People can't hear me when I'm on the phone

December 12, 2017 4:20 PM

Hi. I have a prepaid LG-450 cellphone. It was working fine for a while, but has started acting up recently: I can hear people just fine, but they can't hear me. It's cramping my style, such as it is. I'm not very technologically savvy to put it mildly; suffice it to say that this is a very basic cellphone that I just use to make and receive calls – or try to, anyway. I have no idea why it's doing this, and it wasn't an issue with the previous prepaid cellphones I had.

I don't know if this is relevant or not, but my carrier is T-Mobile, which for the record was the carrier for my previous cellphone as well, though I didn't have that problem with it. Any ideas as to what could be wrong with it, or if I may have inadvertently done something to cause this? Thanks in advance.

posted by DavidfromBA to Technology (9 answers total)

When was the last time you powered it down and then turned it on again? My sister was having this issue with a different phone and that fixed it.
posted by purple_bird at 4:47 PM on December 12, 2017

Best answer: The most likely cause I would think would be a harware problem with the microphone coming disconnected from the phone; for a simple featurephone like this I would rate that as more likely than some sort of software glitch not sending your voice out on a call.

A quick look at page 43 of the user manual indicates that your phone has a voice-recorder app. Testing that out might be a good way to figure out if the problem is specific to sound on calls, or whether your phone's microphone is just not working at all. Try recording your voice with this app, and if it records OK, then you know it's not a hardware problem with the speaker and that there's probably some sort of telephony setting that's gone weird and can be fixed. If the voice recorder doesn't record your voice, that most likely means your microphone's busted and other than taking your phone apart and fixing it, there's no real way to get it to work.
posted by jackbishop at 4:52 PM on December 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Hi purple_bird, and thank you for your answer. Actually, it's generally off. I usually just turn it on a couple times a day to see if I have any messages, or if I need to make a call or am expecting one.
posted by DavidfromBA at 4:54 PM on December 12, 2017

Response by poster: Thanks jackbishop, I'll have to try that.
posted by DavidfromBA at 4:57 PM on December 12, 2017

Best answer: I had that problem once and took it into the store. The guy behind the counter took out some compressed air and blew some dust/fuzz/crud out of the mic. That's probably a quick and easy thing to rule out.
posted by Green Eyed Monster at 5:23 PM on December 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thank you Green Eyed Monster; I may have to do that.
posted by DavidfromBA at 5:40 PM on December 12, 2017

I had the same problem with my new iPhone 8. Voice recorder worked fine, I could hear folks but they couldn’t hear me. I took it back to the Apple store and they actually made it difficult which has never happened. They did a full restore, told me I was “holding it wrong” 🙄 and I had to make ANOTHER trip back and get firm to have them replace it. The second one was fine. Since it’s a pre paid, not sure where you would take it but phones do this. And it’s annoying as hell. Best of luck!!
posted by pearlybob at 8:30 PM on December 13, 2017

Have you tried doing conversations while using Bluetooth? I have this issue off and on and Bluetooth has improved it, most of the time.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:02 AM on December 14, 2017

Response by poster: @ pearlybob: I can't believe they had the audacity to tell you you were holding your phone wrong. I'm old enough to remember the days before everyone had cellphones, and talking on the phone generally meant using a landline. I'm really starting to miss the beautiful simplicity of that.
@ jenfullmoon: I don't even think my phone has Bluetooth. This is a very basic phone, which worked fine up until recently.
@ Everyone who answered: the guy at the T-Mobile store told me it's apparently because my phone isn't compatible with their new network. He said that if I keep calling Customer Service to complain, they might eventually relent and provide me with a compatible phone free of charge (so long as I don't actually ask for one). If they don't do that, I'm just going to suffer through my remaining minutes and switch to another carrier. Thanks again to all of you, and as long as I'm here on the 24th, happy holidays and best wishes for the new year.
posted by DavidfromBA at 3:00 PM on December 24, 2017