FaceTime not working unless I’m connected to WiFi

I did this and called my other tmobile phone and it worked. Hoping it works when I call other people havent tried that yet. I also had 2 Tmobile options after turning off automatic and I clicked the second one. Lets see how long it works for!

After arguing with T-Mobile and Apple for the last 2 months. Apple and T-Mobile have finally realized it’s an issue. T-Mobile said their engineers are working on it and Apple called me back to tell me hopefully they have an update within 72 hours. We’ll see.

Worked here to, in fact after switching to the mobile selection I switched it back to automatic and tested and it Continued working.

From my own experience this is a bit of a conundrum. Facetime for me and all friends and family is currently useless on cellular and from what I have read all over the interwebs neither Apple nor T-Mobile identify it as being their problem.

My wife and I rely on this feature for our kids to be able to reach us from our family iPad when we are away from home. I have tried every possible combination of suggested remedies to this issue (checking permissions on screentime, turning Facetime on/off, hard rebooting, you name it I have tried it) and none of it remedies the issue.

I cannot call anyone on Facetime over cellular, regardless of network. I am a T-Mobile customer and do not wish to move networks just to get this feature working, especially since I am grandfathered into a Military & Veteran's plan from years ago. However if this issue cannot resolve I may have to make a hard decision and move providers or abandon Apple.

We recently upgraded to iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max phones and ever since then it has not functioned. I would really appreciate Apple helping out all those affected by this and dig into it until it is resolved for good.

If anyone finds a solution to this ( beyond manually changing which network band you are on on T-Mobile which only sort of works for a single time ) I would greatly appreciate the advice and help.

The latest update to iOS 17.1 made the issue worse than it was. Now a Facetime call from my phone while on cellular immediately disappears, it doesn't fail it just literally disappears as soon as I place it. Calling from the iPad to my phone (while on cellular) causes the facetime call to show up on my phone but only show "connecting" for about 2 seconds before the call just disappears, yet on the iPad it continues to ring as if the call is going through but it never does.

I await and pray that someday either Apple or T-Mobile can figure out what is causing this issue for so many customers.

Same problem. On T-mobile. Pretty sure it started with IOS 17. Worked on T-Mobile before that. Hadn’t seen this thread until after 17.1 and I can confirm it is WORSE with 17.1. Now it almost instantly says the person I am trying to call is unavailable.

I went down that rabbit hole too. You will find that that solution only sort of works. Depending on your geographic location those networks will change and you will have issues selecting them manually. On top of that, even at your home where you should normally have the same networks within "reach" the issues will come and go even when manually selecting them. However I do not disagree with your assumption that it is a bug with the way automatic network switching is being handled in iOS 17.

Same here and I’m sick of the finger pointing.

Fix it Apple and T-Mobile!!

I’ve even deleted and restored my iPhone 13 Pro Max and it still will not do FaceTime over cellular. Wi-Fi works fine, cellular does not. This is a issue for many T-Mobile customers and Apple and T-Mobile need to fix it.

It is impacting my entire family. I FaceTime my spouse when Im at the grocery store. We FaceTime our kids when they aren't on wifi. It's so frustrating. It's been 2 months. Since it's only affecting tmobile customers it seems like they need to fix it.

Interesting observation. I’m in Southern Colorado. And maybe being a localized problem is why it doesn’t seem urgent to Apple/T-Mobile. I share your concerns about changing the settings. Gonna stick with WhatsApp for now.

My facetime and imessage automatically logged out after i updated to ios 17.1.1. Cannot activate as it always fail be it cellular nor over wifi. Gace time and imessage were my way to communicate with my son overseas. Whats happening apple??

What started it for me was in December when I got SOS only. A reactivation worked for me. Then, last week, I had no data AT ALL unless I was on WiFi. I can't recall how I fixed it but NOW, I cannot do FaceTime unless it's WiFi. This is utterly ridiculous. My son spent 6 hours last week (not even kidding) on a Verizon chat. It didn't work (he had SOS only). Verizon just sent him a new phone since his was still under warranty. Fun fact: he refuses to update iOS. LOL. I don't blame him. Did you ever get this fixed?

Did u ever find a solution? Mine does this too with full bars and a renewed data cycle.

I am having the same issue. I am on T-Mobile. T-Mobile told me it’s an Apple issue. Apple told me it’s a T-Mobile issue. I just want a fix. Any luck getting yours to work yet?

Same here. Apple, you need to fix this.

What they said!!!! Impacts entire families! Come on Apple and T-Mobile!!