[Samsung confirms] Not possible to record calls on Galaxy S9, say app developers

Update (May 28):

It’s now possible to record calls on Samsung Galaxy S9/S9+. More information here.

Update (May 17):

One of the Galaxy S9 user recently heard from Samsung that they may implement call recording, at least for the countries where it’s not restricted. Here’s a translated version of what the user shared:

“They will study to implement the recording of calls in the countries where they are allowed, but they can not tell me the date for it”

Update (April 23):

Details of the lawsuit filed against Samsung.

Update (April 20):

Samsung hit with lawsuit over Galaxy S9 call issues. More information here.

Update (April 1): Samsung has issued an official statement on the matter, confirming that Galaxy S9/S9+ don’t allow call recording in most markets. Read more here.

Update (March 24):

More reports on the matter:
https://twitter.com/neilhillman/status/979453499237904385
https://twitter.com/JyotishHandique/status/977457643202666496
https://twitter.com/MUKULM79/status/975710974538743809

Original story follows:

Trying to record calls through your newly bought Galaxy S9/S9+ unit, and failing? Well, don’t bother downloading different third-party apps to test why ain’t your phone recording calls.

Here’s what we dug out – teams behind at least a couple of third-party applications have confirmed that call recording isn’t possible at all on these devices, and Samsung’s to blame.

Here are the details:

Users of Galaxy S9 and S9+ phones have been heading to different help forums (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8) to bring the matter to light. Going by the reports, those with S9/S9+ Exynos models complain that while recording calls, their phone only records their voice, not that of the person on the other end of the call.

Those affected note that the aforementioned behaviour occurs irrespective of whether it’s an incoming/outgoing call. In fact, many users tried different third-party call recording applications, only to conclude that this is not an app-specific problem.

What teams behind third-party apps have to say

Interestingly, two of the most popular call recording apps – ACR and Call Recorder (by Boldbeast) – have separate threads going on their forums addressing the matter.

ACR clearly states that Samsung’s implementation of Android Oreo is blocking call recording on Exynos models. The team says

So far it looks like some change in Samsung Android 8 is actually blocking call recording. We are not yet sure if this is by design or just a bug.

Furthermore, they added

This issue affects all call recording apps and is intermittent in the sense of it is random in its nature and does not happen all the time. We were not able to find any pattern.

Note: ACR’s Repo Owner also said “All call recording apps have the same issue. This shows that it might be hardware problem” and “Currently there is no call recording app works on s9”

On the other hand, one of the Administrators on the BoldBeast forum says that call recording isn’t working as intended in some countries, for it has been disabled by Samsung itself.

In some countries the call recording feature of phones having Exynos 9810 inside is disabled by Samsung, you can only record your own voice, the caller’s voice is very weak or mute in recordings, no matter what recorder you are using in the market. At this moment there is no good solution in the whole world. However if you root the phone Boldbeast Recorder has more options to fix the problem.

As for whose fault it is, the app developers are quite clear the issue needs to be resolved at Samsung’s end. However, Samsung doesn’t seem interested as the matter involves third party apps. Here’s what Samsung Support has been telling the complainants:

I am in New Zelanad with a new galaxy s9+ Like others, call recording is integral to my business ACR worked fine on galaxy note 4, only records my voice on s9+ I followed the suggestion to contact Samsung They replied saying this is a third party app so contact their developers

It is not ACR problem! I use this app for years, developers are great and for little price they update app x times weekly. I don’t know better app! And pls, don’t blame them, blame Samsung. No other app can record. Why? Samsung confirmed me they blocked recording.

I contacted my local Samsung support and they told me that it was up to the recording app’s devs to make the app compatible with the new firmware that Samsung released. But they also told me that they would relay my complaint to the Samsung devs and they will do their best to correct the situation in the upcoming firmwares.

We Googled a bit. Though we couldn’t find anything official, most tech reports we stumbled upon said this is likely due to laws in those regions. While, this could be true, it doesn’t take away the fact that users who were able to access the call recording feature on devices like Galaxy S7/S8 are now not able to do the same on their new Galaxy S9 units.

While Samsung hasn’t officially addressed the matter yet, we hope they give more clarity sooner than later, as an important functionality is missing on Exynos versions of Galaxy S9/S9+ in many regions.

Stay connected with us on Twitter (@PiunikaWeb) to hear about all related developments as and when they occur