iPhone Goes Straight to Voicemail (sometimes displays “User Busy”)

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iPhone Goes Straight to Voicemail (sometimes displays “User Busy”)

I am very knowledgeable about my Apple products. For the past year my iPhone 11 was going straight to VM with no manual intervention (Airplane Mode, Focus, silent, etc.). It is now happening with my iPhone 13. This has happened randomly, and for no apparent reason. I have researched various articles and posts. In almost every post it goes thru the steps I mentioned above. I have done that several times. I’ve checked and there are no carrier updates. My watch settings are not set to “mirror my iPhone”. I’ve tried Wi-Fi calling turned on and off, that didn’t fix it. Battery health is at 99%. Phone set to Announce Calls. Silence Unknown Callers is off. In a couple of instances when the call comes in it is displayed on the screen and says “User Busy”. When that happened I turned “Call Forwarding” off, which fixed it, however I never set it to forward calls. I spent two hours on the phone with an Apple Senior Advisor, they were unable to determine the problem. I did screen recordings of the settings while they were on the phone which I sent them, along with my other documentation.

Sometimes resetting the network settings has fixed it, but not always; turning AP mode on and off fixed it a couple of times, changing my watch settings to Custom, not Mirror my iPhone, fixed it once, I’ve completely reset my phone twice which never fixed it. When it happens I just start changing settings, re-booting the phone, etc., and it is eventually fixed…until the next time.

I see lots of articles on this, some old, some this year, which makes me believe this is not unique to my iPhone or carrier.

I’m hoping someone has the miracle fix I’m looking for. This is extremely frustrating, and when it happens I don’t know it until I see a missed call or someone texts me.

iPhone 13 Pro Max, iOS 15.7

iPhone 11 Pro iOS 15.7

Apple Watch 7 iOS 8.7

Carrier is Xfinity Mobile (this was happening when I was with Verizon as well)

iPhone 13 Pro Max

Posted on Oct 3, 2022 2:00 PM

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Answer 1

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kallie Petdancer Author

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13 points

Nov 22, 2022 8:30 PM in response to kallie Petdancer

UPDATE: A technician at the Park meadows store checked out my phone. He ran several diagnostics, including on the antenna. The report clearly showed problems with cellular service. He said this isn’t the first time he has seen this problem with Xfinity mobile. He set my phone as follows: Cellular; Cellular Data Options; Voice & Data: LTE. Not 5G or Auto. Again he has seen this problem a number of times.

So, I bought a 5G phone and pay for 5G service, and can’t use it. I’m looking for a new carrier.

It has been three weeks and no more problems with ringing.

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Answer 2

Nov 11, 2022 1:52 PM in response to kallie Petdancer

UPDATE: Apple Genius ran full diagnostics and it showed there were issues with cellular. He checked and the antenna is fine, all software and hardware is working as it should. He had me change the cellular settings to LTE and standard.

He confirmed that all of my other settings were fine and were NOT causing this problem.

I’ll give this a shot and if it happens again then I’ll know it’s the carrier. I’ll update you in a few months.

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Answer 3

Oct 11, 2022 7:09 PM in response to SteveandLarryinsanfrancisco

I have a friend that works for Comcast. He suggested I turn the phone off for about 5 minutes and turn it back on That will force the phone to ping a tower; that worked. That tells me it is not a setting on the iPhone but a network problem. I have no idea how to get this issue to the right people at Xfinity mobile and Verizon (Xfinity mobile uses Verizon towers). He is going to see if he can find the right place for me to address this issue. I’ll update when I have more information.

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Answer 4

Oct 11, 2022 7:30 PM in response to kallie Petdancer

Ask friend to put you in touch with the division which monitors the towers and call volume.

If you get there, ask for percentage of calls which are placed “but” doesn't get completed (phone doesn’t ring) and hence goes straight to vmail.

This issue can be a indication of cellular network congestion or switching capacity. And this “overload” condition can be like the freeways in a traffic jam.

Try calling your cell number this Friday at 5pm, not once but 5.

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Answer 5

Oct 9, 2022 12:09 PM in response to kallie Petdancer

I have EXACTLY the same problem. Also with Xfinity. Same iPhone. Did this with previous iPhone. Sometimes says user busy not always but goes straight to vm. Have tried all of the above.

help

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Answer 6

Oct 11, 2022 7:37 PM in response to supercondr

I’ve seen when doing this from the wife’s cell phone to my cell doesn’t always ring. It goes to vm.

But when attempting to call from a land line to the cell it performs much better.

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iPhone Goes Straight to Voicemail (sometimes displays “User Busy”)

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