My iPhone doesn't always ring, why?

I have had this happen intermittently for the past month as well and just read through this. Although I don't use "do not disturb", I did take a look at it based on the other suggestions and noticed that Manual was set to ON. Below it reads that when "enabled calls and alerts that arrive while LOCKED will be silenced, and a moon icon will appear in the status bar". Makes sense since some calls ring, others do not, and go right to VM. Thanks for the tip!

Thanks Stacey (sisonline) I tried everything with my phone, plus resetting, had checked all things. As soon as I tweeked that little button on the side, it worked perfectly and rings beautifully again. I'm surprised that Apple has not suggested this to other users when they have had trouble. I presume that the button had switched to the 'silent' mode when I put it in my pocket!! Thanks again, much appreciated.

This is ocurring because your "do not disturb" is on, check under settings to turn off. How you will know it is on: If you see the moon (crescent) in your status bar at the top of your screen than "do not disturb" is on and it will prevent the ringing. I found that I have inadvertently been putting on the "do not disturb" by accident. iPhone has a new feature where sometimes when you swipe your screen up from the bottom a screen comes up with shortcuts to airplane mode, audio, bluetooth, do not disturb and lock. Sometimes when I would go to swipe down to close this screen I would in error hit the crescent (do not disturb) shortcut button in error automatically putting it in do not disturb mode.

Thanks to you for rerunning this!

This just happened to me, and I couldn't figure out why.

After your explanation (which I will repeat below), I realized I must have accidentally touched the switch the last time I removed my phone from its case.

What a terrible "feature."

The fix:

"1) If you look at the left side of the iPhone 5, you will see an indentation with a thin switch, and the two round volume buttons. If that switch is pushed to the back of the phone, an orange line will appear. That puts your phone on silent. Flipped to the front of the phone, it just looks black, and the phone is not on silent. We just realised that this is what happened to ours; it must've gotten flipped while in pocket.

2) The kicker is that when the silent button is on, there is no indication on the screen. No icon with the little bell with a slash through it; nothing to tell you that the phone has actually been put on silent. Not the best innovation. You will see the little slashed bell pop up when you turn the phone onto silent, but then it disappears, giving no clue why your phone that can find answers to all questions in the googleverse won't ring when you get a call."

I have a 5S that has recently started to not ring, too. The ringer is on, DND off, etc - and I live in Dubai, so it's not a carrier issue. This may be irrelevant, but it seems to happen when I'm connected to a wireless network, will need to test this for consistency.
Has anyone else had this problem or noticed a wifi correlation?

I have had the same problem as everyone else and have done all the suggestions. My DND definitely wasn't on. Ironically some people could call me and others not. I couldn't call my daughter nor she call me. Nothing. Some one posted about the LTE. I turned it off and I could call her and she could call me. I have no idea how LTE works, but turning it off so far seems to have helped me. Phew. I have spent countless hours trying to figure this out. So frustrating.

Thanks everyone for your helpful posts !

Missed calls wreaking havoc in my otherwise happy home. Here's my story. My spouse and I both have Iphone 4s, my service provider is Verizon and I'm running version 7.1.2. My husband's carrier is AT&T and he hasn't updated his iphone in over 2 years. Yes, I know what you are thinking, but dispute his lack of conformity to the Apple Gods' rules and his patronage to Tea Party loyalist, we were doing just fine. Surprisingly, the "non-conformist" has ZERO missed call issues, while Apple's loyal lackey, that's me, misses calls regularly. The missed calls are intermittent, and try as I might I can not find a pattern: no specific place/area; no specific caller. I have a strong voice and data signal when this happens and no I didn't just fall off the turnip truck, so we can skip the well meaning replies like, "Is the phone on?" or "Have you checked your settings?". Been through all that, checked everything twice, I'm good to go. May I add, my girlfriend has the Iphone 5s, is running 7.1.2 (like I am), has AT&, and surprise she is experiencing missed calls as well.

So, how does this adversely affect my happy home you ask? Well, yesterday while at the grocery store my culinary challenged husband called me 3 times to tell me he could not find sour cream and needed an alternative option. My phone positioned next to me as I cooked but not a single call rang through. On his 4th try, some time later (did I mention he was a very patient man), he got through only to inform me that he had already purchased Cool Whip as a substitute and was on his way home. Cool Whip? When will this madness end?

I am actually glad to see it is NOT the phone itself. I have had this issue for so long I don't even expect my phone to ring anymore. I was HOLDING my phone because I got a text from my sister saying she was calling me. It did not ring. Several seconds later, I got an alert that I had a voicemail. It is utterly maddening. If someone figures this out, please POST!!!

Dedalus, with this troubleshooting issue, my ringer is set for "Opening" whatever that means. I went to a random contact and the ring tone said "default" However, "Opening" IS supposed to be my default. I set that contact's ring tone to "Opening" and let's see what happens.

I`m having this same problem, I first had this issue on my iPhone4 that get's a SMS notification from my service provider about a missed call. The device doesn't get a missed call notification even.

Cellular data still works, picking up 3G, LTE and WIFI is sometimes connected.

So now on the iPhone5s the same thing is happening on a different service provider. I have full signal picking up LTE also. but daily I get SMS notifications about a call I have missed just a second ago.

This can't be the carrier, as it happens everywhere I'm going. Sometimes I don't get a single call through.

Do Not Disturbed have never been switched on, this is a brand new device, I have reset it back to factory settings, and this is the second Cellular provider with the same issue on another device.

So must be a hardware/software issue. Also the iPhone is not inside a case of protector, it's standard with no modifications.

I just got my Iphone 6 and I am having the same problem. I did a test with the phone sitting on my desk. It has 4 bars of coverage. If the phone has been in sleep mode for a few minutes and I call the phone the first time it will not ring, it goes directly to voicemail. If I call the phone a second time a few seconds later then the phone rings. If I keep calling the phone it keeps ringing. If you let the phone go back to sleep / lock the phone and wait a few minues then call the phone it does not ring but as before it you call it a few seconds later it does ring. Phone is sitting in the same place with no one toucing it.

I also tried switching from LTE for voice and data to no LTE and it did not make a differece.

Seems like when the phone goes into sleep mode for a few minutes then it loses connection with the network. If you call the phone it will not ring, however when the "missed call" notice gets sent to the phone it seems like it registers with the network and then it receives calls as normal until.

So since my phone is normally asleep or locked when others call me then this means I miss most of my calls.

I have Verizon service and I called them but they were no help. I tried resseting the network setting to no avail.

Eric

Okay I got it solved. In the quick setting of the new ios8 there is a cresent moon button for do not disturb. It is easy to hit that and then the first call you receive goes to voicemail and the subsequent calls ring through.

Problem solved!

I think I have figured it out but had to read through many posts and it wasn't clear, so I am going to post this again. I THOUGHT my DND was not on, but then I realized that it was on even when I thought it wasn't. If you go to Setting, Do Not Disturb and see that "Manual" is set to "on", every time you lock your phone it puts it in DND mode. I had assumed that "Manual" meant that I could turn it on whenever I wanted by swiping from the bottom up and getting the DND icon. No so! If you scroll down under Settings, Do Not Disturb, at the bottom it says Silence and you can either choose "Always" or "only when the phone is locked" (only two choices and one must be checked). Underneath it says, "Incoming calls and notifications will be silenced while the iPhone is locked". It operates that way when "Manual" is on! This was the setting when I got the phone from the iPhone store.

So, I often lock my phone in order to not make pocket calls. I had noticed that this had happened a lot when I had my phone in my pocket (makes sense). Now Manual is off and the problem is fixed! Also, it is verified by when Manual is on, I lock my phone, then hit the button to see the screen - the moon is at the top. When Manual is off, I lock my phone, then hit the button to see the screen, the moon is not there! Several months of frustration fixed!

This function is so random and obscure, I thought it needed a clear explanation. I hope this helps.

Same here, with GoogleVoice calls going straight to voicemail. So there is an option

Settings->Do Not Disturb->Allow Calls From->

and select "Everyone."

It a feature that defeats the point of do not disturb, but maybe this will work.

I had the same issue with the crescent moon button. if you swipe your phone from the bottom it is easy to hit. It is the part of the short cut feature that you go for flashlight, wifi, lock screen, airplane mode, calculator, etc. The crescent moon is the DND button. like the person said..... easy to hit......