Phone call with the pinephone pro

[dfs]

Hi everyone; long time lurker but it's my first post here. I got a pinephone pro and none of the distributions I tried were able to make a phone call. I tried (in their posh/plasma versions); Manjaro, Mobian, Arch and Postmarketos. While PostmarketOS make it clear phonecalls are broken, I saw here and there people saying the phonecalls were working in the others I tested (while not explaining how...).

Phonecalls do work as expected on my original pinephone with the same sim card.

Did I miss something ? A new setting or package to update ? Updating a firmware like the modem? The more I search and test the more others workings feature are breaking

any help or explaination would be awesome. even if it's to tell me it never worked; then I could stop searching and just wait for a release claming it fixed it ^^'.

thanks everyone

[lllsondowlll]

Hi everyone; long time lurker but it's my first post here. I got a pinephone pro and none of the distributions I tried were able to make a phone call. I tried (in their posh/plasma versions); Manjaro, Mobian, Arch and Postmarketos. While PostmarketOS make it clear phonecalls are broken, I saw here and there people saying the phonecalls were working in the others I tested (while not explaining how...).

Phonecalls do work as expected on my original pinephone with the same sim card.

Did I miss something ? A new setting or package to update ? Updating a firmware like the modem? The more I search and test the more others workings feature are breaking

any help or explaination would be awesome. even if it's to tell me it never worked; then I could stop searching and just wait for a release claming it fixed it ^^'.

thanks everyone

I can only speak for Manjaro and Arch Phosh, but with the correct APN settings phone calls and MMS work. Mobile data needs enabled, and APN settings need set sometimes manually.

[kaida]

the only distro I didnt have acess to phone is postmarketOs

[bcnaz]

Hi everyone; long time lurker but it's my first post here. I got a pinephone pro and none of the distributions I tried were able to make a phone call. I tried (in their posh/plasma versions); Manjaro, Mobian, Arch and Postmarketos. While PostmarketOS make it clear phonecalls are broken, I saw here and there people saying the phonecalls were working in the others I tested (while not explaining how...).

Phonecalls do work as expected on my original pinephone with the same sim card.

Did I miss something ? A new setting or package to update ? Updating a firmware like the modem? The more I search and test the more others workings feature are breaking

any help or explaination would be awesome. even if it's to tell me it never worked; then I could stop searching and just wait for a release claming it fixed it ^^'.

thanks everyone

While I have tested all your described operating systems on my original Pine phones,  I have only tried the Pine installed
Manjaro, and the Bookworm version of Mobian on my new Explorer Edition phone.  ( so far )
Lots of stuff just did not function on Manjaro,  I wanted to give it a chance though,  but, It did just feel "unfriendly" to me.

Mobian just feels "friendly & familiar"  to me.
YES !  it does have a lot of problems @ the moment.
BUT there is NO magic secret firmware that fixes everything.
>>Number one problem for me and my Explorer,  is the crash on suspend !
If I leave it plugged into the charger,  I have not had that problem...  (30 hours plugged in without a problem)
Not good for a mobile phone,   but a "starting point".?

>>  I have not been able to update the software the last few days, maybe some great fixes are in those updates ?

Number two problem 'for me', no visible boot indicator LED, it does boot, but you are in the dark while it starts.
I have not attempted hot spot yet, but data is working,  I have done a few forum posts with my Explorer while 
using cellular data.

SO,  for the moment my Explorer is a 'Home phone'  but it does do voice calls and sms texts, web surfing.
Before writing this post I called one of my son's for about 45 minutes,  he said it was clear on both regular call
and on the speaker ... but that it sounded a little better with the speaker phone turned off.  (his words)
I have the microphone volume turned as low as it will go, ----  before going to mute, 
and the sound volume @ about 50%  -- It is still plenty loud, even for me.   ( I am a bit hard of hearing)

I usually just test between my Pine phones,  but I wanted to include an outside opinion, within this post.
Nothing special was done, download the OS, flash w/etcher, put the sd card into the phone.
I do make sure all the blanks in settings are filled in, -- 'Regions & Languages' can negatively affect a few things.

I did format the emmc using the 'disks' app on the Mobian sd card.
All of my Pine phones are still using the original modem firmware.
I am not very software savvy,  but I have been playing with the Pine phones since the Brave Heart.

Within my limited abilities :  I think the hardware is OK,  it is just a matter of time & software development.

Good Luck with your new Explorer Pro.

---

----------
I have one Brave Heart, three PMOS convergent, one Manjaro convergent, one Explorer phones.

[dfs]

thanks for your responses.

lllsondowlll: I did set the same APN as my original Pinephone, still no luck; Once I press "launch call" from the app dialer (Phosh/Plasma) the screen flash then the call is added to the call history... and that's it.

bcnaz: Nice it worked for you. And yep the suspend-to-crash actual workflow isn't really nice but eh it evolve so fast it will be resolved fast I think.

kaida: As for the doc: yep. But it still don't work for me ^^' Like I said; Probably configs...

==

I just tryed it with a different sim card from an other carrier and same issue. Tried it again with my other pinephone (original) and it work as expect with the given APN settings. Aw.

Since I'm not able to provide meaningful information to go forward in finding a solution I guess I'll wait a little and try again in a month ^^'

I got a part of my answer: It's supposed to work out of the box like the previous pinephone; So it's not a missing package / tweak I'm missing.

Thanks everyone.

Do I need to mark this thread "resolved'ish" or "closed" ?

[Kevin Kofler]

This is particularly interesting because the PinePhone and the PinePhone Pro use the same modem chip. So why do the same settings work for you on the original PinePhone and not on the Pro?

Also, mobile data and/or a valid APN should not be required to make phone calls (even VoLTE calls) and SMS.