Why is my iPhone silencing calls?

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!

After exhausting everyone's cure I found one for myself.

My phone was silencing unknown callers even with Do Not Disturb off.

Go to Settings, scroll down to Phone and open it, scroll down to Silence Unknown Callers and turn it off.

I use Do Not Disturb when I'm sleeping so my contacts can call but all other calls go straight to voicemail.

With one of the new patches Silence Unknown Callers is on by default which is what my problem was.

wirker wrote:

Thank you for pointing that out.

If your resolution would have come up during my search I wouldn't have posted mine.

Don’t let it bother you. Having similar answers is generally helpful, because few people read an entire thread. Thank you for your contribution, and I hope you will continue staying around to help.

this feature is so annoying, the engineer should really be fired, it is a phone... it is good if it only blocks spam, but it blocks all Unknown calls even from valid callers, and I missed several important calls due to this feature

mosonmo wrote:

this feature is so annoying, the engineer should really be fired, it is a phone... it is good if it only blocks spam, but it blocks all Unknown calls even from valid callers, and I missed several important calls due to this feature

It is called a FEATURE. You have the OPTION to block calls from numbers not in your contacts. If you don’t want to use this FEATURE go to Settings/Phone and TURN IT OFF!!!!

This is a huge problem. I am a physician and get calls from the hospital, often for emergencies, and they are getting silenced. Even though the hospital has hundreds of extensions, each is identified with the hospital name, not as “unknown caller.” I have “silence unknown callers” turned on so I won’t get disturbed by spam calls all day while caring for patients. It seems the only way to get the hospital calls is to allow the unknown calls to ring through as well. Note that calls from my contacts do ring.

You can’t have it both ways. If you turn on Silence Unknown Callers to avoid spam calls the phone has no way of distinguishing spam calls from legitimate calls that are not in your contacts. So you will have to leave Silence Unknown Callers turned off. But there are other things you can do about spam calls.

First, see if your carrier has a filtering app that will attempt to recognize spam calls; my carrier, AT&T has the “Call Protect” app and it’s pretty effective at identifying spam calls, displaying “Spam Risk” for suspect calls. I can also submit numbers to be blocked to it, which is better than the iPhone’s blocking feature, because the calls are blocked at the network and don’t make it to your voicemail.

There are also apps that can recognize spam calls based on crowd-sourced reports and block them. The original of these (and probably still the best) is Nomorobo.

My issue is that these calls are not “unknown.” Caller ID labels them as coming from a hospital number. I assumed silencing unknown callers would only silence those labeled as unknown. And I definitely don’t want to risk blocking them entirely. I tried RoboKiller but it was blocking calls from my contacts, even my favorites! Customer service was useless.

Silence Unknown Callers BY DESIGN blocks calls from all numbers not in your contacts, not just numbers that your carrier labels as Unknown. I realize that isn’t obvious from the label, but that’s the way it works. Nomorobo will not block calls from your contacts, assuming you give the app permission to see your contacts. You might have to do that with RoboKiller also, but I am not familiar with it, I only use Nomorobo and Call Protect.

There is an explanation under the switch setting that explains exactly what it does; that it only allows calls in your contacts to ring. But who reads fine print?

I am having the same issue and I’ve missed important calls from office. I’m a nurse and those calls are to see patients. Time is of essence in patient care. I’ve tried everything the same as you have. Thank you for bringing issue up. Hope it can get resolved.

This is a CRAZY idea of an update. I mean I understand wanting to make the phone less distracted for people. But having every call silenced while the phone is locked????

I mean I use my Iphone for business and now important calls are not coming to my attention. I don't understand this update at all.

mjmarch wrote:

Why is Apple making these changes and not alerting the customer? Do they think that "they know better" what we want and what we need? This arrogance by the nerds needs to STOP.

This is a 7 page thread, that covers several subjects. No one could possibly have any idea what changes you are talking about, and the post that you replied to doesn’t mention any changes, so we can’t even go by that.

If you don’t want Apple to implement improvements get another brand of phone. Of course, they implement changes all the time also. So maybe what you need is a basic flip phone. They never change.

outdoorlover wrote:

These suggestions did not fix the problem for me. as the Silence While iphone is locked is still checked even though "Do Not Disturb" is off.

That is not the reason. Silence while phone is locked only applies if DND is on.

Thanks for the reply, I agree, it’s weird, that’s why I took the picture too and shared. I also noticed user Krisi128 who shared his/her Settings >Phone screenshot also has Announce Calls set at Never, so I’m surprised who they got the problem fixed!

It’s also strange how the different users have experienced different settings changes that caused the call silencing when locked.