Fairphone 3 microphone issues

Hello!

I now have a FP3 which I ordered through my company. It turned out to have the same problem with the sound as the previous phones I had received; recipients thought I had a canny/distant sound.

I called the support of the phone provider and told them about it and they asked me to try changing the SIM card since my card is from 2011, hence quite old. It turned out to solve the problem so far! Recipients now here me loud and clear. It makes me think that the previous FP3 I had received probably worked fine as well, only I didn’t know what to do.

Happy Easter!

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Hello everyone,

I’m having this microphone issue in these days. I bought my FP3 on the FP online store one month and a half ago.
Restarting the phone sometimes does solve the problem, sometimes not.
I have problems also with earphone, both wired and wireless: when the FP3 microphone is unusable, also earphone’s microphone is unusable. Moreover, non of them emit any sound at all.
During these cases, when I receive a call I can hear and talk only activating the speaker, no other way. Then I have to restart once or more.

@Wyvern Thank you very much for your post on microphone test.
I have to point out that SIM age couldn’t be the source of the issue as my SIM is few months old.

Given that, I’m sure it’s a software issue, as it was also an issue of the FP2 as I read in the forum. However, it’s so strange it hasn’t come out earlier. @Jense I totally agree with you.
Now I’ll contact the FP support.

Happy Easter!

Good thing it worked out for you Wyern!
I still struggle with the same problem and have to use the speaker or handsfree earphones for decent sound for the caller. Funny though, the other day one call worked fine without speaker in the beginning, then suddenly the caller couldn’t hear my until I put him on speaker. I was sitting down inside my office in the city center with good signal strenght.

I tired some tips from FP Support, but the problem persist. My sim card is fairly new, and it makes no sense that both the speaker function as well as the handsfree works fine, but not the normal mic during calls. The mic works ok when running the mic test. It has got to be a software issue!

I have tried the “66” self test and used the phone in various conditions and I am now quite convinced that this is not a direct hardware problem (like low mic gain), in some calls it is almost impossible for the other person to hear me, while in other situations it is perfect.

I have not been able to discover any systematic behind this, but it appears to me that too many have mic problems and it must be dealt with!

Yes, I totally agree! I still have the same problem, but it seems now to be a bit more random than before. Sometimes the mic works ok, sometimes it don’t. No way to tell really, an it has nothing to do with signal strength or anything.

Hi there
I had the same problem with the FP3 of my wife. I realized, it was only when I call to other cellphones, but not to wired phone.
Finally I could resolve the problem by disabling the “Enhanced 4G LTE Mode”.
Settings -> Network & Internet -> Mobile Network -> Advanced
Hopefully this can resolve the same problem for others too.

Cheers Emanuel

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Thanks a lot for your reply Emanuel! I´ll try this!

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I’ve had my Fairphone 3 for a week now and am really thinking I made a huge mistake in switching. The sound quality is awful. Everyhing I hear or play is like it’s coming at me through a tin bucket. On phone calls my voice echoes back at me and the person I speak to can’t hear me. As other posters here have said, they report sound is really distant. Distortion both incoming and outgoing, so it can’t be the microphone. My SIM card is new and I have downloaded all the updates. Is there anything I can do other than return my phone? I have a two year contact and am shielding, so can’t go to a shop or post office.
@Emanuel_Indermuhle I tried to do as you suggested, but it wasn’t listed as an option on my phone Mobile Network settings. I’m with Vodafone. Maybe that’s different?

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I have the same problem. Only it happens also when recording on Whatsapp. I cannot see any connection between that and a “4G mode”. But I’ll try, thanks.

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The sound quality improved after I did this. I haven´t had the problem anymore.

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Any luck @Alessan? We seem to be in the same boat

Actually, after deactivating that “4G mode”, I never experiencend that problem again. Only I noticed during conversation that the voice of my interlocutor sometimes falters… I guess maybe that is the issue for which that mode was developed. Mysteries of the software. But yes, in general yes everything turned out fine.

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Sorry, I have to correct my last statement. The problem persists at least for vocal messages (not for phone calls for whatever reason). I noticed that the “silent microphone problem” tend to appear whenever the phone connects to the internet via wi-fi.

I think my secondary microphone is probably causing the issues I’m experiencing: the sound cuts out and echoes, also much quieter than the primary microphone (which could be due to it being the one to cancel out environmental sounds?). Not quite sure though if this qualifies as a damaged mic. Any opinions?

Hm. I am afraid i am another one out of the 1%. I have my FP3+ since a month now and i am fine so far. Though from time to time, my conversation partner does not hear me cleary. I (too often) get the feedback (“sorry please repeat, i did not understad”) - with the SAME sim card and my old (samsung) phone i NEVER got that feedback.
The Audioquality on my phone is okay (though even notable worse than on the old samsung) but at least i could always understand my partners. It just sounds a bit more low tec / metallic as i was used to.
Any further steps i could try to improve this? (The service menu ##66## mic test worked fine, the problem did not occur yet there) In normal calls it happens approx. 1 out of 10 calls …

UPDATE - problem still exists - i postet this via support ticket system (which also seems to have some issues!?): Callers report MUCH TOO OFTEN, they can’t understand me clearly (“electronic distortion, interruptions”). I never had that problem with my old phones (Huawei and Samsung) using the very same phone number, SIM card and network provider (MAGENTA-T-, former telering.at in AUSTRIA). I also do hear a bit worse than with my old form (sounds kind of metallic), though this would be acceptable as i at least understand the caller always. But regular answers “please repeat i did not understand you” is a no-go for me, sorry.
Your mic test dialing ##66## (testing mic 1 and 2) works, i could not reproduce the problem using it various times.
I already read your article https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/360051582491-FP3-FP3-issues-with-calls but unfortunately both tips did NOT improve the situation (i disabeld 4G LTE Mode, i switched to only “2G/3G auto” and i disabled “WIFI calling”). Same problem approx. every 10th call. If there is no fix soon, i need to give back the fairphone 3+ as it is unusable like this for me as i need a working cell phone for my business.
I already contacted you weeks ago and did not get any answer yet. I opened a support ticket which meanwhile does not exist anymore? (“Oops, page not found” when i click on the link i received from you. Ticketnr was #398518 link was https://support.fairphone.com/hc/requests/398518 ).

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I have the same issue and have also reported it, so that they can more easily see the impact of this software(?) issue.

I got an initial reply the following day, but no solution yet.

The redirect during login to the support pages is funky and did not work in my browser, but I got in and could view the status of my case after a password reset,

Hey there, it seems that I have just joined the 1% club. Sometimes the micro works, sometimes not. The ‘funny’ fact is that while I use Duolinguo, I get a message saying: “Oh, it seems that your microphone is off, we will get back to you later with the exercise”. And I also have the issue that while talking to someone, they cannot hear me well (“hey, you are super far from the micro, get closer…”) and when I have the loud speakers, they can hear their echoes… I will try to contact FP, in order to check what is possible… fingers crossed :wink:

UPDATE - that helped a lot, though still not 100% - you can also try to have WLAN and Mobile Internet switched off during calling and see if its better. I had the impression, that the problom only occurs when internet available(which would make sense that swichting off the LTE support as below, helps).

This helped quite a lot:
Disable Enhanced 4G LTE

  1. Go to Settings > Network & internet > Mobile network > Advanced
  2. Click and disable the option “Enhanced 4G LTE Mode

If the option “Enhanced 4G LTE Mode” is not available in your Fairphone, you can try selecting “Preferred network type” and then choosing “2G/3G auto”. After the next software update, we suggest you switch back to the option “2G/3G/4G auto”.

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Hello everybody!

I got a Fairphone 3+ a bit more than a month ago. So far I was really happy with it. Until yesterday, when the person opposite to the video call was not able to understand me. :worried:

When I disabled speaker mode and hold the phone to my ear, it works normal. Also the problem only shows for me when using “Internet calls” for example in WhatsApp or Telegram. Not when making an actual phone call.

So I tested both microphones with the menue found here:

They both seem to work well during testing. :face_with_monocle:
I also changed from wifi to mobile data and back, it did not help.

I disabled this setting aswell without effect.

I also removed one and then both of my SIM cards without success.

I am not going to open a official support ticket right now, as I need the phone during the next weeks. Also I can work around the issue using a headset for video calls or using the phone in earpiece mode otherwise.

Does anybody have new insights or ideas by now though?

Cheers!