Unable to slide to answer

Same problem, no solution yet.

yup. happened to me several times. seems random. only happens about 5% of the time. but drives me crazy. i've missed calls because of this.

Just bumping this issue (here and on Apple feedback). Running latest updates, no cases or skins for the phone. Like you say, 5% or so of calls are impossible to answer. Not good as I am often on call for work and must be reachable.

I have noted that my iPhone will not display the name of at least one of the callers in this situation (just his number), despite all his details being in Contacts. I suspect this has to do with some bug in the software matching a caller's number with data in Contacts.

Similar issue: on my partner's 1st gen iphone he (often) can't slide to answer, no movement at all. 6-8 times and then it will slide.

I noticed that nobody mentioned that they tried a reset, holding the sleep/wake button and home button down at the same time until the Apple logo appears, ignoring the option to turn off the phone.
It's worth a try.

Mine just started to behave the same way. I'm missing calls all the time sudenly.

the slider works perfect to unlock the screen, yet I cannot slide to answer any calls...
a phone should be capable of answering calls.

I got a first generation iphone, always treated very well, never fallen, nothing that could harm it.
No software, nothing, just plain install, and all of a sudden this just started happening for no apparent reason.

I did try a reset (sleep and home until it reboots), I could answer the first call, and from the second call it misbehaved again.

Anybody have any idea, or suggestions ? I'd hate to go back to a nokia....

New to the forums as far as posting but have browsed here for months. Has helped with multiple problems over 4 iPhones I have owned (yes, 4).

I too have had a phone with this same problem. To me it seems that it is a corrupt file in the phone associated with particular contacts. the reason I say this is because not all calls acted this way, at least in my case.

The phone I had with this problem was a 8gb 1st gen iPhone. Here are some of the things I tried and why I think it is a system file issue:

Restored the phone to factory settings (was 2.1). After the restore was complete I placed a few calls and had a few calls returned with no problem. I decided to
restore my contacts, pics, etc and after doing so the phone went back to it's old ways. Would not allow me to answer when calls received.

Decided to wipe the phone again and restore to original 2.1, after that all was good again. Did not do a restore for contacts, had to input them in manually but at least the phone doesn't have the issue with not being able to answer the phone.

The phone in question was unlocked and did have Cydia installed. Don't know if something from it caused the problem to begin with but I have reloaded Cydia again and have not had an issue.


Hope some of my babble helps, was very frustrating to have a phone you can't answer.

Me too - exactly the same problem. Very frustrating!!!!

This is an issue that plagued my phone as well. After searching some of the other forums, I did find a solution which solved my problem.

The issue is with ringtones!

If your contact is assigned a CUSTOM ringtone that gets wiped for some reason, you would not be able to answer calls for that contact. On an incoming call, the software searches for the ringtone and if not found, it locks up.
Change the ringtone( or restore the ringtone file in itunes and sync) and the problem goes away immediately.

For myself, the problem started when I restored my phone from a previous backup... I am assuming this can also be an issue when updating firmware.

Hope this helps.