OnePlus 5 911 Reboot Issue: OnePlus Explains Emergency Call Bug and Fix

Among several other issues, OnePlus 5 users were recently also facing an unexpected reboot every time they tried to make an emergency call, with the 911 emergency number also affected. OnePlus was quick to respond and fix the bug, and now it has also summarised the reason why this strange issue occurred in the first place.

According to OnePlus, the issue was related to users on a VoLTE network. The call triggered an OTDOA protocol sending the location of the user to the emergency operators, activating a reboot. OnePlus claims that it worked with Qualcomm, its hardware provider, to fix this issue on the OnePlus 5.

“Last week, we received distressing news regarding an issue related to dialling an emergency number on the OnePlus 5. Late last week an update was released to resolve the issue. We would like to provide additional information on the emergency call issue. The source of this issue was related to a modem memory usage issue that triggered a reboot.

This reboot was a random occurrence for some users on VoLTE network where OTDOA protocol was triggered when placing an emergency call. We have worked with our partners at Qualcomm to resolve this issue globally.

To clarify, this occurred only on some OnePlus 5 devices, in random instances under the circumstances described above. Starting last Friday, we rolled out a software update that resolved this issue. We took this extremely seriously and want to thank the users who provided device logs to help us quickly resolve it.”

The bug was reported last week, where several OnePlus 5 users claimed that the smartphone prevented them from making emergency calls to 911 or 999. According to the users, the OnePlus 5 smartphone rebooted every single time an emergency number was dialled.

The OnePlus 5 smartphone was launched in June, and there have been several issues that have been reported so far already. Few OnePlus 5 users experienced a peculiar "jelly-scrolling" bug that rendered the interface incorrectly when scrolling through a webpage or app - an issue that the company later said was 'natural'. Another issue reported was the phone unable to adjust left and right stereo audio channels when the orientation of the smartphone was reversed during video recording. In a separate issue, an Indian user alleged that his OnePlus 5 unit shipped without physical volume buttons.