Forum Discussion
Intermittent Incoming Calls Going Straight to Voicemail with No Ring
I have several issues with T-Mobile’s network:
- On occasion incoming phone calls go straight to voicemail without my phone ringing, showing a missed call notification, etc.
- If someone leaves a voicemail it can sometimes take an hour or more before I get the voicemail notification (but it still does not even show that an incoming call was received).
- 2FA messages intermittently do not come in.
These issues has been ongoing for several years for me; and each time I go through the myriad of troubleshooting steps, only to have my devices blamed as either needing an upgrade or being third party devices. This makes zero sense, as the phones do work as intended immediately following me placing an outgoing phone call or by restarting the phones.
I’ve been tasked with working on call at work, and I have missed some very important phone calls from my team and boss. Because of this, I would like to get to finally get to the bottom of this issue and have it resolved.
Issues like this are mainly need Signal troubleshooting to get this resolved. I’d start there first and follow those common steps to fix this.
- Jimbo16cRoaming Rookie
This is a serious problem with T-Mobile. I am having the same issues. It seems to be getting worse. People have been telling me they try to call me and my iphone never shows any missed calls. I recently was trying to track down an item that was being shipped to my house and you had to leave your number and they would call back. I was never getting the calls. I just would have a voicemail that showed up. It is so frustrating. I have 4 months left on my equipment payment plan and I think I may have to switch as well.
- KF6OLQNewbie Caller
In most cases, the issue is two-fold. On the land-line side of the T-Mobile system, there is a part of the call switching system called Signaling System 7. (SS7) This system has a signal called “Connection Confirm.” This signal makes the calling phone system wait until your phone has been located on the network, then creates the ring signal for both ends. This also starts the timer for the call to go to VM.
If there is a problem with this signaling system, it can cause the timer to forward calls to your VM prematurely. Keep in mind the call forwarding happens on the land-line side of the system, before it even goes to the towers.
Where your device’s connection comes into play, is a weak signal to your device, or heavy network congestion can make it take too long for the system to find your phone before the call forwarding times out, sending the call to your VM.
I am currently having this issue in an area with an amazingly strong signal. It even happens while I’m on the phone. The call waiting does not show a second call, but I get a pop-up to tell me I have a new voicemail. Sometimes, it shows one or two rings, but the call is gone before I can answer it. A minute later I get the new VM pop-up.
The fix must come from T-Mobile’s engineering team. So far, no one I talk to understands that side of the system.
- jules7Newbie Caller
It’s not your house. It’s not my house, because it happens when we’re OUT of the house. If we have wifi turned on, no matter where in the nation we are, any and all incoming calls go straight to voice mail without ringing and leave no record on “recent calls”. We’re suspecting it might be due to the fact that our phones originally came from Verizon, and Tmobile hasn’t figured out how to get around the issue. Today’s glitch: I replied to a text on Sunday. Today is Tuesday. This morning, my reply was still showing as “Queued”. UN-FREAKING-ACCEPTABLE. (I’m not going to bother opening a new thread because it feels useless to do so.) I’m going to work harder to convince my husband we need to just pay the difference and go back to Verizon. We never (not ever) had issues like this with them.
- paulgettierNewbie Caller
Same issue for awhile. I may switch carriers soon. Ridiculous.
- Jimbo16cRoaming Rookie
And is it just me or does it seem like their customer service is outsourced now again to people you can’t understand. The one time I heard roosters crowing in the background.
- dubbyaNewbie Caller
I’ve just fixed my problem of calls going straight to voicemail. After trying all the usual suggestions, I looked at the “call settings” screen then tapped the “call forwarding” title and the phone went thru a settings update motion. Then went it stopped it showed the phone number that the calls were going to and they where off by one number. The last digit was not my voicemail number and I don't know how that got changed. But I do know that T-Mobile has done us a huge miss justice by leaking our personal data to the web and that may have had something to do with it. I’m leaving this provider.
- Omega1Newbie Caller
People are telling me that when they call me that the call is going directly to voicemail. This does not happen all the time. But at times it will ring one time and then go directly to voicemail without showing up on caller ID or notify me that it was a call. I use this phone for business. I can’t have this? What’s going on with T-Mobile is there a solution?
I’m using a iphone11
- dktx55443Newbie Caller
Was having this issue on iPhone recently. Turned off Phone » Live Voicemail setting and now all calls come through.
- jules7Newbie Caller
I’ll be following this thread for suggestions - We are new to T-Mobile, and are having the same issue on both my husband’s phone and my own. I’m just starting to look into it, and will be calling our local store when they open tomorrow morning. This looks like a “known issue” from what I can see on da google, but I’m not seeing any good solutions. If not resolved quickly, we’ll be switching back to Verizon.
(Complicating the problem is the fact that our voice mail doesn’t seem to have a time or date stamp of any sort, so when a call goes straight to voice mail we have no way of even knowing when we received it. We just can’t function like this.)
- tmo_mike_cModerator
Issues like this are mainly need Signal troubleshooting to get this resolved. I’d start there first and follow those common steps to fix this.
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