Don't Blame Me, Blame My Phone!

January 29, 2014 5:10 PM

My new Moto X droid has been auto dialing people on my contacts list without my help or permission. Please make it stop. Verizon has been unable to diagnose this.

The auto calls happen like this: I hang up from a call by pressing the red phone icon, the screen goes black for a second or two and then automatically dials either of two persons on my contact list, always the same two people. It may be linked to pressing the power button on the side, which I tend to do a lot, and unlike the iPhone, the button is where I am used to holding the phone.

My friends are not happy with the 6 AM calls they have been receiving. Any ideas why this is happening?

posted by Xurando to Technology (8 answers total)

If it's just those two people, does deleting (and later recreating) those two contacts fix the problem?
posted by yeoz at 5:17 PM on January 29, 2014 [2 favorites]

I also have a Moto X. I've never noticed this issue before but I pressed the hangup red phone while simultaneously pressing the power button and then experienced the issue you described—a few seconds later my first "favorite" number was called. I can't get it to do this consistently though.
posted by grouse at 6:17 PM on January 29, 2014

I had something similar happen last night; I was talking with my sister and must have shifted the phone in my hand... when I looked at it, the phone was dialing my father's number. Neither are "favorites" and my father was not the most recent previous call.

This is a Moto X through Republic Wireless, running on Sprint.

It's entirely possible that my ear was performing swipe commands on the phone.. it wouldn't be the first time.

Could the Moto X have some sort of "conference call suggest" feature ?

Wish I could give you more clear info or a fix.
posted by Kakkerlak at 6:48 PM on January 29, 2014

First thing to do is get it on video doing this and put it on YouTube. That way you can point people at that instead of trying to explain it in text or whatever.

Then, I would contact Motorola, myself. This is a new, high-visibility phone and they'd want to nip potential issues like this in the bud. It could easily be a touchscreen issue - if the phone kept thinking you were tapping it at the same position (this can happen with moisture) it might somehow get to the call menu and hit those folks up.

You might also try registering and posting a thread in the Q&A at XDA, though if you're not very technically-minded the devs there might not be much help.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 10:49 PM on January 29, 2014

I don't have that phone, but when you hang up, I imagine the screen is going back to where you can make more calls. I have Android 4.1.2 with a different phone and for me, when I hang up, the call disconnects and it takes me back to where I made the call. If I was in my contacts, it returns me to my list of contacts. If I made a call using the dial pad, it takes me back to the dial pad. I bet what happens is you press the red button to cancel the call, and then when you go to press the power button on the side of the phone, you are hitting a contact name by accident.

I think the easiest solution is when you press the red button to hang up, then press the home key so you are no longer able to dial the phone or call contacts. I personally always do this because I have butt dialed people by hanging up on a call and then slipping my phone into my pocket. Lesson learned. You should never just press the red button and be done with it. Always go home first.

Also, what's happening to you is not automatic dialing. It's only happening when you interact with your phone. If you phone was just making calls all by itself, I would've recommended completely resetting it to factory settings.
posted by AppleTurnover at 11:53 PM on January 29, 2014

Response by poster: I called Motorola today and got a disinterested technician and of course I could not replicate it. I will try again tomorrow. As far as calling it autodialing or not, the phone is calling without my input. Today it did it several times and once not associated with another call.
posted by Xurando at 2:55 PM on January 30, 2014

There's a new phone dialer app in KitKat. Is an upgrade available for you yet? It may solve your problem, and I doubt Motorola tech support will be able to do anything to help.
posted by grouse at 2:59 PM on January 30, 2014

nthing that this may be a hardware problem. If a factory reset doesn't solve it, a simple solution is to just get a replacement from wherever you bought the phone.
posted by turkeyphant at 5:20 AM on July 19, 2014