Call Failed...

are you actually listening to see if you hear anything? I was having this problem the other night, turned out the line i was trying to call was busy

I've hit the "call failed" bug as well, but in a slightly different way. If I receive a call, ~30% of the time the call will just drop after about 10 seconds and I'll get the "call failed" message.

Full bars, full battery, freshly rebooted. Happens in a variety of locations.

Let's hope there's a firmware update to address this problem coming soon..

Mine has been doing this for months. VERY annoying. I'll get the "call failed" message very very often, after anywhere between 1 - 6 more attempts it will eventually go through, although sometimes it freezes before that. Also, I have a huge number of dropped calls. I'll be talking to someone and it just drops out (no change in signal strength), I'll get the call failed message and the person on the other line usually reports getting a verbal message to the effect of "The number you have dialed is not available; please try your call again later."

I really wish AT&T would do something about this. And for heaven's sake, quit running the "fewest dropped calls" ad. What a load of doody. I don't know where they're taking those optimistic statistics from, but I've got many friends on AT&T AND other carriers, and those of us on AT&T have infinitely more dropped calls than those on other carriers. I could be wrong, but I'm fairly confidant it's an AT&T issue, not an iPhone or Apple issue (although I won't get started on the issues created by the 2.0 update which ARE Apple's shortcoming).

I agree that there is plenty of room for improvement in AT&T's coverage. How can you explain the failed and dropped calls when the phone says it has signal? It's done that to me when showing one bar (understandable) all the way up to 5 bars (not understandable) so it doesn't seem consistent to me. The most puzzling is the dropped calls, I think. I can place a call with the phone showing how-ever many bars and remain standing in the same spot for the entire call and yet it still does that funky "call failed" thing and telling the other person that the number they dialed was unavailable when I've been talking to them for 10 minutes. Any thoughts on that? I've had my iPhone since early September, but it's gotten really bad about failed & dropped calls in the last few months.

No, this is not just a coverage issue. If the phone is showing full coverage bars, how can it be?

In my house, my old Samsung mobile worked just fine. I never once experienced a dropped call while at home. Things just are not the same with the iPhone.

The bottom line: this is not a carrier problem. It looks painfully obvious right now that the iPhone v2.0 firmware was rushed out. My guess is that the firmware simply isn't stable under regular use, and that the dropped calls might be related to the widely reported problems with applications crashing as well.

*I have experienced this issue on several random occassions. Here's what's happening: (is this similar to your experience?)*

- iPhone has full or very strong signal, and is on a 3G network.

- iPhone is connected to AC Charger, and battery has completed charging (This typically happens with my first call of the day after the iPhone has charged all night.

- when placing a call, the iPhone dials the number, next I hear three tones and then see the Call Failed message.

- It's important to note that the person I call DOES receive a call, but when they answer the call is automatically ended.

- The last two items will continue to occur over and over again no matter how many times I try to place a call (can push either the 'Call Back' button, or try again using the contact list to dial a new number) UNTIL the iPhone is powered off, then back on.

- When the iPhone gets into this 'call failed' issue, I am able to receive calls, HOWEVER the display will freeze on the screen showing the ANSWER and DECLINE buttons for the entire duration of the call. I cannot end the call using the iPhone.

_- Once power cycled, the iPhone works fine until the next time it randomly gets into this call failed issue._



*I have contacted AT&T Customer Care each time this has occurred. Here's what they have shared:*

- All local cell towers are working.

- Two of the three local towers are in a 'degradated state' (meaning they're working fine, but technical specs are less than ideal for the network) These towers are scheduled to be upgraded soon.

- My iPhone was updated with the latest list of towers as a precaution.

- AT&T Customer Care cannot explain the cause, and do not have a known issue in their database.

- Suggested that I visit an Apple store to have the phone looked at by Apple techs.


*I will keep this forum posted with any progress I can make to resolve this issue. I've been an AT&T and Apple customer for 8 days now, and have had this issue occur three times; how frustrating!!*

If anyone has experienced this situation, please post a short reply.

I completely agree, there are some big problems with the 2.0 software/firmware...

What I suggessted is that the phone displays full bars but hasn't really switched over to the new tower or edge/3g handoff...But this is probably not the issue, just a suggestion, as many have reported problems with the phone taking a long time to switch over...

I suggest restarting, resetting,resetting all settings or restoring, and see if it helps the issue at any step...MY reception has been fantastic. Even in my brick house, so I don't think this is universal.
If those steps don't solve it, I would get a replacement and see if it helps...

This shouldn't be happening regularly and I empathize with you. The phone is the one thing that should always work and I wouldn't accept that kind of service...

Have you had att prior to the iphone?(just to rule out network, which I don't think is the issue)

This seems like a device issue.

From my experience and reading in other forums, this issue has nothing to do with the service provider. AT&T, T-Mobile, and even some European carriers have been mentioned in other posts. Firmware, doesn't seem to matter at this point either. I've seen posts pertaining to all FW versions as early as 1.1.2. The issue has been isolated to missed calls that are redirected to voicemail. Essentially, calls that drop off before the voicemail system starts, work fine (Missed Call message). The calls that wait long enough to hear the voicemail greeting, will trigger the immediate error (Call Failure: Call Failed) message. I'm no expert, but I think this has something to do with the phone's software that tells the call to redirect back to the voicemail server, then display missed call info.

but that doesnt explain it happening to me in the middle of a call.

this has been happening with more regularity as of late. in my room, i used to get 3-5 bars, now, at most i'll get 3. sometimes i'll watch the bars decrease until the calls fails, almost like i can anticipate it happening. do note this has occured when i was on 1.1.4 as well, but def. not as frequent as it has lately on 2.0. i didnt think it was a firmware issue, but now reading this thread, think its more of a possibility.

Hi all,

I have been encountering this "Call Failed" problem with my iPhone 2.0 about 3-4 times a day at my home. My wife's phone, Palm Centro, works fine in the same network. This led me to some experimentation with the phone based on which I believe the issue is caused by the new 3G capabilities of this phone.

With 3G on, I get 1 or 2 bars maximum and calls fail frequently.
With 3G off, I get 3 or 4 bars and no failed calls.

For now, I have just shut off 3G capabilities and I turn it on when I want to surf the web.

Hope this helps.

i think i have figured this out.

it is the 3G option.

with 3g i would get a max of 1 bar on my iphone. when i turned it off i got full 5 bars and no call failures at all.

try turning your 3g option off, thats what worked for me.

Not possible to turn off the 3G option in Japan. Softbank (Japan carrier) doesn't allow the iPhone access to the 2G network here.

However, my old 3G Samsung never had a problem at all on the Softbank system. This problem seems centered on the iPhone alone.

I did reflash the phone to load the latest version (5A347) of the 2.0 firmware. The problem still appears, albeit not as often.

Same here, calls fail repeatedly. We are a two iPhone 3G household. We can't even call each other. If one of us does get the call to complete, the receiving phone goes directly to voice mail without ringing. We know, we'll be sitting right beside each other. My phone almost never rings - and yes, the volume and ring settings are fine - and people tell me they are calling me and it goes directly to voice mail. Right now I'm trying to send an SMS and it keeps failing. I'm beginning to wonder if we should just return them. It's a nice toy but we really need to have phones. We live in Mexico, turning off 3G is not an option with Telcel.

I'm with T-Mobile and have almost no problems reaching anyone. However, I have three friends who are experiencing major call failed issues. They are all with ATT and each has a different phone. (iPhone 3G, Motorola, and Sony) regardless of battery charge or signal status, they are all unreachable. Whether from another cell or land line. The calls are dropped and dropped incoming or out going. Each of them have said "well maybe my battery is lower than it shows" or "I think there's something wrong with the speaker".
I imagine it is something to do with the incredible increase to the ATT network since everyone and their brother jumped on the iPhone bandwagon...?