Google’s Pixel and Pixel XL phones launched to great fanfare last year, but it soon became apparent that some users were experiencing issues with their new handset when it would freeze for no apparent reason.
The Mountain View, California-based company has issued a fix as part of its regular monthly security update, though it seems there’s no guarantee it’ll solve the issue.
Google’s Pixel user community manager put the word out in a forum, telling frustrated Pixel owners in the June security update about a fix “that should address many of the freezing issues that have been reported. The update is starting to roll out via OTA today and will continue to roll out over the coming weeks.”
However, he added that “freezing and general device performance issues can be caused by many different things,” and therefore encouraged users to continue posting their experiences after they had installed the security update that includes what Google hopes is an effective fix.
It seems that for most of those experiencing the problem, there’s no obvious pattern to when it happens, making it mighty hard to identify the cause. “I had it freeze during/after calls, while using the camera, on a different app,” one user wrote in the forum. Solving it — at least temporarily — usually means forcing a hard reset via the power button.
Judging by new forum posts, it seems the fix is working for some phones but not others.
One user who’d been experiencing the issue sporadically — anything from around two or three freezes a week to the same number on a daily basis — said that 24 hours after installing the update, his phone was working fine. It even sounded like the device was a little quicker than before: “The phone itself almost feels like it has a small bit of snap to it as well. Let’s see if this holds up.”
However, another commented that the “fix” had had the opposite effect. “This update made things worse,” he wrote. “I didn’t have any problems before, but since installing the June update I keep getting these weird microfreezes, that last a second or two, when scrolling and typing.”
It’s of course a serious annoyance for affected users, and one that Google really needs to get on top of. Indeed, if this latest update doesn’t successfully sort it out — and it seems it may not have for some users — then the company will have to come up with something soon to finally put the issue to bed.
