[Samsung Galaxy Note 9 Questions & Answers] IT_Architect:
If I enable the Security Policy Updates and run Update now, it kills call recording.

Where things are at and what I've experienced:

- After following jd14771's suggestions of things to try to prevent updates, for the first time I did not wake up to the phone-paralyzing Pie update notification.

- I removed the SIM and flashed the earliest Oreo build for the Verizon Note 9, 2018-08-02, which is 4-months-earlier than Verizon's last Oreo build for the Note 9.

- I did not insert the SIM until after I ran setup and turned on Developer Options where I turned off Auto Update, turned on USB debugging, and set the USB mode to PTP in preparation for ADB.

- Ran ADB and ran these commands:

pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sec.android.soagent
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.samsung.android.app.omcagent
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.wsomacp
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.policydm

- I inserted the SIM so I could use the Play Store app, go into settings, and turn off automatic updates and notifications. FYI: The Play Store implemented a policy change in March of 2019 that severely limited the rights of apps, and required all vendors to update their software in order to keep their programs at the play store. The policy change poisoned or maimed many software programs. One of our phones had updates turned off, which is why it was unscathed. Call recording is the one you hear the most about because it is critical for so many people. However, it affected the functionality of many apps. If you read app reviews even before the change, it is common to see comments on how it used to work good before they changed it. To maintain call recording, you have no choice but to shut off automatic updates and maintain apps manually.

- I no sooner turned automatic updates off at the Play Store when I noticed in notifications that it was updating apps automatically. I quickly cancelled each one before it was able to update many of them, but a few did complete before I was able to unapprove them.

- Later when the update time zone data, I did not approve it, maybe it would have been safe to do, but I wasn't taking any chances and simply cleared the notification. Later, a security update notification appeared, which I also didn't approve, and simply cleared the notification.

- I side-loaded a previous version of the call recorder software and call recording works perfectly. It did on the latest Verizon version of Oreo also, but with it I was unable to prevent a forced upgrade to Pie.

- If I enable the Security Policy Updates and run Update now, it kills call recording.

- At 10 AM EDT the following day, I received a security update, which is approximately 24 hours since my install. It didn't say it is Pie this time, but it was my guess that it was just Pie on the sly. I decided I might as well let it go because it is already too late and I would have to reflash to get rid of it anyway. It rebooted a couple times. When it finished, it looked the same, so I checked and it was still on 8.1, call recording still works in both directions, but it had updated the phone from the 2018-08-02 build that I installed, the earliest build, to the one that came out 22 days later, the 2018-08-24 build.

Thanks!