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Google's March update breaks contactless payments on some Pixel phones

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By Alan Friedman

Published: Mar 11, 2022, 11:54 PM

Google's March update breaks contactless payments on some Pixel phones

Pixel 6 series owners might actually be happy that they are being delayed from installing the March quarterly Feature Drop. That's because some of the other phones that were able to install the update, from the Pixel 3a to the Pixel 5a, are having issues. Affected units start to show some wonky behavior a few days after loading the update when a notification appears on the screen saying, "Your phone doesn’t meet software standards."

The rest of the notification says, "You can’t pay contactless with this device. It may be rooted, or running uncertified software. Contact your device manufacturer or visit Google Pay Help for more info. You can still use Google Pay to pay online."

Reddit users rocking the Pixel 4a, Pixel 4a 5G, and the Pixel 5 posted about receiving this notification. One redditor, jockerer23, shared a picture of the notification he received which accompanies this article. After seeing the notification, he wrote that he "consulted Google Pay Help Link and followed the instructions there. Everything seems alright (my device is play protect certified, I don't download apps outside of the actual play store, I have NFC enabled, Google Pay is default, not on beta, phone is stock with no modifications, etc)."

March update breaks contactless pay on Pixel phones

In his post, jockerer23 said that he informed Google about the issue. Another Reddit user, carbonatedair, responded to another user by saying, "This is a major issue, and honestly I'd be pissed too; at least I found out about it ahead of time as opposed to during a transaction like you. Hopefully it gets fixed sooner rather than later."

So once again Google is in a situation where it must send out an update to replace damage caused by its previous update. If this continues, Pixel users are going to start breaking out in a cold sweat whenever Google is about to push out an update to their phones.

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Alan, an ardent smartphone enthusiast and a veteran writer at PhoneArena since 2009, has witnessed and chronicled the transformative years of mobile technology. Owning iconic phones from the original iPhone to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, he has seen smartphones evolve into a global phenomenon. Beyond smartphones, Alan has covered the emergence of tablets, smartwatches, and smart speakers.

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