Google confirmed its “aware” of the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro ghost call issue and is “working on an immediate fix.”
The search giant confirmed it was working to fix the problem in a statement to 9to5Google after several reports emerged Friday that Pixel 6 and 6 Pro devices were calling people randomly. Threads on Reddit and Google’s Pixel support forums claimed that Pixel 6 phones were calling numbers in the middle of the night and without any input from users.
People speculated that Google Assistant was the culprit behind the problem after some reported success in stopping the problem by disabling Assistant on the lock screen. That effectively prevented it from activating (and thus calling someone) while the phone was locked.
Although Google hasn’t yet confirmed the source of the problem, Android Police founder Artem Russakovskii shared on Twitter that launching Assistant and saying nothing would eventually result in it placing a call to someone. It remains unclear why this happens, but it appears that once Assistant activates, it will decide to call a contact.
Here, I just fired up Assistant and said nothing.
After a few sec, it wanted to Call James and even asked me "mobile" or "work." If there was only one number, it'd have called James by now.
This is 💯 it. Something triggers Assistant, then it decides to call someone on its own. pic.twitter.com/mpc50rpBeg
— Artem Russakovskii (@ArtemR) November 5, 2021
Some Twitter users replied to Russakovskii, saying they could also reproduce the issue. I couldn’t make it happen on my Pixel 6, but I also haven’t experienced the phantom calling problem at all yet (hopefully, that doesn’t change).
With Google working on an “immediate fix,” the issue should be resolved soon. For those who are suffering from phantom calls, you can disable Assistant on the lock screen to temporarily fix the issue (open the Google app > tap your profile in the top-right corner > Settings > Google Assistant > Lock screen > disable Assistant responses on lock screen).
Source: Artem Russakovskii (Twitter), 9to5Google
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