iPhone calls going straight to voicemail

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.
  • If you keep it on, in Settings/Phone make sure Dial Assist is enabled; it is needed to accurately match an incoming call to a contact.
  • Remember that banks, doctors and other professionals may not call you from the same number that you have in your contacts for them.
• 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)

This worked for me:

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. If you keep it on, in Settings/Phone make sure Dial Assist is enabled; it is needed to accurately match an incoming call to a contact.

I was having the same issue. It looks like it was an update with 17.4.1. Go into Settings, then Phone, then Live Voicemail and turn it off. Immediately started working for me. Hope this helps everyone else.

This worked for me iPhone 12 iOS 17.4.1 , turn off driving mode , my phone showed the car icon by the time top right corner

This worked for me:

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. If you keep it on, in Settings/Phone make sure Dial Assist is enabled; it is needed to accurately match an incoming call to a contact.

FIXED IT!!

My phone stopped accepting calls today - missed 4-5 called - went straight to VM.

After a lot of troubleshooting, I determined that it was due to my setting the focus mode on my iMac to "Do Not Disturb". That was it! Turned it off and now I get my voice mails. Ther must be some was to still let calls com through, but prevent notifications on my screen. But that's for another day...

Thank you!

I had this issue from the time i received my new Iphone 14, it turned out to be this setting, i just deleted the person do not disturb and viola!

• 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.

The solution for me was to switch to "Do not disturb" BUT, here is the caveat:

I had "Do not disturb" scheduled ONLY overnight, but I it was not ringing during the day either.

It turns out I had to go to control center > Focus mode > Do not disturb OFF.

That's totally counter-intuitive and Apple needs to fix this.

Why do I need to switch off Do not disturb in two different places independently to activate it ???

I am on iOS 17.4.1

If you are an AT&T user, I just solved this because the ActiveArmor app was installed and (in a hidden setting), there's a function that sends unknown callers to voicemail. The rep helped reset it and now it works. Hope this helps some people.

Found the solution, go to Settings/General/Reset Reset Network settings...

iPhone now rings... just don't forget to setup your Wifi again...

For days my family calls were going to voicemail with no way of knowing a call was made (not on call log). It was acting like my family phone list was blocked. I finally got it fixed!

Turn off any screen call apps.

Start deleting your BLOCKED CALLS.

After deleting about a dozen, I finally got the phone to ring for calls again. Good luck.

Update. My “fix” worked for a while then stopped. I check the usual focus, notification, etc settings, did a “reset network settings” then a “reset all settings.” Nothing worked. Then called *611 and Verizon did something internally to “sync my phone to the network.” I rebooted the phone and it fixed it. For now anyway. I’ll post again in a few weeks with an update. Gud Lawd.

A network reset by you the phone owner may cure it, BUT if you can call your cellular provider on your phone do a reset, that works best. You call them. They do a reset and you shut off your phone for a couple of minutes to let the reset work through the network. Then power up the phone. That should fix the going right to VM.

To reset yourself:

Settings/General/<scroll down far>/Transfer or Reset iPhone/Reset <Not Erase>/Reset Network Settings<Not all the other stuff>

Screen goes black---WAIT a minute or so ---- the phone is "finding" the network.

Phone will power back up itself.

This also helps the phone FIND TOWERS in new locations; so if you travel do a Network Reset is each location you will spend time in, THEN reset when home.

Also, other members above had made good suggestions with a protocol (series of steps) to check various settings on your phone; the silence switch (top left of phone- orange bar shows silent--will go to VM), call forwarding, call blocking and so on. Run those settings down as well if a network reset does not work.

I had this problem come up out of seemingly nowhere last week. Every call popped up for a half second with no ring or vibration and straight to VM. I had weird things like this years ago with a Samsung phone and remembered they were caused by an app. So I removed the last app I installed, which was right before this started happening, and it fixed it. What was the app? Rush Bowls, a smoothie/health food eatery. How that was affecting incoming calls, I have no idea.

Sorry long post I don’t think it’s the software update.. it happens randomly for me. Doesn’t matter if they’re in my contacts, where I am, connected to WiFi. I’ve had this problem even before I did the latest update.. done a network reset multiple times, all settings reset, new eSIM. Even gone as far as going to Apple to resolve the issue, they ran tests and did a factory reset. They suggested my carrier (Verizon) do a provision done on the line.. That still didn’t work.. I have had 2 replacements sent.. (one was sent back because the camera was replaced and phone did not recognize it). Do not disturb is not on, don’t have the Verizon filter app, silenced unknown callers isn’t on.. called back they had me go in settings/focus/do not disturb/ people on that has allow calls from and it was on favorites.. now changed to everybody.. went in and changed the sleep one too.. hopefully this works..