Still facing call and text issues on your Pixel phone? Try this temporary fix

We’ve been reporting on the network issues that Google Pixel owners have faced since the March 2024 Pixel Feature Update. Users continue to complain that calls on their Pixel 6 series, Pixel 7 series, and Pixel 8 series often go directly to voicemail, especially when the phone is left unused for a while. Texts also aren’t coming through on time, and they are delivered only in batches. A few solutions are floating around from exasperated users, and in the absence of an acknowledgment and solution from Google, you can try these out.

As per comments on a Reddit thread, many users report that turning off 5G on their Pixel smartphone and switching to LTE-only fixes their network issues. To turn off 5G on your Pixel, follow these steps:

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Navigate to Network & internet > SIMs > Preferred network type.
3. Here, you can choose LTE as the preferred network. This will stop your phone from connecting to 5G.

We have not encountered the issue on our devices, so we cannot confirm if disabling 5G fixes the network issues. If you’ve encountered call and text issues on your Pixel, please try turning off 5G and let us know if this fixes your problem.

Facing network issues on your Pixel? Try these other temporary fixes

We’ve collated the different pieces of advice floating around on the internet from different users. You can try out these fixes individually to see if any of them fix your problem.

• Turn off 5G.
• Turn off Wi-Fi calling.
  • Alternatively, you can set Wi-Fi calling to Call over Wi-Fi instead of the default Call over mobile network setting.
• Turn off the Adaptive Connectivity setting. It can be found in Settings > Network & Connections > Adaptive Connectivity.
• Toggle Airplane mode on and off. This will temporarily fix the issue, but you will have to repeat this multiple times a day.
• Manually roll back to February 2024 firmware. However, this is not advised for most users due to the inherent risk of breaking your phone during the flashing process.

It’s a shame that users have to resort to a variety of trial-and-error solutions in an effort to fix what many consider a smartphone’s core function. A phone that is unreliable for calls doesn’t deserve to be called a phone, much less a smart one, and it’s unfortunate that so many people are going through this experience on a Pixel.

We’ve followed up with Google again on this issue but have not received a response yet. We’ll update this article if and when we hear back from them.