Droid experiencing external speaker problems, could be a software issue?
By Paul Miller 
posted Nov 15th 2009 11:40AM
posted Nov 15th 2009 11:40AM
It's no reason to panic just yet, but apparently a good amount of people are having trouble with the external speaker on their Motorola Droid cutting out for no reason. It seems to be software-related, and sometimes a reboot fixes it temporarily, but it's a scary problem for people relying on the handset as an alarm clock (or, you know, to receive calls), since you never know when it will strike next. For its part it seems that Motorola is replacing handsets that have the issue, though that's no guarantee of escape from the clutches of silence. Let's hope Motorola updates us with a software patch or some other serious solution soon -- people need to hear that robotic "Droooiiid" alert sound -- and meanwhile let us know if you've been seeing a similar issue.[Thanks, Bryan]
since when were 1,803 people and counting, "no one"?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ_GaCjpAPI
word needs to stop typing this way. It's bad for his health.
Please, if you can ban someone who criticises the editors, why can't you ban the troll? Surely they can't contribute that much to the AOL coffers?
Where are you getting these numbers from?
@ word
But its okay for apple to rape att networks?!?!?!? Im assuming you dont mind apple raping you for its mile high product prices...Good times *cheers*
The Droid has only been out for a little over a week, and no gadget is absolutely flawless upon release. Motorola has been replacing Droids with this problem. And Verizon lets its customers return phones for any reason within thirty days of purchase.
What exactly are you trying to prove here?
Steve Job's Arse.
1 voice for every variant. Wow.
But when I pressed "comments" it already said "9" for last....
Guys! Get a droid and check it yourself! xD
I'd love to but its not sold in my country... yet.
Is this really a "scary problem?"
Engadget polls always start at 1 for every choice. Why does this issue get posted every single time?
I refuse to believe he just created that account to spam Engadget with Epinions links....
@Quantumphysics, or whatever name you go by this week:
You once said that you thoroughly test everything before you write a review on epinions (and, of course, endlessly spam Engadget with links to them). So I decided to look at what you wrote a review (or reported on, as you once wrote), and here is the list:
Let's see, you have the Droid, Blackberry Storm (2 different ones), Palm Pre, iPhone, Sidekick
The Zune HD, Zune 30GB, iTouch (2nd and 3rd gen), iShuffle
HP Pavilion dv2890NR, HP Pavilion dv6838nr, HP Pavilion dv6149us, MacBook, MacBook Air, Asus EEE, eMac G4, another MacBook, another Asus EEE, Lenovo Thinkpad
A Mercedes S class Hybrid, a Mercedes S63, Mercedes S550, a Mercedes E class, a Buick Lacross, Cadilac Escalade, Cadillac SRX, Cadillac CTSV, Cadilac CTS, Audi S8, Audi A8, Ford Taurus, Ford Focus, Ford Fusion, Ford Expedition (2 different ones), Ford Flex, Ford Edge, Chrysler 300 (2 different ones), Chevy Tahoe, Chevy Avalanche, Chevy Camaro, Chevy Malibu, BMW 7 series (2 different ones), Dodge Challenger, Dodge Charger, Honda Accord Coupe, Honda Accord Sedan, Hyundai Genesis, Lincoln MKS, Lincold Navigator, Jaguar XF, Infinity M45, Lexus LS, GMC Youkon, Nissan Armada
A PS3 (which, as I showed once here before that you said you would never buy - after you said you would buy it), a PSP (which you said you would never buy, after you said you owned one), DSi, 360 and Wii and PS2 (somehow you have DDR for all those consoles)
I can understand you having a few MP3 players, a few different consoles, etc. But when you claim to own all those cars within a 3 year time period, I need to call BS. And it is only a matter of time until you are banned again for spamming.
@ nohone
That was hilarious...
Hahaha.
That review is hilarious. The Droid is "many millimeters" thicker than the iPhone? Is less than 2 mm "MANY MILLIMETERS"? Hahahaha.
I had some time while watching football, so I did a little reading of some of Quantumphysics, er, droidguy's epinions. One intersting comment was the one made by somebody named tch7 here: http://www.epinions.com/review/2006_BMW_7_Series/content_252534754948/show_~allcom
If you read what the comment is saying, Quantumphysics/droidguy is plagiarising Engadget articles and posting them as his own reviews without quoting his sources. I wonder what the editors of Engadget think about it?
I don't have a Droid, I'm just here to watch... and laugh. 100,950,001 (99.9%)
This is only the first of the Motorola Droid problems. Look for many more to follow. Motorola should be exiting the cellphone business shortly.
already?
I don't think this is a new issue... new to the Droid, yes. but I had problems with my G1 and audio as well. Sometimes I would get a text message and it would just vibrate, other times it would default to some standard ringtone for calls. I just dismissed it as a 3rd party software issue since I don't use the default apps... but who knows. I haven't really seen it on my Droid yet though.
this even happens with my iPhone, it's always set to Loud or whatever, but sometimes i will receive an SMS with no alert or vibration, sometimes it just vibrates, or sometimes it vibrates and then the alert sound is played in excess of 3+ seconds later.
Isn't there a cream available for droid problems?
I don't know about anyone else but this is the best speaker on a phone that I've ever used. Right now I am listening to Pandora, gassing up my car and typing this comment. This is a REALLY cool phone!! :-)
Huh. Kinda reminds me of the still-unfixed iPhone problem where the phone thinks the headphone is plugged in, so the microphone AND speaker don't work.
How can you screw up a leaf switch?
my brother has one, if that counts.
Rushed to market much?
Absolutely, because no other device comes out with an issue or two.
OMG ITS BLEACH-O-BEAR!
i wonder why Nokia phones doesn't have this issue.
Software I can understand. Hardware, well that's a little more difficult to deal with. Especially from a device this expensive. I am just saying the possibility that it was rushed to market exists. I don't get why I was down ranked. It IS A POSSIBILITY. Especially being the first android device that can compete with the Jesus phone on a major carrier and doesn't look like child's play. They could of rushed it out to capitalize on a lack of true competitors spec wise.
@ Travis perhaps because their phones go through very rigorous testing, that's why my E71 is built like a tank. They kept pushing back the N900 release probably to address any issues.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqB4UdpUoGM
I got the impression this is a software problem (the fact restarting it is a fix is a possible sign of this), therefore the rush to market comment does not make sense from the Motorola standpoint. As stated earlier, releasing software with a few bugs is not particularly acceptable, but much more common: Snow Leopard had multiple issues at launch, including guest erasing the home directory, and of course there was Vista when it first launched.
the only problem mine has is no audio in the left channel of the headphone jack. Love this phone but will be getting it swapped out.
The Droid fails to deliever. You can't sync through software like iTunes, it scratches easily with its plasticky hardware, the keyboard and camera ARE FAIL, its D-pad is just A waste of space, you can't store ytour apps in your memory card, and its UI and OS experience is nothing like the iPhone. Whhen the 4th gen iPhone comes out, it'll blow off all the competition, including the Craporola Droid. DroidDoes....uh copy Apple.
to the engadget people
you should consider comments like the one above spam and remove it when it is flagged. post like this are not construction to the discussion of the article.
Wow, someone with an "i" in front of their username is hating on the Droid and praising the next version of the iPhone before anyone knows anything about it. Shocker.
you are an idiot. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Wow, you are just amazing. The droid is far superior in build quality to nearly every other phone I have used. It is a metal enclosure, and has a screen that is near impossible to scratch. Perhaps you would know this if you had actually held one. I want an iPone, but refuse to use AT&T. This device is just as capable and probably more rugged. I wouldn't get your hopes up for the next iPhone, I love Apple products, but as far as the iPhone is concerned we get nothing more than an evolutionary update every year. Give Android 2.0 time to mature and I doubt it will be blown away by whatever Apple comes up with next.
All hail iPhone, leader of all the lands!
(of trolls, that is)
@ iJames White
Your right James, the 4th generation iPhone will blow their competitors and will blow them hard. How do you think its gotten so far already?
*cough* Slut *cough*
I wiped my ass with your comment.
The guy is a total tool. He trolls the forum looking for fights to start. He needs to be banned for being an iASSHOLE. I had a run in with him a while back over the Storm which I own and his mommy won't buy him. As for the story, my Droid hasn't experienced any sound issues and I'm loving it. Droid Does me right. Lol.
So you don't like the Droid because it is nothing like an iPhone, yet you say the Droid copies the iPhone.
Iphone is just a fancified pixie, I heard that on the engadget show, and those guys are always talking about phones from the first moment so they know that stuff.
[/tease]
thought i'd share:
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/iphone_or_droid.png
So by looking at the poll results the overwhelming majority of people who actually own the device are not having an issue. But in true blog fashion let's blow this up and make it a huge issue.
Oh, and I'm just here to watch and judge.
Let it be known, I have judged!
The judgement?
Holy crap, it's an electronic device with a bug. It must be part of the family.
Up further someone claimed nokia as a bug free example. That is total bollocks. I can't be assed droning on about said bugs but what I'll say is this, nokia NEVER provided a firmware update to fix even 1 bug.
Now out of that 4.3 % that are 'having' that problem here, I am sure at least 3% is just Apple fanboys trying to bash the device any way they can. *sigh*
3% of 4.3% isn't all that much.
Ergh, you know what I meant, 3% out of the total.
Absolutely agreed. There are so many iPhone fanboys that take every chance they can get to bash the Droid, I would bet $1000 that at least half of the "my droid has problems" votes are from these bitches.
I'm an iPhone user, who also has a boner over Android.
Every poll that Engadget puts up, I vote for the last option, which is almost always a joke one.
I think Android people need to stop feeling that iPhone fanboys have some weird fascination/paranoia over Android. Most Apple users are too self-centered to worry about what other people think.
Most.
I am also an iPhone owner who happens to love my wife's Droid. There are a FEW level-headed iPhone owners around.
For people who opted for Votech, or fingerpainting, here is the correct math:
536 (Yes, and it doesn't seem to be getting better)
over (1916+536+242+86)
is
19% rate - on 1 defect alone
There are probably other defects yet to be publicized
As opposed to the behavior that occurs on any poll having to do with the iPhone? I think I'd be more disturbed if equal treatment wasn't happening here.
@njdoughboy
Are you insinuating finger-painting isn't a viable and respectable alternative for higher education? I am appalled, good day sir!
uhh, the phone makes a sound when you change the volume level using the side buttons so not exactly tough to check.
can we please forget about the iphone. its is essentially an out of date phone. its the vista of the mobile realm. engadget are fanboys of apple. even though they know iphone is definately not the best device available.
Considering Verizon is directly targeting the iPhone and sales of it are high, the iPhone ain't going anywhere. love it or hate it, it's here to stay.
I know you want to get high ranked, to pad your ego, but you're gonna have to try again.
wtf are you talking about? They didn't even mention the iPhone in this article. The iPhone isn't mentioned in most Droid articles on Engadget. And they don't even seem to be ripping on the Droid in this post; they're just letting people know about a potential problem and explaining what actions are being done to address it. Did they do so in an alarmist fashion? Yes. Did they rip on the Droid and say the iPhone is better? No and no.
The speaker on this phone is LOUD. I was in class once when a notification went off, and suffice to say, I keep a pair of headphones connected to avoid a scolding from my professor from now on.
Probably a lot easier to just finger swipe on the main screen to send it to silent mode.
Just a thought.
You should check out the app FoxyRing. It will adjust ring/alert volume based on ambient noise. I have been using it since I got my Droid and it works great.
@htowngator - yeah, that feature is great, and it's amazing how few people know about it. Both the people I know with Droid's didn't know about this and I had to inform them of it. Even though it is still pretty convenient, the iPhone hardware switch to switch the phone to silent trumps all Android. It is so convenient, it's one of two things I miss from the iPhone. The other being multi-touch, but I know that will be available soon via the hax0rs.
You might want to look at the Locale app - you can make your phone go onto silent automatically when it detects it's at your school (via wifi, or cell towers).
Welcome to Motorola quality. Be ready to experience Motorola's non existent customer service.
As an iPhone user I want to see the Android platform succeed, compilation is always a good thing. It may force Apple to open up a bit and get a few things done like the ability to run apps in the background that I want to run in the background.
As a consumer who has had to deal with Motorola in the past I know how horrid they can be to deal with. After the last nightmare I had with them I made a simple promise to myself never to invest in any of the products they offer again.
HTC or, some of the others may get my money in the future as long as they keep making top notch phones as the Android platform matures
"Motorola is replacing handsets that have the issue"
That sounds like damn good customer service to me.
I have had a few Motorola phones over the years and have never had any problems. The only time I had one fail was when I spilled a pint over my V525. The V360 I dropped several times and never missed a beat and the RAZR I still have around somewhere, working fine.
Well we dont know what iPhone 4.0 will be like and Droid.....the best Android phone is not really that great as of now. It needs to loose keyboard and get HTC Sense. I do like the hardware on droid though.....finally an Android phone thats running 2.0 and has hardware to back it up.
Also for some reason iPhone apps are still much better then on Android (at least some that I use). I thought that by now they should be at least equal. I really dont know why developers prefer to make fancy apps for iPhone and make crap from droid.....or just dont make anything at all.
oh yeah.....i have MyTouch3G with Kings 2.3 ROM ! Real nice.
What are you smoking? Lose the keyboard? Why? You make no sense. Sense? Sense is bloatware, try it out before you praise it.
I have tried it out and I gotta agree, the keyboard sucks. If they were to combine the best attributes of the Droid Eris (better camera, better on-screen keyboard) with the best attributes of the Droid (faster cpu, Android 2.0, Google Navigate, some of the accessories like the docking station), I would be all over this. As it is, I may just end up going with the Eris.
For the love of god - the user base for Android is still much lower than for the iPhone - and developers gravitate toward the largest user base. What's not to understand, here? As the Android user base increases and more of the higher level developers take notice, you will see an improvement in app quality.
. . . It ain't bad at the moment, though. Some really good stuff in the market.
The keyboard on the droid is fine. Everyone complains about it but I have no issues with it. Yeah, it could be a little better, but I can type pretty damn fast on it. I'm perfectly happy with it.
Second, HTC Sense is lame. I don't know why everyone gets their panties all wet about it. I had the Hero for a few weeks, and when I finally saw what "vanilla" Android was like when I got the Droid, I was like - wtf does sense do then? From what I can tell, the only thing it does is let you have 7 desktops instead of 3, and it has some exclusive widgets made by HTC. BUT THAT'S IT! The 7 screens is handy but that's really the only difference. I wouldn't even go so far as to call it a "skin" - the button on the bottom to pull up the app menu looks different but otherwise it's the exact same interface with a few extra screens and widgets. BIG DEAL! Why does everyone insist on having this program before they buy a phone? It doesn't do anything!
@billy
I hope you're trolling. Either that or you obviously haven't used android much if you don't notice the difference between sense and vanilla. Sense adds the massive social network integration - contacts link to facebook contacts, automatically has contacts picture as their picture from facebook, new contacts interface (i.e. the contacts list and dialing etc). Then not only are there the awesome widgets for sense there's a new photo gallery app which gives pinch zooming and swipe to change between photos (regular android gallery has buttons for zoom and next/prev), new clock app which replaces the vanilla's very basic alarm clock with a better alarm clock, world clock, stopwatch and countdown timer (something i'm very WTF as to why vanilla doesn't have even if there are apps for it) and then there's HTC Peep (twitter). I think there are a few other things in there from sense I missed but in summary
1) Very awesome social networks integration and new contacts list
2) Peep
3) Better gallery
4) Better clock
5) Better browser (flash and pinch)
6) Widgets and extra screens
7) Other stuff I forgot?
This is always what happens before the droids invade.
"*Cshshshshsh* I......attacking...escape...no hope...army...washington monument... *BOOM* AAAARGH!... End transmission..."
Of course, if he was using an iphone, it would just be the very last part.
Tech geeks are so small minded. It's not about being the "best device." It's about sales. No matter how good the Droid is, it will never approach the iPhone in sales (which is really the point, not simply delivering the "best" phone). When you grow up, stop eating cocoa puffs for lunch and stop living in mom's basement, maybe you'll be able to grasp this concept.
Sure it's about sales. But it doesn't have to sell the most for Motorola to make money. Not everyone is so small minded to just blindly buy into all of Apple's marketing. There are plenty of people (mostly the "tech geeks" you talk about) that actually do prefer the superior device. Some of them consider the iphone to be superior and some consider other phones to be superior. When you grow up, maybe you'll grasp the concept that just because it may not sell more than the iphone that it is still a great device.
I love this, let's turn it around. No matter how good Mac OS X is, it will never approach Windows in sales. Oh, wut? Now this doesn't apply?
@Perspective....
your perspective sucks nuts. Get a new one, or better yet, ask Steve Jobs to do that for you. Oh, wait, he already did.
Isn't he the same guy that said SL didn't do good in New Zealand because nobody cares about New Zealand?
No problem with the speaker. Battery cover slides off really easily though, and its lost now.
Play sound?
Droid doesn't
Troll hard?
Greg doesn't
Haven't had a problem with sound yet, but yesterday my Droid went dead.
I had to remove the battery and reinsert it to bring it back to life.
Anyone else have a similiar issue?
twice!
Yeah mine did that once 24 hr's after I first got it. I reset it and its fine now hasn't done it again. No speaker issue here either!
I never said it was or wasn't. I'm just pointing out the fallacies of your post. You're the one acting like a Droid fanboy pretending to see statements that aren't there.
Prove it.
Unreliable alarms are probably the number one reason I ditched WinMo five years ago.
It is a scary issue.
Also, I think the comment about Engadget being Droid haters is meant to be ironic. Engadget is so gay for Droid. Compare their Droid coverage to their n900 coverage.
Why can't you just buy a $15.00 alarm clock? I've had the same one for 15 years and it never failed me. I've gone through about 100 phones in the same time frame.
@rosario
I personally like having a dedicated alarm clock, but I also use my phone as backup. If one thing doesn't go off, for whatever reason, I still have another alarm to wake me up. If the backup fails, then I'm relying only on one alarm clock. I don't like relying completely on one thing, in much the same way I don't keep all my data on just one hard drive.
That said, I don't have a Droid, though I am looking for a new phone. I'm torn between the Droid and Droid Eris, so I'm waiting to see how this all pans out before I drop by Verizon next week.
My droid had something like this happen. The sound didn't cut out completely, it just got redirected to the earpiece. It was strange... I don't know what prompted it, and haven't had it happen again. A reboot was all it took to straighten things back out, and nothing else has been wrong with my unit.
There was at least one other person who had the exact same thing happen and posted a thread about it over on androidforums.com.
ah! you use visual voicemail? i've discovered that on both my omnia and now my droid that vvm will cause that to happen if you don't set audio output to speaker.
I would be much more interested in a poll on the camerea issue
I have the issue, and what actually happens is the sound is being routed to the ear speaker used for calls.
visual voicemail is the culprit! set audio output to speaker and it should fix it.
@word
Idiotic comments. Word does.
I had a problem with the speaker, but calling it "cutting out" doesn't really describe it.
In my first couple days of owning the Droid, sound SWITCHED from playing loudly through the great back speaker to only coming through the earpiece on the phone. This included audio for the music player, videos, Google Navigation and the speaker phone. I thought I'd accidentally tweaked a setting somewhere - and after failing to find a solution, I rebooted the phone and the problem went away.
Then it happened again the next day. I rebooted - and it went away again - and thankfully hasn't happened again, since. I sure hope it doesn't. I'd rather not have to get a replacement.
I'm also inclined to think this may be a software issue. . . maybe an installed app conflicting with the OS. The phone has been great, otherwise!
i believe that conflicting app is visual voicemail...
Has anyone gotten a replaced unit that no longer does this? I would assume its software, but Dec 11th is a few days out of the rebate period for us impulsive buyers, so debating what do to.
If it's hardware it would be covered by the 1 year warranty and you'd still be able to get it replaced/fixed if the Dec 11th update doesn't fix it.
no problem at all here. use it a lot between music playing and alarm , whether it be used w earbuds or the speaker... no issue