How a bug in Android 10 and above, triggered by the user not being logged in to the Microsoft Teams app, could prevent 911 calls
On the 29th of November, Reddit user KitchenPicture 5849 posted a harrowing story about how their Pixel phone failed to connect to emergency services.
Mishaal Rahman
Context & Ripple Effects
A reported Pixel emergency-call failure turned an app-and-OS interaction into a public-safety issue. Google had already said it was preparing a permanent fix for the signed-out Teams condition, making the detailed report a concrete example of the failure the fix is meant to address.
First-order effects
Android 10-and-later users with Microsoft Teams installed but not logged in face a potential emergency-call reliability risk, with the reported Pixel incident showing the consequence is not limited to Teams itself.
Google becomes the immediate remediation owner through its planned permanent fix, while Microsoft must address how Teams behaves when present but inactive on affected devices.
Second-order effects
Android device makers and carriers have reason to test emergency dialing against installed-but-signed-out third-party apps, rather than treating the dialer as an isolated system component.
Teams’ reliability scrutiny expands beyond workplace communications: Microsoft’s app state can become relevant to a core Android safety function.
Third-order effects
The incident points toward stronger platform responsibility for insulating emergency services from failures in the broader app stack, a case of the Android emergency-call fix defining the boundary between app behavior and OS safeguards.
The trend: Mobile platforms are being pushed to treat emergency calling as a protected service that must remain functional regardless of third-party app state.
New: How a bug in Android and Microsoft Teams could have caused this user's 911 call to fail. This is a high-level technical analysis explaining that weird Android 911/Microsoft Teams bug. https://medium.com/... Tip @Techmeme
So 911 breaks if apps generate too many “PhoneAccount” instances, and Google won't fix this until January. In the interest of mitigation, does anyone want to make a quick app that shows a list of PhoneAccounts? Let normal people make sure 911 will work? https://medium.com/...
Incredible breakdown of what likely happened with that Android/MS Teams bug. I'm still completely “what the fuck"ing about this whole thing even if it is rare. https://medium.com/...
Huge kudos to @MishaalRahman for this detailed reporting on exactly what prevented a Pixel 3 user from calling 911 a few days ago. The confluence of bugs here is remarkable and will soon be fixed, but it lays bare the complexity of OS/app interactions https://medium.com/...
Last month a reddit user reported that their Pixel 3 smartphone running Android 11 was unable to make a 911 call in an emergency. Google says it was due to the Microsoft Teams app, which was installed by not logged in. Here's why that happened (probably). https://medium.com/...
Once upon a time, when Firefox OS was new, I was talking with someone who'd been in the cellphone industry and, well, I gather the GSMA has *very* little chill when it comes to anything that even has the possibility of impairing emergency calls.... https://twitter.com/...
Incredible bug forensics here: apparently a nasty pair of Microsoft Teams/Android bugs could make it impossible for an Android phone to call 911. Someone actually ran into this in the wild! What an incredibly shitty bug, wow. https://medium.com/...