The never-ending series of problems for the Pixel 2 returns and this time it is a voice recording bug that is affecting messaging apps. According to many users on the Pixel community, the Pixel 2 XL is limiting the volume levels when recording voice messages on WhatsApp, Telegram, Google Allo.
The phone apparently has no issues recording voice clips, but once the voice clip is sent, the recipient gets a message with very low volume, even when the phone’s volume is at the maximum. The volume remains low even if listened via headphones, speaker. Even after sending the voice clip, the sender himself also seems to be not able to hear the audio clip.
Users in the community have come up with ways like uninstalling/re-installing messaging apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, Allo, resetting phone to fix the problem, and since nothing worked, the issue is being finally escalated to Google for which the community manager; Orrin issued an official response, saying that Google would look into the issue.
The issue is commonly seen on phones running Android 8.0 and 8.1 Oreo and since the issue is persisting to voice clips in messaging apps, it looks like it is widespread. As voice calls didn’t result in the same low volume issues, it would seem likely that the bug is specific to recording audio clips rather than a complication with microphone hardware. Either way, since Google has acknowledged the issue, we expect a fix to come in the future.