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iPhone 5 not receiving calls or voicemail

My iPhone is not receiving calls or voicemail until I enter the Phone App. This has happened to me at least a half-dozen times (that I know of, I suspect many more). It also happens in Messaging, too.


This latest time, tonight, I called my wife because she sent me an email asking if I had forgotten to take my phone out of Airplane Mode. I had been using for text messaging and the camera, and was surpised to see no missed calls or voicemail, so I called her. After one minute or so, bleep-bleep, missed call and voice mail showed up.


iPhone 5, 64gb, lots of free memory. AT&T. I started over from scratch with this phone as I elected not to restore my iPhone 4 backup. I never, ever had this problem with my 4.


Anyone else have this issue? It is critical that my employer can reach me, and practically a condtion of employment, so this is pretty darn important to me. I have also had my someone call and ask if I got their texts. I open up Messages and as soon as I send one, I receive the missed texts.


Thanks.

Posted on Oct 15, 2012 7:37 PM

Reply
86 replies

Oct 15, 2012 7:53 PM in response to Boerne

What troubleshooting have you tried? First thing is to power off/on, then a reset, then a restore, first from a backup and if necessary as a new device. The reset is accomplished by holding the sleep/wake and home buttons together until you see the Apple logo and then release.


Another thing might be to re-seat the SIM card, and you can make contact with AT&T and have them check the provisioning on your account. Make sure it is set up for LTE, since you have the iPhone 5. Are you noticing any trouble with signal during this time, where the phone may be losing LTE signal and searching to get signal back?

Oct 16, 2012 7:37 AM in response to ChrisJ4203

I frequently turn the phone off and on as I fly a lot. I did a hard reset. I have no backups to restore, as it is a new phone. Although I guess it is backed up to the cloud. I will try your para 2 before I do a restore to new phone. Nothing on the phone I care about, so that's not a big deal.


The last time it was in solid 4G land, strong signal, but it had been in an out of service area a few hours prior. This is the one common denominator to previous problems. I'm in a no-service area and return to a service area and don't receive calls and/or texts until I call or text.


I get incredible LTE data speeds, so that's working. I wish my cable modem was that fast. Can I check the sim card myself? If so, how do I do that?


Thanks for the help.

Oct 16, 2012 8:58 PM in response to Boerne

You can remove the SIM card and wipe it off and reinsert it. Check the manual for that information http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/iphone_user_guide.pdf. If that doesn't help, then try the Network settings mentioned by Shawn, then you can try the restore. If you are backing up to the cloud, or doing a backup to the computer, you can still try restoring as a new device to see if it works alright before restoring your backup.

Dec 30, 2012 12:30 PM in response to Boerne

I'm having the same problem. What appears to be happening, in my case anyway, is that the phone gets "stuck" on LTE and won't fall back to the AT&T 3G network for legacy services such as voice calls and SMS (which I think also includes voicemail notifications).


My phone has gotten thoroughly wedged a number of times that I've noticed. The phone may show WiFi if I'm home, but turning off WiFi shows it's really on the LTE network. Incoming calls go to voicemail after a few rings, voicemail notifications don't arrive and incoming or outgoing SMS messages fail.


I can fix the whole mess by simply turning off LTE in settings (no reboot or network reset or any of the other foolishness that AT&T support would have me do). I've done this experiment several times, each with the same result. Starting with a wedged phone with the behavior described above I turn off LTE in settings and the phone immediately startes working fine.


It sure smells like a firmware bug to me. But AT&T seems to be leaning towards givine me a replacement phone, wich I predict will not accomplish much.

Jan 9, 2013 11:48 PM in response to Boerne

I would have to agree with columbrian on this. I have been experiencing this issue intermittently. When I do finally receive text and phone call notifications, is on the 4g network, not LTE. As soon as everything is up to date, it reconnects to LTE. This all only happens after being in an LTE area and connected to Wifi for several hours. This is definitely an iOS firmware issue, not network or data issue. I have had the sim card replaced as well as changing my number (unrelated). I have 3 other lines on my account, 2 of which are iphone 4s, and the other is a samsung note and they all have no issues communicating with each other or others.

Feb 9, 2013 11:10 PM in response to Boerne

I'm having a similar issue, though for me it doesn't matter if wifi is on or not. It's happened to me while at home on wifi and while out and about in a grocery store parking lot without wifi. I haven't noticed if it varies with 4G or LTE but I know the wifi doesn't affect mine.


I'm on Verizon and absolutely frustrated but I really am starting to think this is an iOS issue, since they've replaced my phone already and it's still doing it.


😟

iPhone 5 not receiving calls or voicemail

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