The high-end Google Pixel 2 XL has seen various issues since its release, and the latest one affects the volume of voice recordings on popular messaging apps. More specifically, based on user reports, the phone can record voice clips with no issues, but the volume is very low in messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Google Allso, or Telegram. The recipient gets the message with extremely low volume, even if their smartphone is set at maximum volume, and there’s no way to turn it up. The issue occurs regardless of whether the voice message is played on the smartphone’s speaker or via headphones. Even the sender has trouble hearing the message after sending it via these messaging apps, although everything went well while recording it.
In remains unclear what is causing the limited volume levels and why it affects these apps in particular, but Google is apparently looking into the matter and it should come up with a solution soon enough. In the meantime, some affected users have tried to come up with various workarounds to fix this problem, to no avail. Users report that resetting the Pixel 2 XL or uninstalling and re-installing the affected apps did nothing, as the issue still persists. Google Community manager Orrin acknowledged the issue and said that Google is aware of the matter, but no solution is available yet. Orrin added that more information and bug reports will be collected privately, to get a better idea of the issue, figure out what causes it, and fix it.
There’s no information at this point as to when Google will issue a fix, but it shouldn’t take too long. User reports indicate that the problem is quite widespread, and it affects smartphone running on Android 8.0 and Android 8.1 Oreo. The problem does not affect voice calls or other audio on the device, so it looks like it only occurs with recorded clips on WhatsApp, Allo, and Telegram. This indicates that the smartphone hardware is not to blame, as if it were an issue stemming from the microphone it would affect voice calls as well. This is just the latest issue plaguing the Pixel 2 XL and the smaller Pixel 2, following other problems such as screen burn-in, headphone adapter issues, random reboots, bootloader unlock issues, and more. Overall, however, the Google Pixel 2 XL is widely considered one of the best Android smartphones currently available on the market.