Why won't my iPhone ring since the last update?

FIRST: Are there missed calls in Phone/Recents on the phone? If they are not the problem is in the network, because the calls aren’t getting to your phone. Contact your carrier: 

• check with your carrier that they don’t have a local outage, and that you didn’t have any settings that would have immediately invoked voicemail, such as call forwarding.
• check up on them at Down Detector - Crowdsourced outage checker

If they are in Recents here’s what to check:

• Check the MUTE switch on the left side of the phone, above the volume buttons. It should be towards the screen
• Check the volume setting. With the Home screen displayed, press the VOLUME UP button on the left side of the phone. It’s above the VOLUME DOWN button.
• Go to Settings/Phone. There’s a switch for Silence Unknown Callers. If it is on any calls from numbers not in your contacts will go directly to voicemail.
• Also in Settings/Phone: Make sure Call Forwarding is off.
• iOS 14 & older: Go to Settings/Do not Disturb. Turn it off if it is on. Also turn off Scheduled. With both off none of the other switches there matter.
• iOS 15: Go to Settings/Focus, and verify that all focus settings are disabled.
• iOS 16: Open the Control Center and turn off Focus.
• Go to Settings/Sounds & Haptics. Make sure there is a sound assigned to Ringtone.
• Go to Settings/Accessibility/Touch/Call Audio Routing and make sure Auto-Answer Calls is off.
• Go to Settings/Screen Time/Communications Limits. Tap each of the 2 entries and make sure both are “Everyone"
• Restart your phone-->Restart your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support
• If all else fails, talk your carrier into replacing your SIM card (thanks to ASC user DShelbyD)

Well, the first response after the “Best Answer” (which isn’t a best answer, but that’s a separate issue). I’ll just repost it.

FIRST: Are there missed calls in Phone/Recents on the phone? If they are not the problem is in the network, because the calls aren’t getting to your phone. Contact your carrier: 

• check with your carrier that they don’t have a local outage, and that you didn’t have any settings that would have immediately invoked voicemail, such as call forwarding.
• check up on them at Down Detector - Crowdsourced outage checker

If they are in Recents here’s what to check:

• Check the MUTE switch on the left side of the phone, above the volume buttons. It should be towards the screen
• Check the volume setting. With the Home screen displayed, press the VOLUME UP button on the left side of the phone. It’s above the VOLUME DOWN button.
• Go to Settings/Phone. There’s a switch for Silence Unknown Callers. If it is on any calls from numbers not in your contacts will go directly to voicemail.
• Also in Settings/Phone: Make sure Call Forwarding is off.
• iOS 14 & older: Go to Settings/Do not Disturb. Turn it off if it is on. Also turn off Scheduled. With both off none of the other switches there matter.
• iOS 15: Go to Settings/Focus, and verify that all focus settings are disabled.
• iOS 16: Open the Control Center and turn off Focus.
• Go to Settings/Sounds & Haptics. Make sure there is a sound assigned to Ringtone.
• Go to Settings/Accessibility/Touch/Call Audio Routing and make sure Auto-Answer Calls is off.
• Go to Settings/Screen Time/Communications Limits. Tap each of the 2 entries and make sure both are “Everyone"
• Restart your phone-->Restart your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support
• If all else fails, talk your carrier into replacing your SIM card (thanks to ASC user DShelbyD)

roxie53 wrote:

My phone will not ring the first time someone calls if they call right back it rings

It sounds as if you have Focus/Do Not Disturb enabled and set to allow numbers that call back within three minutes to ring through.

To turn off Focus, pull down the Control Center and tap on the circular picture on the Focus button. Once the button says "Focus," you'll know it's turned off.

To make sure it doesn't get turned on again when you don't want it on, go to Settings>Focus and tap on each focus. Delete any ones you don't need. For the ones you're keeping, remove any schedules or smart activations.

Same issue, missed many calls. Affected all my Apple devices. None would ring. Spent sometime with Apple support and couldn't resolve

So stared to figure this out on my own. When I powered off my Apple Watch all devices would ring again so told me the Apple Watch was the issue causing it

Here is my fix I discovered

• Open Apple Watch app on iPhone
• Open Gestures
• Toggle off/disable "Cover to Mute"
• Devices should now ring again

All should now be fixed. Once I toggled off "Cover to Mute" my iPhone, iPad, iMac and iPad started to ring on an incoming call.

As soon as I enable "Cover to Mute" no Apple devices would ring

To silence an incoming call now on your watch just press the crown

Hope this helps

If you're not hearing a ring, it could be due to your phone's focus settings. From your iPhone Settings, select Focus and check the following: Make sure Do Not Disturb mode is off. For other Focus modes, make sure they are off, or add Dialpad as an Allowed Notifications app to that focus mode.

Happyfacemelinda wrote:

My phone won’t ring when somebody calls me. The little icon bell is there is a slash through it. How do I get this flash out of it so it will ring again

It sounds as if you have the Mute Switch enabled. It's the button just above the volume buttons. For any phone except the iPhone 15 Pro series, the button is a slider. If you can see orange, it's on mute. If you can't, the phone should ring.

Note that this information was listed in the article I linked to above and in several other posts in this thread.

That was happening to me too, but I finally figured it out!

I had a do not disturb schedule of 9 PM to 5 AM. After my upgrade, it was switched to 9 AM to 5 PM. I switched it back to the way I wanted it and my calls are “coming through”.

You’re welcome!

For me it was the mute switch above the up volume button. I did not know the mute switch existed!

I know this question shows my age, but, wouldn't it be cool if iphones came with instructions? I could just read the instructions and then know all about how to work my phone, if they were well written.

This morning, I updated my iPhone SE (3rd gen) to iOS 17.3. Then I tested the ring function by scheduling an automated incoming call. My phone does now ring.

I had forgotten what it sounded like…and how much I don’t really like when my phone rings. Lol.

In all seriousness- while there’s some truth to my jest (#firstworldproblem), I’m glad that this issue was fixed so that the full spectrum of incoming call notification options are again available to me.

Like many people, I had previously tested the set of routine troubleshooting steps recommended in this thread. Although they did not result in a successful resolution, that doesn’t mean I didn’t accomplish a lot in the troubleshooting process by working through them. Updating iOS was the only change introduced into the system between yesterday and today. So in my case, the iOS update resolved the issue.

I genuinely hope that I’m not an outlier case. I hope that investing the time to communicate my experience and the resolution will be useful. I think it’s too much to hope that 17.3 is going to be a silver bullet for everyone. As Apple discloses, the contents of updates vary from device to device and between geographical regions (I’m in the US).

edit: system = my phone…I’m a scientist and slipped into jargon

• Thank you my friend..."Check the MUTE switch on the left side of the phone, above the volume buttons. It should be towards the screen" worked:)

Wow! Thank you for your helpful post. The very first step, checking the mute switch, solved my problem. I didn’t even know it was there! I had to peel back my case to get to it, and sure enough, it was in the wrong position.

Go to Settings > Face ID & Passcode and turn off Attention Aware Features.

Dropped my phone a few days ago & after reading your forum, checked the Mute switch & that was in the “Off” position - all fixed & working normally - thanks for your help!!👍👍😜😜

Thank you so much I thought it was the ecplispe. There is a mute switch that you might hit once in awhile.

Thank you! Was given a friend's old iPhone 12 Pro Max and had no idea there was a mute button until reading your post. Now it rings.