Galaxy S9 voice calling issue: callers can’t hear me but i can hear them (when on speaker mode)
We’ve been getting a lot of reports about #GalaxyS9 voice calling issues including the ones described below. Today’s post will answer two of these issues so hopefully you’ll find it helpful.
Problem #1: Galaxy S9 callers can’t hear me but i can hear the callers (when on speaker mode)
I recently purchased 2 Samsung Galaxy S9s for my husband and I. Both phones have the same issue. The speaker phone does not work at all. There is complete silence when I try to talk on speaker phone. I can hear who I am calling, but they can’t hear me. It’s not just one phone, so I find it hard to believe it is a phone specific issue. Help! — Colleensteffey
Solution: Hi Colleensteffey. Does this problem happen when you call one contact only or multiple contacts? If only a single contact is unable to hear you during calls, the problem may be on that contact’s end. If it’s true for multiple contacts, the issue may be coming from your phone or on your network’s side.
If this problem only occurs with one particular contact, you should tell the person on the other end to talk to his/her operator so they can help in troubleshooting it.
Because you can only do troubleshooting on your phone, this means that the limits of the actions that you can do are confined to your device and there’s nothing that you can do about possible problems with your network. To begin troubleshooting your phone, we suggest that you start by running your phone or your husband’s phone to safe mode and see how calling works.
Observe how voice calling works on safe mode
Sometimes, a third party app can interfere with Android or one of its functions like in voice calling. To see if you’ve added a bad or poorly coded app, you can let your device run to safe mode. Safe mode blocks third party apps from running, which means that if voice calling works normally and the other end can hear you fine during calls, one of your apps must be to blame.
Here’s how to restart your S9 to safe mode:
- Turn the device off.
- Press and hold the Power key past the model name screen appearing on the screen.
- When SAMSUNG appears on the screen, release the Power key.
- Immediately after releasing the Power key, press and hold the Volume down key.
- Continue to hold the Volume down key until the device finishes restarting.
- When Safe mode appears in the bottom left corner of the screen, release the Volume down key.
- Let your phone run and try to replicate the problem. If voice calling works properly, you have a bad app issue at hand.
To identify which of your apps is causing the trouble, you should boot the phone back to safe mode and follow these steps:
- Boot to safe mode.
- Check for the problem.
- Once you’ve confirmed that a third party app is to blame, you can start uninstalling apps individually. We suggest that you begin with the most recent ones you added.
- After you uninstall an app, restart the phone to normal mode and check for the problem.
- If your S9 is still problematic, repeat steps 1-4.
Keep doing the same cycle until you’ve identified the culprit.
Clear Phone app data
Should nothing change even when your S9 is on safe mode at all, the next troubleshooting step for you is to wipe the data of the Phone app. Here are the steps to do that:
- Open Settings app.
- Tap Apps.
- Tap More settings (three-dot icon) at the upper-right.
- Tap Show system apps.
- Find the SIM Toolkit app and tap it.
- Tap Storage.
- Tap CLEAR DATA button.
- Restart your device.
- Check for the problem.
Verify microphone is working
To check if there’s a problem with your phone’s microphone, try to record yourself and listen to the recording. If you can’t hear yourself in the recording, that means you have a bad microphone issue. However, if there’s no problem in the recording at all, continue with the reset of the troubleshooting below.
To record your voice on your S9:
- Go to the Home screen and tap Apps.
- Look for Voice Recorder app. If you can’t find it, look for Samsung folder and open Voice Recorder from there.
- Press the red button at the bottom.
- Record a short clip of yourself talking as if you’re using Google Voice Typing feature.
- After 30 seconds, hit the Stop button and save the file.
- Then, listen to the recorded file.
Reset all app preferences
Should clearing your phone app’s data won’t help either, the problem may lie on how default apps are configured at this time. Apps normally depend on other apps in order to perform tasks and if a crucial system app is disabled for some reason, some functionalities or operating system features may not work properly or at all. To check, try to reset all app preferences to their default state by doing these steps:
- Open Settings app.
- Tap Apps.
- Tap More settings at the upper right (three-dot icon).
- Tap Reset app preferences.
- Restart your device and see if your S9 works fine during calls now.
Reseat SIM card
Some users found success in fixing calling issues by doing a simple step — reseating the SIM card. What this means is that you remove the SIM card from the phone and after a few seconds, reconnect it. If that won’t work, you can also try to get a replacement SIM card or try another compatible one and see how calling works.
Clear network settings
If removing and reinserting of the SIM card won’t work at all, the next good thing to do is to reset the entire network settings of your device by deleting the current ones. This procedure will wipe cellular, VPN and wifi settings so be sure to know how to set them up again if you need to. For your cellular connectivity settings to be reinstated, all you need to do is to re-insert the SIM card. For VPN set, you have to manually enter the values again. If you’re not using any VPN at all, you can just ignore it. When it comes to wifi, clearing your phone’s network settings will delete all wifi networks and their passwords. So, you’ll need to reconnect to your preferred wifi networks again after this.
To clear the network settings on your S9:
- Open Settings app.
- Tap General management.
- Tap Reset.
- Tap Reset network settings.
- Tap RESET SETTINGS button.
- Restart your S8 and check for the problem.
Factory reset
The final potential solution that might help you resolve the issue is factory reset. As the name suggests, it will return all software settings to their defaults. If the cause of your problem is software-related, this should take care of that. Otherwise, you can assume it’s a network glitch.
To factory reset your S9:
- Make a backup of your personal data.
- Turn off the device.
- Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Bixby key, then press and hold the Power key.
- When the green Android logo displays, release all keys (‘Installing system update’ will show for about 30 – 60 seconds before showing the Android system recovery menu options).
- Press the Volume down key several times to highlight ‘wipe data / factory reset’.
- Press Power button to select.
- Press the Volume down key until ‘Yes — delete all user data’ is highlighted.
- Press Power button to select and start the master reset.
- When the master reset is complete, ‘Reboot system now’ is highlighted.
- Press the Power key to restart the device.
Report the issue to your operator
Letting your carrier know about the problem is as necessary as all the steps you’ve tried above. Keep in mind that there’s no perfect system in tech and since you’ve already done all the possible solutions on your end, the logical explanation for the problem must be that it’s network-related. Make sure to tell them that this problem occurs on at least 2 devices. That should tell them that the problem may be affecting accounts or specific devices registered on the network.
Problem #2: Galaxy S9 makes no voice during calls
I have a Samsung Galaxy S9, unlocked. I live in Kenya and have phone service and data here. Everything on the phone works fine EXCEPT: There is no voice sound in or out on a voice call. I have restarted many times. This did not help. I did a factory reset and it worked for a short while after that but then stopped again. It is not the microphone or the speaker because I can make and receive calls on Google Hangouts. All other sound functions work. — Dirkjasperse
Solution: Hi Dirkjasperse. There are four possible reasons why you have this problem:
- Phone app issue
- bad third party app
- software bug
- network glitch
Verify Phone app is working by clearing its data
It’s not unheard of that Samsung Phone app sometimes cause calling problems. To ensure that the app itself is in top shape, make sure that you clear its data. Follow the steps above on how to do that.
Should the problem continue after wiping the app’s data, try other calling apps that allow cellular (not calls using data) calls to work. We noticed you mentioned Google Hangouts app to be working but you did not clarify if you were trying to use it for carrier-to-carrier calls, or calls routed through Google servers. When using a third party app for troubleshooting this issue, make sure to check that you are replicating the issue as close to the original as possible. If cellular calls go through Google Hangouts fine, then that’s a confirmation that the phone app you’re using is not working properly.
Install system and app updates
One way fixing some issues and minimizing problems is by installing app and Android updates. Make sure that everything (all apps and Android) runs on their latest version.
Boot to safe mode
To check for the possibility of a bad third party app causing the problem, your next troubleshooting would be to run your device to safe mode. While in this mode, only pre-installed apps will be allowed to run, which means that if one of your downloaded apps is behind the trouble, voice calling on safe mode should work properly.
To check, run your phone to safe mode (steps provided above) and see what happens.
Factory reset
Just like what we said above, there may be a software or operating system bug causing the problem so it’s good if you can factory reset the device.
Contact your carrier
If all our recommendations in this post won’t help, don’t forget to have your carrier take a look at the problem. There are aspects to calling issues that we can’t check. It’s possible that this may be a network problem due to an on-going maintenance or upgrade. Carriers don’t usually let their subscribers know of unexpected network troubles so try to get first hand information from them on what’s going on with their service.