS★★⁞Android 2.3.6⁞Fauxv0.0.7▐
bigcletus said:
Do any options help in the call settings like hearing aid or TTY? Seems like these might affect the volume output.
I was just on a call and the volume seemed to be max on the earpiece. Pressing the volume switch shows the increase and decrease as pressed but the output volume stayed at max. I made a second call and the problem went away. Not sure what the deal is, maybe related to the rom i am using (beastmod)
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Click to collapse
Hi bigcletus and DensoYamaha41,
I am not sure if your response was to mine or the OP, but I will provide info in my case anyway.
I wish I had more time to post more information in my original response. In my case, I am only rooted and using the latest superuser. I have the stock ROM.
When I was troubleshooting this issue, I did go into settings to change hearing aid, etc., but that did not help. The only thing that helped was removing Google Voice.
It does seem to be an app incompatibility issue because when I end the call with Google Voice, the "hang up" sound played by the dialer app is really loud. When I turn the volume down and hang up, the volume of the "hang up" sound is really low. The actual in call volume does not change.
I do plan to run a custom rom someday, but I literally just got the Galaxy SII. I like to play with the original for a while before I change over.
If the OP has the same setup as me, I believe Google Voice is the culprit. For anyone out there reading this, do you have the the following: Google Voice installed on the T-Mo variant of SGSII and running rooted stock ROM with the KL1 update? If so, are you running into a volume issue as the OP stated?
I've experienced BT anomalies on many Android phones in the past, but nothing as bad as this.
T-Mobile S4- Streaming Bassdrive.com via XiiaLive Premium/Bluetooth to my 2012 Hyundai SantaFe. Flawless. Good audio quality. Then I get a phone call which I answer (either with the in steering wheel button or on screen button) and I can hear the caller, but they are drowned out by distorted streaming audio. Also the caller can hear this distorted audio. This seemingly continues indefinitely.
I then usually tap the Bluetooth button or the speaker button to switch off. Call ends, and audio resumes perfectly.
Any thoughts on this? Tweak to remedy it? Thanks everyone for the support.
packetdog said:
I've experienced BT anomalies on many Android phones in the past, but nothing as bad as this.
T-Mobile S4- Streaming Bassdrive.com via XiiaLive Premium/Bluetooth to my 2012 Hyundai SantaFe. Flawless. Good audio quality. Then I get a phone call which I answer (either with the in steering wheel button or on screen button) and I can hear the caller, but they are drowned out by distorted streaming audio. Also the caller can hear this distorted audio. This seemingly continues indefinitely.
I then usually tap the Bluetooth button or the speaker button to switch off. Call ends, and audio resumes perfectly.
Any thoughts on this? Tweak to remedy it? Thanks everyone for the support.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This happened to me once when i received an incoming call while listening to music. the music stopped (seemed that way) but the caller said they could actually hear the music still playing. i haven't been able to replicate it though.
It seems to me on the new android devices that the streaming audio in the background isn't actually "stopped" for some events, and instead is only turned down for others. For instance, using the Google Navigation, instead of stopping Pandoras music like my old phone did, it will now simply turn it down some so you can hear the voice guidance, then turn the music back up. I actually like this feature because you can still hear the music in the background.
I am wondering if there is some kind of bug that is causing this to happen for a Bluetooth call event where the music is being turned down instead of off?
Just wondering if anyone has tried Skype, Google Hangouts or the like where you have the call volume set to max?
I can hear the other party just fine, but they tell me that from my end the sound is very muffled. I finally figured out that I can solve this by turning the volume down 2 or 3 notches, but then I can only make the call in a quiet room or else I can't hear them properly!
I reckon what must be happening is that the phone is trying to compensate for the speaker and mic being so close together (stopping feedback) that at loud volume it just aggressively cancels too much out which then includes my own voice.
So now I think I also know why normal speakerphone/handsfree phone calls are so soft in volume - Sony have deliberately knobbled it as a workaround rather than fixing the core issue. But other apps are allowed to use a higher speaker volume and so run into this issue if using the microphone as well.
Haven't seen this specific issue answered yet - if its a duplicate somewhere a point to the right thread would be appreciated.
For whatever reason over the last couple months, the volume on my pixel 2xl will jump way up (or way down) when on bluetooth either after a call or after using google assistant. It doesn't seem to happen everytime, but just now I was listening to music on my bluetooth headphones at my desk and got a call. I took the call on the headphones by answering the phone and then as soon as I hung up, the volume on the phone shot up to 100% which was not enjoyable.
This also happens when connected to my truck (Ford SYNC) or my running earbuds, and it can also crank the media volume way down (happens frequently in the truck) after a call, at which point I have to manually adjust the volume again. The same activity also happens if I activate google assistant and issue a voice command, but in both cases it is not 100% consistent. It appears like the system is trying to dynamically change the volume for some perceived situation, but it sucks at it.
I also use A2DP app for volume control settings and app launching for all my connections, but I have used that since I got this phone 2 years ago and none of the settings have changed.
Anyone had similar behavior and found a fix? It is really annoying when my music goes so low that I can't even hear it in the truck after a call, and equally annoying when I have headphones on and it cranks the volume up and tries to blow out my eardrums.