iPhone calls going straight to voicemail

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..

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.

Thanks Lawrence! It's the ungodly complicated Focus settings that are doing to anyone upgrading to iOS 17. I get people want options, but there's far more granularity to this than anyone actually wants. -Mike

Changing my ringtone worked---but only temporarily. Now the **** thing is back to sending calls directly to voicemail. And I've tried EVERYTHING suggested in this thread. This is absolutely annoying.

Possible Solution: I had the same issue, but only with some callers. I checked the individual contact info, and it did NOT show that the number was blocked. However, I went to Settings -> Phone -> Blocked Contacts and the person's name was listed near the very bottom. Once I unblocked it, it worked fine! I don't know how that particular contact ever got into the Blocked Contacts list, so thinking it might have been a glitch in the latest update.

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

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 is incredibly irritating.. I’ve completely gone through this.. every single setting is set correctly including focus so it shouldn’t deny or send calls to voice mail. I just reset network settings..maybe that will help but doubtful very.. iPhone 14 Pro Max. This also started after the iOS 17 update. Apple get it together

Lemaniepie wrote:

Have you fixed this issue yet

Lots of people have fixed it. As it does not have just one cause, you can see a bunch of possible solutions by just reading the 6 pages of thread you posted to.

Well, that was easy!

So, maybe Apple should do a google search for this problem, so they can steal a solution from folks who know. Sorry, Apple. You're lame.

Basically, I opened my MacBook Air, went to control center, and Focus, and my computer (which I NEVER SET THIS WAY, so it must have inherited it from the iPhone... which doesn't seem to have these settings under Focus area anymore) is set to a scheduled do not disturb, with a few emergency contacts who can get through at all times. I'll note that these settings on my MacBook are set to evening times and should not be triggering during the day, so this is still a problem... but...

Also, there is a little box in the lower, left corner which says "share these settings across devices". I have now deselected that box on my MacBook.

Now, when I go back to my iPhone, I have the focus interface and can activate and deactivate the "Share across devices" slide switch on my phone, which I couldn't until I quit sharing from my computer.

Now that I'm not sharing across ddevices, I'm going through and turning everything off. Once I reactivated this on my phone, I could see that during my silence schedule, I had it set to Allow Notificattions from in the Apps section, and I had no apps selected. I presumably did this so that no apps would bother me during overnight times.... and again, this should not be active during the day when I don't have do not disturb scheduled to be on, but clearly that's not working. I've switched it to "silence apps from" with no list of apps, so nothing is silenced. I've turned off focus and turned off all schedules.

I will bet my bottom dollar that this fixes things, and you're welcome. And thanks to the earlier poster who noted this, because you were correct!

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]

I think I found a fix. There’s a setting in Settings > Phone called “Announce Calls” and this setting was mysteriously set to “Headphones Only.” I switched it back to “Always,” then the next day it was switched back again. I think this is a bug with AirPods. OBNOXIOUS.

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.

This happened to me after I did the recent update. I’ve done all the troubleshooting and still not fixed. Verizon told me “maybe I need a new phone”. Absurd!

After everything, I changed my ring tone and that worked!!!