Q: Your iphone and mac must be on the same wifi network

Hi....I found the solution to this on my MacBook Pro running OS X Yosemite and now everything is working perfectly and reliably.

In the days after installing Yosemite on my MacBook, and before I even went to set up Continuity features and iPhone dialing from the Mac, I received a few pop-ups asking me to allow incoming connections for several system services.  I was not doing anything that would have caused these pop-ups to show up at that time so I denied incoming connections for all of them because I didn't know what they were for.

Fast forward a few weeks and I was trying to set up Screen Sharing so that I could help my father with his Mac remotely, and we could not get it to work for the life of me.  Kept getting connection errors, which eventually led me to the thought that all of those services I denied access to in the Mac firewall a few weeks earlier might be needed for Screen Sharing in the Messages app.

So I went into the Mac firewall and Allowed incoming connection on the following services:

Screen Sharing (enabled in Sharing in System Preferences)

awacsd

coreaudiod

FaceTime.app

identityservicesd.app

kdc

launchd

Messages.app

NETserver.app

sharingd

Not only did this get Screen Sharing working, but the iPhone calls from the Mac started working too.  And it has stayed working since.  Some of these are clearly related to the Screen Sharing feature so I can't identify which ones specifically got the iPhone/Mac calling working....but one or more of them certainly did because it only worked after I did this.

I did not change any setting on my modem or router.

I hope this helps someone out there because iPhone/Mac calling is pretty convenient....

Maybe this was just a freak coincidence, but I tried multiple times and received the same error. Then I made sure my phone was active (unlock code entered) and tried again. And it worked! Tried again when phone was dark but still unlocked, and it worked again. I'll try again when the phone is locked and see if this remains an issue.

Freak coincidence, though it did work again after I turned Cellular Calls (in FaceTime) off and on again. Though I would really prefer not to have to do that every time... No problems with receiving calls on my iMac or Messages. Only with making calls.

I may have found another possible reason that this happens.  2.4Ghz and 5Ghz routers.  Many of the new routers will "auto negotiate" to the correct Ghz setting, but it will only broadcast a single SSID from the router.  Once I went in and changed the 2.4Ghz SSID to a new name and connected both to the "same SSID" (5Ghz) it works!  I'm sure each router is different in how you do this, but maybe this will help someone!

IG

I am facing this issue too, fix working for me is turn wifi off and on again on my iPhone 5, not comfortable but working.

Started working again! Go to wireless settings in your router and Uncheck Wireless IP isolation> Save settings > reboot router. works like a charm.

Started working again! Go to wireless settings in your router and Uncheck Wireless IP isolation> Save settings > reboot router. works like a charm.

I have a NETGEAR router too - NETGEAR DGN2200.

The HandOff calls feature works with the store WiFi but not with my home WiFi.

I unchecked the 'Wireless Isolation' option in the setting and click 'Apply'.

Now HandOff calls works at my home WiFi too.

TNX

this worked!  perfect.  easy and worked right away.  thank you

Check your wi-fi settings to DISABLE AP ISOLATION.

JohnNY123 wrote:

 

Fast forward a few weeks and I was trying to set up Screen Sharing so that I could help my father with his Mac remotely, and we could not get it to work for the life of me.  Kept getting connection errors, which eventually led me to the thought that all of those services I denied access to in the Mac firewall a few weeks earlier might be needed for Screen Sharing in the Messages app.

You nailed the problem, John! I temporarily turned off the firewall on my Mac and I could suddenly make phone calls through my iPhone! I would never have guessed that the iPhone needed to make a connection into my Mac in order for the Mac to make a phone call through the iPhone!

The only app I needed to add to re-enable my firewall was "Facetime.app".

Was having the same issue and Unchecking "Block all incoming connections" in Firewall Options on the Mac fixed it. Thanks!

Also, besides this, depending on the network configuration, it might be helpful to have a look at:

Using FaceTime and iMessage behind a firewall - Apple Support

to do any router settings changes if required.

I have the same issue. However, when someone calls me I can answer and talk through my iMac, but I cannot make outgoing calls. Strange and annoying! Am running on OSX El Capitan 10.11.5 along with an iPhone 6s on iOS 9.3.1.

I have read through all the posts and tried various things but nothing works. Even turned off the Firewall but the problem persists.

For me, I had to configure my router to allow my laptop to see my iPhone. I have a Verizon wireless router so I turned off IGMP. Under normal circumstances, this is a firewall feature to protect your devices (i.e. they can't talk to each other). But, this should be overkill for home networks that have strong passwords and you can turn it off without concern.

I confirmed this was the problem because I could not ping my non-sleeping iPhone from my laptop.

  1. Get iPhone IP address via these instructions: https://kb.wisc.edu/helpdesk/page.php?id=38724

  2. Open Terminal.app

  3. Make sure the iPhone is awake (otherwise it won't 'hear' you pinging it).

  4. Type: "ping <ipaddress>" with ipaddress taken from step 1.

        ex. ping 192.168.1.2

  You should see a bunch of these repeat if successful ping:

       64 bytes from 192.168.1.2: icmp_seq=436 ttl=64 time=68.524 ms

  Failed pings look like this:

      Request timeout for icmp_seq 0

If your computer and iPhone can't talk (i.e. they can't ping each other), then something is preventing this and you won't be able to connect with FaceTime.

To turn off IGMP on a Verizon router:

   See here: https://forums.verizon.com/t5/Fios-Internet/wireless-computers-cannot-see-wired- computers/td-p/539547