There is a new Pixel bug in town that quietly changes ringtone and alarm sounds.
Per a thread on Reddit, ringtone and alarm and notification sounds are changing on their own on some Pixel phones. Users report that they were startled to hear unfamiliar sounds coming out of their Google phones out of the blue. Google started rolling out the April update a week back, and it may have introduced this bug.
9to5Google reports that their Pixel 6 Pro which is on Android 12 QPR3 Beta 1.1 has also been impacted. The outlet adds that the sounds were changed to “87_r80_gcam_o_video_start,” “reverse_charging_start,” and “Mash-up,” and adds that these appear to be sound files that are usually not selectable to users in the Sounds picker.
The problem doesn’t seem to be widespread, but if you are one of those unlucky few affected by the bug, with any luck you should be able to change the new sounds randomly selected by your Pixel phone. One user says that they weren’t able to find their old ringtone, which suggests the bug may be wiping out the default sounds.
For now, it appears that the only the Pixel 5 and Pixel 6 have been affected. The latter is in news every other day, not because it’s Google’s best phone to date, but because it’s full of bugs. Google is continuously playing whack a mole, so hopefully, it will roll out a fix for the new bug soon.
