Google might no longer be the fastest to roll out monthly security updates these days (Samsung is doing some pretty decent stuff in this area), but the search giant is still your safest bet as far as Android software updates are concerned.
As of this writing, it’s only Google that has released the latest February 2020 security patch to all of its eligible devices.
The update rolled out earlier this month, tagging along fixes for an NFC bug, Assistant crashing as well as some camera enhancements, among other things, at least for Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL owners. For those on the Pixel 3 and older models, you only get security fixes.
Quite disappointing from Google to send mere security fixes to Pixel 3 and older units when there are some annoying bugs to deal with, more so the one affecting sensors.
Bug reports started appearing in the Google issue tracker soon after Android 10 arrived back in September, where affected users say multiple sensors that include Active Edge, Proximity Sensor, Ambient Light Sensor, Auto-brightness, and Accelerometer no longer work.
As you can see from the screengrab above, the first report was submitted on September 4. Google acknowledged after supposedly identifying the root cause and subsequently promised to fix the issue with the October security patch.
But the issue didn’t go away even after the said October update as more reports kept creeping in throughout the end of last year. It was after the January security update that reports peaked once again.
More related cases kept popping up in the Google support forums and even on Twitter pointing fingers at the January patch. But even after the latest February security update, multiple users are still dealing with Pixel 3 sensors issues.
And from the look of things, the issue might be affecting other Google Pixel phones as well.
Apparently, the February update did seem to address the Pixel 3 sensors bug, but after restarting the phone, things went back to where they were.
More fresh reports are flooding the Google support forums, indeed confirming that Pixel 3 sensors are still broken even after the February 2020 security update.
Considering the issues were temporarily addressed in the latest patch coupled with the fact that some users say other sensors are now working properly, perhaps the March update will include permanent fixes for all sensor issues. But of course, this is just a hunch, so we wait.
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