Google fixes volume issues on the Pixel 5 with latest update

After two months of users posting complaints on Google’s support forums and social media, it seems to have finally paid off as issues with volume control on the company’s latest flagship Pixel 5 phone appear to have been resolved with the January update.

In November, HT Tech had reported that users on Reddit had been complaining that the volume for system level sounds for screenshot and while capturing images were far too loud, even when the phone’s volume was low.

“It's a pretty severe bug that most notably makes the dialer nearly impossible to use on anything but the lowest ringer settings which then makes the ringtone inaudible,” a Reddit user had commented at the time. Meanwhile, a community specialist had responded on the device’s support forums, stating that the company would work to make improvements in future updates.

The company’s recently released monthly update for the Pixel 5, which also brings the January security patches, mentions “further tuning & improvements for volume level of system sounds” as a device-specific change for Google’s 2020 flagship. The only known workaround prior to this was to switch your phone’s ringer off or mute it completely - hardly a practical solution for most users who just want to lower their device volume.

This is not the first device-specific bug to affect the Pixel 5. In October last year, a software bug caused the battery indicator to freeze up and could only be fixed by restarting the device and reconnecting it to the charger. This was later fixed in a software update as well. 

A month later, users began to report that there was an abnormal gap between the screen and the phone’s frame - Google, however, claimed that it was normal and didn’t impact the phone’s ingress protection (IP) rating.