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Comment by Aachen | Hacker News Reader

Let's just spell it out instead of this clickbait title:

Dialing the local emergency number (112, 000, and 911 were reported, but presumably also others) sometimes doesn't work, just gives a click instead of dialing. Google blames third party apps. Users report similar issues since Pixel 4 that were reported to Google but haven't been resolved since release.

Not like "911 doesn't ring" is much longer of a title than "very scary issue with dialing 911". It just sounds ever so slightly less like a horror movie.

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Google blames third party apps.

I'm not going to suggest third parties can't screw with a phone and make it effectively unusable, but why isn't emergency calling a separate code path in the dialler app and OS that just ignores everything that third parties have done? It should be impossible to change the behaviour of that small bit of the phone. Don't fire any OS level events, don't call any callbacks, ignore any registered intents.

This is on a Pixel. Google can have complete control of the OS and dialler if they want to. They should be able to effectively isolate this from the rest of the phone. Blaming third parties doesn't really explain it.

This link posted by crooked-v seems to explain why it was like that, and how it has been fixed.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/01/google-fixes-nightma...

> Next bug: when picking a PhoneAccount to run the emergency call through, Android goes through a complicated sorting process to figure out which account to use. The last step in this sort process, the tiebreaker, is sorting by hashcode. The hashcode comparison just subtracts one hashcode from the other. But just like that stupid Y2K22 Microsoft Exchange bug from the other day, it's possible for this to result in an integer overflow or underflow, and now the phone subsystem is going to crash.

This is horrifying and stupid and horrifyingly stupid.

I didn't mean for it to sound as though I thought this was a legitimate reason absolving Google of blame. I cited it as a lame excuse, exactly for the reason you mentioned: this should be a core system thing, not influenceable by third parties.

Nothing about your explanation refutes that this is a very scary issue.

Third-party apps or not, a phone that can't call emergency services in every situation other than empty battery should be treated by the government like food that can potentially poison people.

you posit "911 doesn't ring sometimes" ∈ "very scary issue with a phone", that's correct

title implies "911 doesn't ring sometimes" ∈ "very scary issue dialing 911", that is incorrect

frankly "doesn't ring" is probably the most routine issue that can happen when dialing a number

the comment you respond to responds to article title and posits "911 doesn't ring sometimes" ∉ "very scary issue dialing 911"

"911 doesn't ring sometimes" in this context means that there's good signal and can call non-emergency numbers using ordinary phone networks, but for some reason can't handle emergency calls correctly (and yes, you could call the GSM-wise non-emergency but legally-wise long emergency number for your area normally, it's just you're more likely to not know it in an actual emergency). That's not just "scary", it's a life-threatening defect similar to a faulty airbag (where you don't need it now but it must work in an emergency).

Thanks for reinforcing my point.

Indeed, the phone has a life-threatening defect and I would never own one. "Failure to dial 911" is a scary defect for a phone.

Where the title makes a logical mistake and is misleading in order to be sensational is that, assuming "dialing 911" as given context, "phone doesn't ring sometimes" is probably the least scary issue possible. In fact, it's the most common way dialing a number can go wrong. It's easy to imagine countless worse things that will radically worsen your outcomes in a life or death situation (such as: phone bricking itself, phone exploding in your hands, phone becoming subsequently unable to make any call, phone making loud noise that alerts the attacker that you are making a 911 call, so on so forth).

Perhaps for a native speaker it's not as obvious that "'very scary' issue dialing 911" here is a semantically illogical construct, but I assure you it is. Example of one that isn't: "'very scary' issue with a Pixel phone involving 911 calls".

First, this article is targeted to the general population, not to anal-retentive HN commenters. You're nitpicking on technicalities which while tolerated on posts by HN users (although heavily discouraged unless it's of a technical nature) is definitely out for general articles. Even the guidelines are clear about this: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

Second, the Note 7 exploding is also scary, but to the average population (in the US anyway) a phone that bulges and physically explodes is as dangerous as not being to reliably summon emergency services.

I merely clarified what the downvoted comment's author meant so that those who reflexively started to argue with it would see they are actually in agreement on substance if they gave it any thought. Talk about generous interpretation and anal reflexiveness.

> a phone that bulges and physically explodes is as dangerous as not being to reliably summon emergency services.

If you are putting forth that a phone exploding when you make a 911 call is an issue of the same magnitude as a phone occasionally not ringing when you make a 911 call, I don't see what else we can discuss...

They said the title was clickbait. You're saying it's illogical. The latter is an incorrect claim, and you're the one making it.

As I tried to explain, the title is misrepresenting reality in the direction of exaggeration. Which is probably the definition of clickbait, so the original commenter is not wrong.

But you also went too far in your criticism of the title.

I don't think there's a reason to pursue this but I can't see how this is too far.

I wrote:

> title implies "911 doesn't ring sometimes" ∈ "very scary issue dialing 911", that is incorrect

to summarize why the downvoted comment said the title is clickbait. (As in, it’s a scary issue with the phone, but if we limit to the domain of issues when dialing 911 then 'not ringing sometimes' is not scary, it's mundane.)

And it is wrong to insist that "scary" must be interpreted relative to that domain. Being scary in the domain of phone use, then noting the specific time it occurs, is fine.

And you didn't just say it could mislead, you called it illogical, and that's not right. You're being pedantic about a rule you made up.

> Nothing about your explanation refutes that this is a very scary issue.

That's great, because I didn't want to say that!

The point is that "something very scary happened" is less useful than "X happened" when everyone intuitively understands that situation X is very scary.

> Third-party apps or not,

Maybe that's another misunderstanding: I think Google's excuse is lame. Perhaps you thought I cited it as a legitimate reason?

> Dialing the local emergency number (...) sometimes doesn't work,

It very well sounds like a horror movie.

But "something very scary happened" as a headline is less useful than "X happened" when everyone intuitively understands that situation X is very scary.

Clickbait is where you have to click through for the essential-but-omitted information, written in a way that makes you want to know. This is that. It doesn't mean it's not also accurate.

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