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Intermittent Incoming Calls Going Straight to Voicemail with No Ring

  • 2 February 2021
  • 22 replies
  • 19868 views
JeffR

I have several issues with T-Mobile’s network:

  • On occasion incoming phone calls go straight to voicemail without my phone ringing, showing a missed call notification, etc. 
  • If someone leaves a voicemail it can sometimes take an hour or more before I get the voicemail notification (but it still does not even show that an incoming call was received).
  • 2FA messages intermittently do not come in.


These issues has been ongoing for several years for me; and each time I go through the myriad of troubleshooting steps, only to have my devices blamed as either needing an upgrade or being third party devices. This makes zero sense, as the phones do work as intended immediately following me placing an outgoing phone call or by restarting the phones.

 

I’ve been tasked with working on call at work, and I have missed some very important phone calls from my team and boss. Because of this, I would like to get to finally get to the bottom of this issue and have it resolved.

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Best answer by tmo_mike_c 10 March 2021, 01:08

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22 replies

J

I’ll be following this thread for suggestions - We are new to T-Mobile, and are having the same issue on both my husband’s phone and my own. I’m just starting to look into it, and will be calling our local store when they open tomorrow morning. This looks like a “known issue” from what I can see on da google, but I’m not seeing any good solutions. If not resolved quickly, we’ll be switching back to Verizon. 

(Complicating the problem is the fact that our voice mail doesn’t seem to have a time or date stamp of any sort, so when a call goes straight to voice mail we have no way of even knowing when we received it. We just can’t function like this.)  

tmo_mike_c
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Issues like this are mainly need Signal troubleshooting to get this resolved. I’d start there first and follow those common steps to fix this.

J

I have been having the same issue, T-Mobile won’t resolve. I have a Samsung S10 and my son has a Motorola, and we have the same issues. They have told me it is my phone or my house (must have suddenly been encapsulated in lead without me knowing) but not a T-Mobile issue. Funny, same issue on two different types of phones! Looking for a new carrier after 7 years. T-Mobile is the worst for customer service. Very disappointing. One tech tried to sell me a new Samsung, another offered one for free, and the third offered me a phone for a price...entire team in Idaho. Not very honest or consistent in their replies, other than “It is not a T-Mobile issue”. 

J

It’s not your house. It’s not my house, because it happens when we’re OUT of the house. If we have wifi turned on, no matter where in the nation we are, any and all incoming calls go straight to voice mail without ringing and leave no record on “recent calls”.  We’re suspecting it might be due to the fact that our phones originally came from Verizon, and Tmobile hasn’t figured out how to get around the issue. Today’s glitch: I replied to a text on Sunday. Today is Tuesday. This morning, my reply was still showing as “Queued”. UN-FREAKING-ACCEPTABLE. (I’m not going to bother opening a new thread because it feels useless to do so.) I’m going to work harder to convince my husband we need to just pay the difference and go back to Verizon. We never (not ever) had issues like this with them. 

 

J
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This is a serious problem with T-Mobile. I am having the same issues. It seems to be getting worse. People have been telling me they try to call me and my iphone never shows any missed calls. I recently was trying to track down an item that was being shipped to my house and you had to leave your number and they would call back. I was never getting the calls. I just would have a voicemail that showed up. It is so frustrating. I have 4 months left on my equipment payment plan and I think I may have to switch as well.

P

Same issue for awhile. I may switch carriers soon. Ridiculous. 

J
Userlevel 1
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And is it just me or does it seem like their customer service is outsourced now again to people you can’t understand. The one time I heard roosters crowing in the background. 

U

I found a solution to the straight to voicemail problem.

Delete T-mobile visual voicemail.

Not surprised that the problem originated with t-mobile, not the phone.

H

So I am using oneplus phone and encountered same question recently(I cannot received any phone calls and they all went to voicemail without ring).

Here are steps I tried:

  1. I called 611 and a representive told me to try deleting all the unimportant voicemail. After I deleted all my voicemail,  the problem disappered, but after a few hours, it showed up again.
  2. I followed the official instruction and dial ##004# to reset some settings(##21# does not worked for me), and followed solution in this post, dial **61*18056377243**30# to set ring time to 30s(someone mentioned ##40# but that does not worked for me as well).
  3. At last I updated my Coloros system and found out that signal icon changed to 5G and there is an HD icon as well, then everything works well for me. 

Personally I think this problem is related to 5G, volte, Android/OS version and voicemail. I think update the system solved the problem but not sure whether step 1 and 2 played some role in solving this problem. So I wrote these steps down and hope it will be helpful for someone.

C

It doesn't seem to be an issue with the carrier or phone. I had this problem from time to time with my previous two carriers. I think it has more to do with towers/reception than the phone or carrier.

D

I’ve just fixed my problem of calls going straight to voicemail. After trying all the usual suggestions, I looked at the “call settings” screen then tapped the “call forwarding” title and the phone went thru a settings update motion. Then went it stopped it showed the phone number that the calls were going to and they where off by one number. The last digit was not my voicemail number and I don't know how that got changed. But I do know that T-Mobile has done us a huge miss justice by leaking our personal data to the web and that may have had something to do with it. I’m leaving this provider. 

O

People are telling me that when they call me that the call is going directly to voicemail. This does not happen all the time. But at times it will ring one time and then go directly to voicemail without showing up on caller ID or notify me that it was a call. I use this phone for business. I can’t have this? What’s going on with T-Mobile is there a solution?

I’m using a iphone11

D

I am having the same issue for all my phones for over a month it seems, incoming calls thru whatsapp work, but regular phone calls work inrtermittently, mostly does not work! Yet to find a solution for the issue, may be forced to change carrier if issue continues.
 

C

Same problem here too. 

J

Having same issue. Was told by friends to dump T-Mobile. Once dumped, no issue with other carriers.

S

This might not work for everyone, but what worked for me was turning off Wi-Fi Calling (Settings > Network & Internet > SIMs > T-Mobile > Wi-Fi calling off). I have a Google Pixel 6a, and people were complaining that they had to call me 2 or 3 times before my phone would actually ring. The first 2 calls would go straight to voicemail, and I did not receive a missed call notification on my phone. Somehow I think that the phone just misses the call as it’s trying to decide whether to route the call over WiFi or the T-Mobile network.

P

I’m having this issue as well.  I’ve done all the steps, swapped my device, installed a new sim, and even standing in the store had the associate try to call me and no call came through.  I am absolutely fed up with the issue and lack of resolution. I’ve been a sprint customer for years and never had this type of problem.

This isn’t a device or location related issue as it persisted across the whole state of Texas during a business trip.  Figure this out T-mobile, its ridiculous that for 2 months now you’ve wanted payment (that I paid on time, everytime) for a service that does not work.

M

Issues like this are mainly need Signal troubleshooting to get this resolved. I’d start there first and follow those common steps to fix this.

This is not true I know for a fact it’s the network I’ve been having this problem for at least a few months that I know of T-Mobile said it was not their network. I just got my new iPhone set up today that I had to warranty out through the iPhone store, and I have the exact same problems. My brother is actually here right now calling me Numerous times in a row standing right next to me and calls only go through sometimes at least six or seven calls went straight to voicemail in a row then 20 minutes later, same thing it’s T-Mobile. I’ve talked to them numerous times went to the stores replace the Sim cards. All my settings are turned off for call blocking or silencing unknown callers. I’ve got a brand new iPhone, which there was nothing wrong with the other one I had, and  The only option is to leave T-Mobile and go back to some other carrier, which is unfortunate because I like T-Mobile service and I’m OK with my plan, but if I’m not getting my calls, it’s crushing my business and my emergency calls, especially with my special-needs son

M

T-Mobile network is faulty and that’s a fact. they will try to deny it and run a test and the stores don’t know anything that’s mostly just some kids in there. They don’t have a clue when you call customer service they run a test over the phone and then tell you it’s your device I just got a brand new iPhone set up yesterday and I am looking at the same problems as with my other phone that I just warranted out and just got done setting up today it’s a network problem and based on all this feedback on this page it’s been going on for years. All my settings are turned off of call, blocking call, forwarding unknown, caller, blocking, etc. I’ve had Sim card switched out on my old phone I’ve had everything possible done and then I warrant out my iPhone and I’m on a brand new iPhone today and my brother is standing right next to me calling me numerous times and only  half the calls are coming through the other half go straight to voicemail so obviously I’ve been wasting tons of time. Thanks to T-Mobile warranting out phones through Apple and sitting at the iPhone store at the mall numerous times in the last couple weeks because T-Mobile keeps trying to deny that it’s their fault and it’s their issue and saying it was my iPhone which obviously it’s not. I’m sitting here right now at my office with a brand new iPhone that’s less than 24 hours old and just got done downloading all my stuff from my other phone and it’s the exact same problem 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

P

So I have (had) been having this issue of all calls going to voicemail when I went from my Apple Iphone 14 pro max to my S22 Ultra, all of the calls on the s22 ultra were going straight to Voicemail if someone called. 

I checked all the usual suspects, spam blocking. call forwarding, DND, all of it was correct and not blocking the calls. I even tried turning off wifi calling and bluetooth like these forums suggested. 

Additionally, I spent 4 to 5 hours at the store trouble shooting the device and we finally came to the conclusion it was the line not the device. because when we put the SIM card in another phone the same results happen all calls went to voicemail. if the call called right back the device would ring. 

The store manager called tech support and put a ticket in and they were going to take 3 days to get to it, which was totally unacceptable. So she told me that is extreme cases what she would do to correct a problem with a line is the following. 

She would cancel the number on the mobile phone account that was giving problems and then reinstate it 5 minutes later and that would clear the issues with the line because you are technically starting over fresh again. 

We did this today with my line that kept going to voicemail and trust me I was suspect of the idea. But then after we went through the process which took a total of 45 minutes at the store it was fixed and I have had no issues since.  

So as a last result I would recommend doing this to clear an issue you are having with your line if you have ruled out that it is NOT the device.

Hope this helps.

T

I have an android phone and I tried a lot of things (new sim, restarting phone, turn off spam, turn off all battery optimization, turned off 5g phone calls, turned off Wifi calling)

What actually worked was turning off “Visual Voicemail”

Go to phone app → Settings → Voicemail → turn off Visual Voicemail

I do not know if turning off all the other stuff had any impact but I will be slowly turning back on the Spam Blockers, Wifi Calling …. 

K

In most cases, the issue is two-fold. On the land-line side of the T-Mobile system, there is a part of the call switching system called Signaling System 7. (SS7) This system has a signal called “Connection Confirm.” This signal makes the calling phone system wait until your phone has been located on the network, then creates the ring signal for both ends. This also starts the timer for the call to go to VM. 

If there is a problem with this signaling system, it can cause the timer to forward calls to your VM prematurely. Keep in mind the call forwarding happens on the land-line side of the system, before it even goes to the towers. 

Where your device’s connection comes into play, is a weak signal to your device, or heavy network congestion can make it take too long for the system to find your phone before the call forwarding times out, sending the call to your VM. 

I am currently having this issue in an area with an amazingly strong signal. It even happens while I’m on the phone. The call waiting does not show a second call, but I get a pop-up to tell me I have a new voicemail. Sometimes, it shows one or two rings, but the call is gone before I can answer it. A minute later I get the new VM pop-up.

The fix must come from T-Mobile’s engineering team. So far, no one I talk to understands that side of the system.

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