Why is that so hard for one of the world’s richest and most successful companies to release software that works as intended? This spring, Google has mainly been criticized for bugs in Health and in firmware updates, but there are problems in many of Google’s products. The buggy and for a small crowd sometimes disastrous updates for the Pixel have recently criticized by Android Authority.
The bugs occur in Google’s software on Google’s own hardware. Google then has control over the entire chain, so there are no excuses. Listed below are bugs we personally experienced in Google products during the year in “sharp” software. You can’t even blame Google’s heavy use of vibb encoding, because there were plenty of problems even before AI.
Google apps on Android phones can be like a complex brain—an intricate network of interdependent underlying services and processes. Resolving bugs may involve turning services off and on, clearing cache and app data, uninstalling updates, and restarting devices. Fortunately, some have better experiences as almost all bugs only occur under specific circumstances, meaning most people avoid them.
It is also worth pointing out that No advanced software is completely free from bugs. Other operating systems and interfaces have their fair share of problems, be it Apple or Samsung or another manufacturer. At the same time, we demand higher quality control in Google’s products, because the control is not up to par. The motto “it just works” should be adopted by everyone.
Apps
The phone and contact apps
One of the most buggy features Google has released in recent years is calling cards. The Contacts app no longer displayed the specified images for the calling cards. Then the wrong picture was shown to the contacts: the calling cards were mixed up so that one contact got another contact’s picture. The thumbnails then showed them old the classic contact pictures, from before the calling cards were released.
All the pictures were deleted because the function did not work: an hour later they were back by themselves as if they had never been deleted. All calling cards were deleted again but came back the next day: they were impossible to remove from Google’s server. It turned out that deleting calling cards was only possible from the contacts app: not from the phone app (although the delete button is there).
The custom calling card (shown to others) disappeared immediately after being created repeatedly but then came back. A month or so later another bug appeared. The image for the own calling card was updated via the phone app. Then the entire calling card disappeared. Since then, it has not been possible to create a separate calling card on two different phones at all. The feature is completely dead.
Gmail
Sometimes when you press the send button in Gmail, you are immediately thrown to the home screen: the app closes. The bug has been around for years.
Chrome
Chrome for Android sometimes just shows a white screen instead of the home page. The page is only loaded after forced termination of the app.
Google Gallery
After an update, the gesture leads back always to the home screen instead to the previous screen inside the app, rendering the app unusable. The bug has existed since the beginning of May without Google bothering to do anything about it. The issue has been verified on two different phones.
Pixel Launcher
- Once, the entire app drawer was suddenly empty.
- A page in Pixel Launcher disappeared and then came back.
- The icons were never changed in the Pixel Launcher for archived apps in folders on the home screen when the new icon packs were used.
- The search bar at the bottom suddenly just showed the text “search” and received a different, stripped-down design.
- The search bar stopped responding to taps.
- The app drawer lagged heavily and was no longer displayed at 120 fps/120 Hz.
- The clock widget became just a thin line, without showing the time.
Fitbit
The app refused to save editing/correction of the sleep times. The edit could be completed but never had any effect, despite 4-5 attempts. The bug started with a sudden long delay when pressing the Save button. An incorrect sleep session was deleted but then came back like a ghost.
Google Health
- Google Health was showing yesterday’s data instead of today’s current data at the top (fixed in v5.01).
- Sync issues with Pixel Watch 4 in version 5.0.
- Incorrect sleep sessions every night (awake movie watching was registered as sleep) after switching to Health.
- Sleep sessions could not be deleted (came back afterwards).
Youtube for Google TV
Sometimes Youtube for Google TV forgets the position in videos, so you have to fast forward to the correct position manually. Unusual bug. Temporary graphics bugs in videos under certain circumstances.
Google Messages
RCS stopped working: the interface showed the text “connecting” permanently. RCS worked again after that phone number verification was disabled from the Google settings and then enabled again, and after the app’s data was deleted. Nothing else helped.
Photos
When the app starts, the interface sometimes says “new version available” and shows a link to the Play Store to update to the new version, but there is no new version in the store. The bug has been around for years and years.
Android
For apps that have been denied background running, the battery statistics may still show that the app has been running for several hours in the background. If the behavior is deliberate, it is confusing.
The selected color theme sometimes has no effect on the system: nothing changes. The system gets confused and can no longer use the correct colors. The bug occurs every now and then when you experiment with background images and colors and change the background several times in a row. Restarting the phone is the only thing that helps. The bug has been around since the beginning.
Units
Pixel Watch 4
After the March update, the watch stopped showing oxygen saturation and skin temperature. The problem was fixed by Google via an app update, but Google didn’t tell us that the cache also needed to be cleared and the watch needed to be restarted. The watch then stopped showing oxygen saturation and breathing rate. Function came back after factory reset.
The watch counted completely on calories and number of steps: about twice as high values. The bug was fixed but the incorrect values were not fixed, so the statistics became skewed in the history.
Pixel Buds Pro 2
The voice control and Gemini have never worked. The function is correctly activated. Factory reset makes the voice control work half-baked, but only temporarily before it stops working completely again.
Google TV Streamer
After installing the Projectivy home screen replacement, the “Accessibility” category in the settings stopped working. The system crashed directly to the home screen every time the category was opened.
When you turn off “apps-only mode” to be able to install an app and turn it on again, the newly installed app will not appear among the apps on the home screen until after a reboot.
Further reading: Google needs better quality control – bugs we encountered in the last two months