iOS 15.4 unable to meet using meeting dial in link

This issue was fixed with the release of IOS 15.5 on Monday May 16th.

Hi everyone,

as stated I also raised this as an internal incident ticket at Microsoft. This is their official answer:

I would like to share with you that this is a known change from Apple that we (Microsoft) have raised as a bug as there is no workaround, and the issue is since the release of the iOS 15.4 on March 14, 2022. By the time been Apple has confirmed a fix in the latest release candidate of iOS 15.5 (not public yet) and we have verified it works. 

Once iOS 15.5 is publicly available, users should upgrade to that version. 

While waiting for the upgrade only reference that we as support can provide to you is the following article explaining the situation, this is the only official doc on the topic: Phone

numbers that include special characters do not launch the phone dialer on iOS

15.4 (microsoft.com)

Best Tom

Hi Benjamin, that is indeed weird. So let's hope we get this sorted any time soon. @Apple: Is there already an ETA for iOS 15.5?

Besides that there is a workaround in MS Teams. Probably something similar can be achieved with Google Meets.

Kudos to a UC engineer calling himself mozzie for this workaround. Thanks a lot! ;-)

1. Open the 'Find a local number' number link in an MS Teams meeting within Safari
2. Then browse to your preferred dial-in details of the country of your choice
3. Click the dial-in link in there and the phone app does open successfully

It might be a bit cumbersome to get there, but at least there is a way around this until we have iOS15.5. - Best Tom

Hey Prima01960,

It sounds like you will try tapping a number to join a meeting, but nothing happens when you press it. To start, you can see if restarting your device may help. Restarting can seem like a simple step, but it can sometimes help resolve unexpected issues. If you have an iPhone, the steps below from the following article, show how to restart: Restart your iPhone - Apple Support

"How to restart your iPhone X, 11, 12, or 13

1. Press and hold either volume button and the side button until the power-off slider appears.
2. Drag the slider, then wait 30 seconds for your device to turn off. If your device is frozen or unresponsive, force restart your device.
3. To turn your device back on, press and hold the side button (on the right side of your iPhone) until you see the Apple logo.

How to restart your iPhone SE (2nd or 3rd generation), 8, 7, or 6

1. Press and hold the side button until the power-off slider appears.
2. Drag the slider, then wait 30 seconds for your device to turn off. If your device is frozen or unresponsive, force restart your device.
3. To turn your device back on, press and hold the side button until you see the Apple logo. "

You'll also want to make sure all apps with the issue are fully updated as well: How to manually update apps on your Apple device - Apple Support Having updated apps means you are running the latest version that is compatible with the iOS yours device is running, along with any possible bug or issue fixes as well.

Let us know how that goes.

Take care!

The reason is clearly stated:

To prevent users from maliciously redirecting phone calls or changing the behavior of a phone or account, the Phone app supports most, but not all, of the special characters in the tel scheme. Specifically, if a URL contains the * or # characters, the Phone app does not attempt to dial the corresponding phone number.

Microsoft is going to have to update their dialing scheme for joining meetings. All that would be required is a comma for pause. * and # can trigger prompts for other things. This is on MS and Zoom.

That's a very clunky workaround for Teams. In Meet, I can simply copy the number/PIN combo and paste it into the Apple dialer.

That said, the best work around for both right now is to use iOS Calendar. Those dial links work.

Apple over doing a security fix. Here's is a link from Microsoft talking about it. Looks like it affected multiple apps.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/phone-numbers-that-include-special-characters-do-not-launch-the-phone-dialer-on-ios-15-4-843c0015-da9d-4fd1-92e3-d08049e38fae

Hi Benjamin, yes they do. They end with a #

<phone number> , , <conference ID> #

Hi @BenjaminNYC, as promised here is a link to a feedback post on the Microsoft forum.

https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/b61bb9d0-dcc0-ec11-a81b-000d3a03dba2

Everyone reading this, please go there and up-vote the post. The more people in the community support this, the faster we have it addressed.

Besides that, I also raised an incident ticket directly at Microsoft. Unfortunately that's behind closed curtains but will let anyone know as soon as I have a feedback.

Thanks for the help everyone and don't forget to up-vote all post you see in that regards. It also helps to share the links and ask your co-workers and colleagues and friends to up-vote. Let's see what we can achieve as a community. ;-)

Best Tom

It seems to be a "feature" of 15.4. Found this on MS's site looking for why it no longer works for Teams: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/phone-numbers-that-include-special-characters-do-not-launch-the-phone-dialer-on-ios-15-4-843c0015-da9d-4fd1-92e3-d08049e38fae

Hi Benjamin, I do agree unfortunately we are running on a lot of corporate devices and do use another mail/calendar app. This app also does not allow us to copy links out of it, so we have to trick here a bit. In the end, I'm happy that we now do have a workaround. - Best Tom

Hi @BenjaminNYC, great thanks for making this clear. Hence I work a lot with Microsoft and MS Teams, I'll try to raise the topic in the MS forums. Will let you know once I found a way to do that and post a link here. If anyone is faster, please do post a link for the community to upvote that issue at the right place.

If there are Zoom foolks around, feel free to share the link to a post. I'm willing to upvote this topic there as well.

I am also having this issue. I tried all the above recommendations without resolve. Any other solutions?

Thanks @hw2B for pointing this out! @Apple is there any reason to that decision?

Very interesting. Specific question: Do MS Teams tel links have * and #? I don't think Meet's do, yet they still don't work. So perhaps there is a bug in Apple's implementation of this change?