iPhone calls going straight to voicemail

Upvote my comment so other people can see it.

All of the responses that day the same thing is incorrect. I had an iPhone 14 ProMax, I have never used the DND or focus. Right after the iOS 17 update my phone started not ringing and calls going to voicemail. I do not have many calls from people not in my contacts, all my of my work forwarding calls work, but my family gets sent to voicemail. Network settings and phone was reset. Phone was tested and SIM was fine. I upgraded to the 15 Pro. Calls worked great the first two days then the Apple 17 update, and again same issues.

It’s not the network and it’s not any of the fixes that people keep repeating. It’s definitely the 17 update that is causing issues. Apple needs to just take accountability and fix it. Not that huge of an issue if they just did so rather than pretending it’s not them.

Here’s possible solution to the problem of calls going to voicemail. Somehow an iOS 17 update erroneously put in a do not disturb schedule in the Do Not Disturb area. You have to delete this erroneous do not disturb schedule.

Currently, I’m using an iPhone 11 with iOS 17.4.1. I hope this solution works for everyone.

Step 1. Go to Settings>Focus

Make sure Share Across Devices isn’t on.

Step 2. Go to Settings>Focus>Do Not Disturb

Scroll down to Set A Schedule.

Delete the schedule that’s erroneously in there.

I did this on my Mac Mini too just in case.

It solved the problem for me. I hope this solution works for everyone.

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...

My mom calls my phone and my phone sends her straight to voicemail it doesn’t even ring how do I fix

Rnew40 wrote:

Same problem for several weeks and nothing has fixed it. Anyone who calls on the first call gets sent to voicemail, if they call again, it goes through. It’s so irritating.

What you describe is the behavior of an iPhone that is on do not disturb. While there are different ways to configure "do not disturb," one is for the phone to not ring, instead it goes to voice mail. However if the caller calls again within 30 seconds, the phone then does ring. My phone has been set this way for years at night, so I am not bothered by middle of the night calls or messages, but my daughter knows she can reach anytime by just calling twice in rapid succession, the second time I hear the phone ring.

In addition, if one of your other Apple devices that is sharing the same Apple ID is put on do not disturb, depending how you have configured your devices, your other Apple devices will also be on do not disturb. So if your laptop on the same network is on do not disturb, other Apple devices sharing that Apple ID may also revert to do not disturb, which might not be the behavior you want. Do Not Disturb sends calls right to voicemail.

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.

I have the same intermittent problem. It started a few weeks ago. If I turn off phone completely and restart, it goes away temporarily but then starts again. I agree, there's a software bug and I WISH apple would fix it. It if were Verizon, it would not disappear each time I restart the phone. I need to use my phone for incoming emergency calls and it's UNRELIABLE.

What is the solution to this problem?

it is getting to be a real problem. My calls are going to voicemail without any notification

i have that problem since i got back from europe 2 weeks ago. calls go straight to voicemail

called tmobile, they could not fix it. so it must be apple . and its random. i don’t see missed calls.

iphone14pro

os 17.4.1

Here’s a possible solution to the problem of calls going to voicemail. Somehow an iOS 17 update erroneously put in a do not disturb schedule in the Do Not Disturb area. You have to delete this erroneous do not disturb schedule.

Currently, I’m using an iPhone 11 with iOS 17.4.1. I hope this solution works for everyone.

Step 1. Go to Settings>Focus

Make sure Share Across Devices isn’t on.

Step 2. Go to Settings>Focus>Do Not Disturb

Scroll down to Set A Schedule.

Delete the schedule that’s erroneously in there.

I did this on my Mac Mini too just in case.

It solved the problem for me. I hope this solution works for everyone.

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

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

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 have tried every single solution posted here; also happening to my husband's telephone. It's not the provider, seems to have started with the last update, Apple, please fix this.

Hi everyone!

Thanks to someone a few pages back, who suggested that device sharing was the culprit here. It made sense to me, so I approached it from this angle, and was able to fix many months of not being able to receive any calls! Here’s what I did. I hope it helps some of you out there.

1) I checked that I was receiving "missed call" notifications on my iPhone. This proves it is not my phone provider who is pushing things straight to voicemail.

2) I performed the noted checks at the beginning of this thread to make sure everything was set ok.

3) I went to the Focus area of my iPhone: Settings > Focus. My "Share Across Devices" slide button was set to false. I figured I’d toggle this to true and back to false again to make sure nothing was stuck, but when I tried to do this, the button lagged and auto-set itself back to false.

4) I next opened my MacBook Air, went to the Control Console, clicked on focus, and much to my surprise, all my focus stuff was activated there! I never did this. I only ever set focus on my phone, but at some point, something in the Appleverse transferred these settings to be controlled from my MacBook rather than my iPhone, unbeknownst to me!

5) In the lower, left corner of the focus box on the MacBook, there is a check box for "share across devices". It was checked. So I unchecked it.

6) I went back to my iPhone Focus area, and now I could see all my focus settings, the focus schedule, etc. Clearly, revoking device sharing from my MacBook gave my iPhone control over its own destiny now. I proceeded to disable my silent schedules, and review emergency contact and app settings. For some reason my app settings were set to “only allow these apps to send notifications” but with no apps defined. I switched this to “only silence these apps” and left no apps. This setting SHOULD only be enforced during scheduled silent periods, but I suspect it was enforced perpetually, and that was the main problem.

7) One thing that still puzzled me was that "do not disturb" was still listed as turned on in the focus area, but with no way to toggle that. There seem to be two separate "do not disturb" type items in the Appleverse. One is with the focus area and the scheduled focus settings. The other is via the button on the upper-left of iPhones. This message seems to be merely informational in the focus area. Indeed, I don't want audible notifications on my phone, just vibrations, and that is what that particular do not disturb setting does. This is an important piece of the puzzle because having that "do not disturb" button set to on, should not, and now does not, affect me receiving phone calls, or detecting vibration when notifications come through. It's the focus area settings being messed up and locked across devices that seemed to be screwing everything up.

8) As luck would have it, my vet called me to discuss one of my cats who is sick. She has been getting my voicemail for 3 days and we've been playing phone tag. Today, after performing the steps above, my phone actually vibrated when she called, and I could see the call notification come through loud and clear, and was able to answer and talk to her when she called!

I think we’ve all been confused by this issue because it doesn’t necessarily involve just one device, and if you are just looking on your phone, you won’t even SEE some of the focus settings you would expect to, because they can’t be controlled there if another device is doing that!

I hope this post helps, and remember to check Macbooks, Apple watches, iPads, etc., as any of them could be potentially in control of your focus settings! You need to sort that out and detach things in order to get your phone working properly again.

[Edited by Moderator]