While the Google Pixel 6 and 6 Pro are our favorite phones to be released this year, a few people just keep running into weird bugs. It feels like they might be the most error-prone Google phones to launch in a while, and judging by the number of bug fixes introduced in the Android December patch, we’re inclined to believe that. It looks like we’re going to have to add yet another issue to the pile, though, as we’re coming across a few Pixel 6 units that randomly stop reading some sensors’ data, breaking features like auto-rotate and horizontal photography.
We’ve seen reports from a few Pixel 6 users around the web (both on Reddit and on the Google Support Forum), explaining that features like auto-rotate and automatic horizontal images are breaking at random for them, without a clue as to what has happened to cause the problem. The fix is usually simple enough: People report that they can restart their phones to get the features working again. However, that fix doesn’t seem permanent, as things can break at random even after you do that.
On the technical level, it looks like the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro sometimes forget how to communicate with a few sensors enabling auto-rotate. We can confirm that the accelerometer, the gyroscope, and the compass are affected by the problem for us, with these sensors not returning any data when using troubleshooting apps like Sensor Test. Given that the gyroscope and the accelerometer are crucial to provide auto-rotate and automatic horizontal images, the connection makes sense. The same goes for anecdotal evidence of map apps not showing which direction you’re pointing your phone. With the compass unavailable, applications simply don’t have that data.
We can confirm these findings on a Pixel 6 unit of our own, and we suspect one of our Pixel 6 Pro devices has also run into it at some point based on past shenanigans with horizontal photography.
The cause is unclear altogether. Anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that the issue only crops up for phones updated to the December security patch, but it’s possible that our data set is just too small to rule out another cause. Taking into account that the December patch brought some severe problems like significantly worse mobile connectivity to some Pixel 6 units, we wouldn’t be surprised if it was the culprit.
From what we can tell, this Pixel 6 issue is unrelated to the long-standing bug that disables each and every sensor on older Pixel phones at random. Our affected Pixel 6 unit still returns data for other sensors, like those for light, proximity, and magnetism. The barometer is also unaffected for us.
At least we’ve got a simple solution for fixing the problem. While restarting your device isn’t a permanent fix, it’s something, and it’s better than being stuck with a sensor-less phone altogether. Whatever the cause, we can only hope that Google will find it soon and provide a fix in another update — maybe the January patch?
We’ve reached out to Google for comment.
