Pixel 3xl drops calls after half hour

[Jengoddard]

My pixel 3xl drops every call (made or received) after exactly 29 minutes and 50 seconds. I don't know if this is related to phone settings, network or what so wondered if anyone had had similar issues or knew of a fix. It's a real pain in the backside as currently working from home and means I get cut off in every conference call!

[mdc1983uk]

@KayleighH  Yea i've tried my SIM in a old Huawei P20 that was brought off network from carphone warehouse, on EE originally about 4 years ago!  It doesn't suffer this problem.  But it's a red herring.  Because equally i've tried a friends Vodafone SIM in my phone and they don't suffer the problem from 4G calling either!

It's a hard problem to diagnose because 99% customers don't make long calls and if they do and it drops they just shrug it off and phone back. If other party rings them back instead they become unaffected.

The few remaining 1% that have noticed probably just allowed Voda to turn off the 4G calling and are still none the wiser as to whether they are on 2G or 3G for calls anyway.  The real problems will start when 3G switchoff occurs and anyone affected is forced to 2G only! As I said before, 2G is 1990's tech and was great at the time but supports only 8 calls per cell sector at one time. Was cool back in the 1990's when everyone had 60 mins per month inclusive mins and 35p/min extra.  Now?  Not so cool.

[Lord_Snooty]

good point @mdc1983uk .

I will run a few calls today with Wi-Fi off entirely

Pretty sure it was showing 4g on the calls i made

will report back

[KayleighH]

Have had further communication with Vodafone (Voxi team) and they tried to amend some settings and then I tried to make a call and it still dropped. They are sending me out a new sim but I hold little hope that it will make a difference. 

I am currently trying my sim in samsung s8 to see if it still drops or if another handset it's fine. I will then try my OH's O2 sim in my Poco to see what that does. 

It seems more and more likely I may have to leave Voxi (Vodafone) if they just have no clue how to rectify it, but I am lucky that I am not in any kind of contract as its sim only rolling contract. Ideally I don't want to leave them though as the deal is just so good. 

[neilhunter14]

Vodafone have ZERO CLUE with this topic - that is very clear to see.

We have been trying to resolve this for two and a half years, maybe more.

ZERO response from anyone technical.

ZERO improvement whatsoever with the situation.

A new SIM is not the answer - it is the handsets they sell. They should be replacing all of the useless handsets that disconnect after 29m50s. It's an utter disgrace.

Technical feedback is none-existent. Feedback on here from the moderators is useless. They just say that "they are looking into it, and will get back to us soon....."  A load of BS.....  Been like this for two years and more.

Utter ............^&*%^$^£$%^&*()*_)(*&^%$

[KayleighH]

Hi @neilhunter14 

Yeah I have no doubt the SIM replacement is not going to resolve the issue.

I didn't actually purchase my Poco X4 Pro 5g through Vodafone rather directly through the UK Poco website. 

Did you end up staying with Vodafone and putting up with it or did you move network?

[mdc1983uk]

Well guys I sent the CEO email yesterday got almost a instant response with directors office reference and someone called in the afternoon - buts it's not so good i'm afraid. Although I got to speak to someone that wasn't outsourced to a call centre abroad and sounded executive-ish she still came out with the same kind of tripe.  Said she'd read the thread and they still want to treat everyones case on a individual basis and will only talk about my issue.  Also she still believes it's a phone issue and asked me for elimination to run my SIM in another phone for a few days and see if the problem goes away.  I pressed the point that even someone else's Vodafone SIM in my phone doesn't have the problem so I believe i've already eliminated the phone as the problem.  She was insistant that they won't be able to help without me doing this and arranged a callback for Friday. I also said it will of course depend what phone I put my SIM into, a iPhone or a old 2G Nokia obviously isn't going to have a problem but one of the dubious Android's probably will. She got a bit flustered like I was being obtuse and said just stick your SIM into any reasonable smart phone and test it please!  I mean come on how's that a fair test?  I even told her i'd rolled back my software to the point it hadn't done any updates and was fresh out box working but she didn't seem to believe that - I suppose many people don't know how to flash phone software with a PC though so i'm not suprised she just assumes I did a factory reset which doesn't remove updates just makes fresh the latest update you had installed.

Anyway, not to be hogwashed I went straight on and ordered my same phone, direct from Voda on the cheapest contract I could find.  It will be getting delivered shortly so i'll be running my SIM in that phone and the one that comes in my phone!! They want test i'll give them a test, a fully scientific like-for-like no BS test 😂

Gives me that opportunity to test another SIM in my phone properly and also to compare the software between a Voda brought and Carphone brought handset.  If I do find there's some sort of a difference i'll probably take the update from the Voda handset and whack it on mine so mine will then become a Voda brought handset as well.

We'll have to see what @Lord_Snooty say's about his Oppo update and if it really fixed it.

In the meantime if anyone wants to do their own directors complaint by email rather than keep dealing with CS by phone/social media send to ahmed.essam  (AT)  vodafone.com

[KayleighH]

Hey @mdc1983uk 

Glad you got a quick response, albeit one in which doesn't really help matters. 

I have just had my replacement SIM through which they are just gonna activate, although I know this will not resolve the issues.

My concern if I were to raise a complaint myself is that I know the SIM works in another phone and doesn't drop the calls. I tested it last night. 

But it's clearly not a phone issue when 4g works for calling but only for a limited time and there is nothing on the phone that would cut the phone call off. We also know that it's happening to multiple handsets of different models and makes with the one common denominator being Vodafone network. 

I feel as though at this stage I am just cutting my nose off to spite my face as it would just be easier to go to another network, but I don't want to lose a good deal for something that should not be happening.

Is it the Xiaomi phone again that you are ordering directly from Voda? 

[KayleighH]

Just to confirm, as expected, the SIM replacement was unsuccessful.

Do we know if anyone had any luck in having their Vodafone account deleted and set up as a new account?

[mdc1983uk]

The mystery deepens and gets even more infuriating!!!  The new Xiaomi phone (exactly same model) came and fresh out the box it had what Xiaomi told me it would have, original factory production software version 13.0.1, although my heart sank a little when I saw it has a code RKCEUVF rather than RKCEUXM like the CP warehouse one does - so there actually is some kind of subtle difference on a direct purchased Voda handset 🤔

Still to test though so I put my SIM in and kept WiFi and mobile data off so it couldn't update and/or break itself like they have suggested happened and why my original phone worked for 2 months then stopped.

New phone & old SIM 13.0.1 VF software - Cut's off at 29:50!
Old phone & new SIM 13.0.1 XM software - Cut's off at 29:50!

Bear in mind by keeping both WiFi and data off during setup the phone has been unable to update anything not even the Google playstore so it's had absolutely no chance to 'break itself' 😂. But it's still broken. In fact it just keeps nagging me to turn on data to check for updates.  So I swapped the SIM's round to test the new one in the new phone, still cuts off at 29:50!!!

Turned WiFi on both of them and allowed all updates.

New phone - Updated itself to 13.0.3 VF with April security patch

CPW phone - Reupdated itself to 13.0.8 XM with July security patch (Same as what it had before Xiaomi told about the downgrade to 13.0.1)

So not only is the Vodafone brought handset 3 months behind with security updates it still doesn't work any better!!!  Both fully updated they still cut off at 29:50.

At this point we can fully rule out :

The phone being faulty or a manufacturer software problem - Else how did it work fine for 2 months and now it isn't but a brand new phone immediate gets the same problem without any updates?

It mattering where you brought the phone from - Else how does both Voda brought and CPW handset have exactly the same problem?

The SIM card being faulty - Else how does a brand new SIM also have exactly the same problem?

The network being faulty - Else how does my friends SIM work in my phone for more than 30 mins, and how did some people have this problem back in 2020 and mine only started in June 2022???

It really looks like there is some obscure setting that gets changed on our actual accounts by the backend systems. Some may start from day 1 with that problem on their contract, others like me get it 2 months in, others may never get it? And whatever that setting is ONLY messes with certain handsets.

Huawei P20 - Not brought from Vodafone over 4 years old - Makes 4G calls over 30 mins no problem.

An old Alcatel 4G tablet given to me but was on O2 originally - Connects to 4G but auto drops to 3G upon making a call

[mdc1983uk]

@KayleighH  Na they did that to mine and apart from it bxing my bill up, well showing like I had a big bill but didn't it continued. I'm not sure if there is some luck involved about like which server your account gets set back up on but you takes your chances with them I suppose. The obviously have no idea so everything is a gamble and the odds seem stacked against us customers! More chance of winning the lottery than having this sorted is seems