Why is my iPhone silencing calls?

donine_ wrote:

OMG!!! This was it the entire time!!! Of course, no info about that stupid button anywhere in any of my iPhone 11 ProMax literature. THANK YOU!!

You mean like here:

How to put your iPhone on vibrate, ring, or silent mode - Apple Support

sreeser wrote:

Why...... do you programmers continue to send out iOs updates with the RINGER set to silent or some modification that sets the RINGER to silence mode???

No one from Apple is reading this thread for suggestions or feedback. You can, however, let them know your thoughts here:

Product Feedback - Apple

If this doesn't give you the answer, it may give you some clues. If your electricity goes off, would you check your neighbor's plumbing? Well, in this case, the answer for me was just as weird.

I first tried the "Silencing Unknown Calls." But that wasn't the problem.

For me, I noticed it was happening for all but one phone number, and only at home. Furthermore, it impacgted my hearing calendar alarms and hearing text messages.

Finally I remembered a weird setting, but NOT on my phone. It was the NOTIFICATIONS on my MAC! It required the right combination of settings for Facetime, and Notifications since Focus, when I used Airplay. (If that's not the case, please still read this--you will at least go to the right places to look). Check notification settings on all devices. This was a case of the Law of Unintended Consequences, requiring multiple factors.

I spent hours with Apple and my carrier. I don't blame anyone for not figuring this one out. The one phone that got through had a different ring tone. It wasn't the ring tone but I set it up as a favorite. I thought it had to do with Focus/DND. And that's when I realized it was because I was using AIRPLAY on my Mac. I then found each of the following and changed one at a time.

You can look at this and get an idea of what you may have to change.

In the Mac, go to System Preferences and check the following. I changed to the BOLD.

1. Notifications & Focus/Focus: Share across devices. (No)
2. Notifications & Focus/Focus, then select Options: Allow Calls from (Everyone/All Contacts, etc.)
3. Notifications & Focus/Notifications (at bottom): Allow Notifications When mirroring or sharing the display (Yes)
4. Notifications & Focus/Notifications/Calendar (left): Allow time sensitive alerts. Yes
5. Notifications & Focus/Notifications/Calendar (left): Play sound for notifications. Yes
6. Notifications & Focus/Notifications/Messages (left): Allow time sensitive alerts. Yes
7. Notifications & Focus/Notifications/Messages (left): Play sound for notifications. Yes

Repeat for other applications. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Your miles may vary. Not valid in Alaska or Hawaii.

Check out notification settings on all your Apple Devices.

Try “Sounds and Haptics” in settings. I had the same issue even though my volume using side buttons was at maximum. When I went into this menu the ringer was at zero (???) and “change with buttons” was off. I had no recollection of changing this setting before as well. But try moving the ringer slider to your desired ring tone volume and see if that fixes the issue for you? Good luck!

None of the suggestions helped and thanks God I didn’t do the suggested phone reset when I didn’t have to to fix the problem on my particular iPhone.

This update from a premium brand as Apple has created some very unpleasant difficulties, one of them being the silencing of incoming calls.

Looks like there are umpteen places under Settings where this update has caused Call Silencing. From reading all the comments and suggestions the biggest hurdle is not knowing what setting is causing this, it’s different on different phones and hence the fixes vary too.

What helped me fix the problem for my iphone was, with all due respect, not the list provided by two Level10 members nor any of the solutions in other replies, some of which worked for others.

So this update had automatically changed my Settings>Phone>Announce Calls> NEVER (!!!!) (I’ve attached the screenshot)

I changed ‘Never’ to ‘Always’, which is what it ought to have been by default !

I have to move on now to find a thread on why my keyboard diction microphone won’t type anything since this update. God knows what other little things have gone awry.

Every time the software is updated on my iPhone, something starts misfiring somewhere on my iPhone XR.

This time my phone does not ring when I receive a text, Sometimes it rings for phone call, sometimes it doesn't. I have studied the manual. Last night I listened to a YouTube fixit. It said there were 5 places an iPhone can be silenced. I checked all of those. They were all set properly.

HELP! There was an emergency last night. It did not alert me that I had received 5 messages in quick succession. It DID ring, from same person when he called.

Please tell me the all of the places to check to fix this problem. Thank you,

I’ve had the same problem and it seems to be that the “Silence Unknown Callers” feature must be off. In my case it was “On” but I’m not sure if it was enabled due to an update or if I enabled it myself and don’t remeber. To try this go to: Settings>Phone>Silence Unknown Callers and check if it is “on”, if so, turn it off.

I hope this helps at least some of you.

Mine just started doing this recently and I figured it out by going to Settings >Phone >Call Blocking & Identification. I’d checked that Silence Unknown Callers was off already but there’s another step that could help someone else out there.

That is the same problem I am having too my ‘Slience unknown numbers’ is off no one is blocked anyone with my number should be able to call me but I end up not receiving calls that aren’t saved in my contacts and it’s causing a problem when am signing up for things and they try and reach out to me and I never get any notification of their calls until hours later sometimes till the next day (highlighted in green in the photo). So, if their is a solution to this problem comment so I can sort this out, please.

It seems like it’s a Carrier setting automatically turned on by the Carrier. In Settings > Phone > my ‘Silence Unknown Callers’ was Off but I had a additional drop down called ‘Call Blocking & Identification’ that had ‘Silence Junk Callers’ turned on & I had to turn it off.

If you have your iphone set to face recognition, your phone is picking up that recognition and sees you looking at the iphone on another app or such and then silences the calls. Go to Settings> Face ID & passcode. Disable the Attention aware feature. This will stop the automatic silencing.

sertcelik wrote:

Same here. I’m about to take this d*mn thing back. I’ve tried everything.

That all depends on whether you want to fix what is almost certainly a setting that is wrong or whether it’s easier for you to take it back.

Thank you for this potential solution!! I have been driven nuts for the past 2 months and even switched carriers and tried iPhones 11 & 12 and still happening....so hoping this works!! Thank you!!!

I searched on-line today when I just noticed my phone doing the same thing (silencing calls when the phone is locked). I too noticed that there was only the option of silence all or if the phone is locked. This only began a few days ago after the last ios upgrade. A page or so back someone suggested resetting the phone and I did that - didn't change anything. Then I saw someone suggesting exploring the Do Not Disturb settings, scroll to Phone and "Allow Calls From" - my phone is now resetting to only Favorites. I changed it to "Everyone" and it seems to have solved the issue. FYI for the folks who said you have to turn off the Silence unknown callers that is not the case as I still have that activated.

I had the same problem and didn’t see the correct fix in the suggestions so I looked around and realized that if I went to “settings; scroll down to “Phone”; and then scroll down to “Silence Unknown Callers” it showed that is was on so I tapped “on” and selected “Off”. That should fix it!