Why won't siri make phone calls?

bludlow wrote:

When dialing *228, it says the number is not allowed.

*228 is the number that Verizon (and maybe other CDMA carriers, though I don't know) uses for programming 3G phones over the air. If you try to dial *228 on a 4G LTE phone, you'll get that response. LTE phones are activated by putting an active SIM into the phone, not by over the air programming.

That did nothing to solve my problem unfortunately. I've tried changing my test customer to numerous formats and adding +'s and removing and re-adding country codes, nothing's working for local numbers for me. I'm going to report the issue to Apple again and hope that it can be solved in an upcoming update (currently running on 11.1 in 2017 and NOTHING).

Here's a better solution. Prevents you from updating all your contacts.

I found the solution on an outside forum: http://forums.tipb.com/iphone-4s-forum/221242-iphone-4s-contacts.html

This seems to only affect Verizon devices. If you are not using Verizon, this fix will not work for you.

Here is the summary of the steps I took to correct the issue:

1) Open the Phone and dial *228. This is a Verizon over-the-air programming number.

2) When the system answer press 1 for "Program or activate your phone"

3) Wait for the call to disconnect. You should get a prompt stating something like, "Settings updated."

4) Open the Task Manager and kill the Phone, Message, and Contacts Applications

5) Wait a few minutes (I waited 3 just to be extra

If you are still broken, then reboot your phone.

Your fix allowed me to make calls with Siri too. Thank You!

Awesome, thanks for your help. You fixed my iPhone🙂

You fixed mine too with this! Thanks!!

I live in Kuwait, and I am unable to make phone calls with Siri either, when Siri is disabled the normal voice command dials without any problem. It's a shame, the main reason i bought my iphone 4s is Siri. This is a simple function that already existed, not sure why Apple hasn't fixed till now.

I have been fighting my employer for so long to use Iphone instead of the silly blackberry, My company was seriously looking into removing blackberry and replacing them with iphones, not sure they will with all the IOS 5 and Siri problems. FYI my employer has 9,000 employees, 3,000 of which are executives, do the math...

I was having the same problem. Siri wouuld not dial any of my contacts without the +1 at the beginning. Also if any of my contacts would call it didn't show their name, just the number. That programing thing fixed it. Thank you very much, and Yes I am a Verizon cutomer.

Thank you! You helped fixed my phone too!

Same problem here too. I am in Indonesia and siri can follow my command to make phone call to overseas contact no like Singapore and Australia. However Siri cant make call to local number. But all the message and text command is working well.

Please help if any way to fix this up. Much appreciated.

Thank you

what is the task manager? don't know where to find it on the phone.

Double tap the home button to bring up the recently used list, aka task manager. Press and hold an app to bring up the ➖ . Tap it to clear that app. Press home twice when done.

hi, i live in kuwait too, im disapointed in same complain on why Siri cant make calls in kuwait, we just hope it will be fixed soon on coming updates, Siri is still on beta though.

solved my moms phone issue as well thanks

worked instantly too lol

Thank You problem solved... 🙂