Help Not Receiving Most Incoming Calls While On 3G

[Benn514]

When I first got my Vibrant a week after launch date, I noticed most people would tell me they had been calling me but I never received the call. Sometimes they said it would go straight to voicemail, sometimes it would ring and ring and ring with no answer and voicemail never coming on. Some times I wouldn't get text messages either, or just get the text messages hours after it was sent.

I ended up having to switch to Edge, which I really don't like because it's so much slower in my area than 3G. I know 3G is not what carries phonecalls, and that it shouldn't really matter. But my girlfriend and I both bought a Vibrant the same day, and we both have the same problem. She has gotten her Vibrant exchanged for a new one about a month ago since it ended up having a problem with the SD Card, and I had to get my Vibrant replaced a few weeks ago as well because my first one was lagging like crazy, and freezing.

Either way, we both have new Vibrants now and they work perfectly software wise, except we still have the issue with most incoming calls not coming through if we are on 3G. We still have to have them set to Edge/2G and incoming calls or texts are never a problem.

Just wondering if anyone out there has had the same problem and if you have been able to fix the issue, how so?

P.S. Neither our Local T-Mobile local store or T-Mobile customer service has been able to offer any help of have any idea of this ever being an issue that they ever heard of.

 

[NoeLiMiTz]

I have the same problem. Erratic 3g, frequently losing signal and no calls received at all. I don't know if it's a Tmobile issue or Samsung as i have not contacted any of them at all yet.

 

[Benn514]

I have the same problem. Erratic 3g, frequently losing signal and no calls received at all. I don't know if it's a Tmobile issue or Samsung as i have not contacted any of them at all yet.

If you find anything out, can you please post and let me know? I will do the same. I love my phone but this one little issue is really a pain. Thanks!!

 

[BadComrade]

I've occasionally been having this issue as well. Seems to only happen occasionally and only when one of my friends (also a T-mobile subscriber) calls me (although he calls me ten times more than anyone else I know, so...).

Today, I was woken up by the sound the phone plays when it's fully charged. I unplug the USB cable from the phone, and get ALL kinds of notifications: 2 missed calls, 2 visual voicemails, new email...

I remember the first time he told me that he had called and that it had gone straight to voicemail: I had the USB connected to my computer. MAY have had it "mounted" to do some data transfer, but I can't remember.

Yesterday I was talking to him on the phone, he said, "Let me call you right back". I get a call back from him, and he says, "Hey... I called you and it went straight to voicemail, so this is my 2nd call to you...").



I haven't called customer service yet, but I think I'm gonna have to do that today. From all the forums I've read, I'm sure they'll tell me that no one else has reported this issue, and won't know what to do... great.


UPDATE: Since writing this, I did a little testing.

First, I mounted the phone. Called it (using Gmail's "call phone" feature). The Vibrant never rang. Calling to it, I got 4 rings before voicemail kicked in (normal amount of rings before that picks up). I leave myself a message, and still no notification from the phone.

Second thing I did was to unmount the phone, and leave it connected to my PC (basically letting the PC charge the phone). Called again, and after two rings from the "caller" side, it went to voicemail. I left a second message. Again, no notification from the phone.

Third thing I did was to unplug the USB cable from the computer, but leave the mini connector connected to the phone. Called again, left a third voicemail and still got no notification from the phone.

Fourth thing I did was plug the USB cable in to the wall charger. Called it, left a message, got no notification from the phone.

I was then going to disconnect the USB cable from the phone and try calling again. Before I did so, I heard the "bling" noise that tells you you've received a new email. Tried calling the phone after that, and it RANG (playing my ringtone). As I was leaving a message, the phone started going "bling, bling, bling", telling me about all the voicemails I had left, and the new email which made me call the phone for a fifth time.



SO, now I'm wondering if the USB cable plays some part in the phone not always receiving calls. I could see it acting as some weird antenna that screws with the cell signal (even though the meter on the taskbar shows full bars...). I'm also wondering if the phone does something when you're connected to a computer to stop it from receiving calls, and whatever that thing is, keeps going for a good ten minutes or so before returning to a state where you can receive calls again.

If I wouldn't have heard that "new email" notification before I had a chance to unplug the phone from the USB cable, I would have assumed that the cable is causing the problem in some way (physically or triggering some weird Android OS thing). Now I'm not so sure what to think...


Kinda glad I don't have a 2 year contract with T-Mobile right now...

 

[BadComrade]

The problem persisted today. I let the phone charge overnight, friend called me, phone didn't ring. Minutes later (don't know how many) I got a visual voicemail.

I called my phone using the "google phone" thing, and it didn't ring.

Phone is in a "4 bar" area of my place, by the way...



So, I did a "battery pull", and so far, it seems everything's working normally again. I was hesitant to do a battery pull, because I really, really, really don't want to have to do one every day just to ensure I get phone calls, etc. I also pulled the SIM card and put it back in. Maybe one of those two things worked, maybe it's a coincidence. We'll see...

 

[BadComrade]

I think I discovered what was causing me to miss a ton of calls:

Visual Voicemail. It's the app that came with my Samsung Galaxy S "Vibrant". You know, the one with the pink and white icon... (it is ver. 1.1.14)

I started thinking, "what apps did I install around the time this problem started? What could maybe be blocking incoming calls...?". Ever since I turned it off, I haven't missed a call yet. I've been testing the phone all day by calling it, and it rings every single time.


So, if you've started having this problem, open visual voicemail, bring the menu up, select "settings" and change the status to off and see if that resolves your problem like it seems to have resolved mine.

Figures it'd be an app that came with the phone, and not something from a 3rd party dev...

 

[Benn514]

That didn't work for me. It's so frustrating that neither costumer service or T-mobile know know how how to fix this or even know of this problem at all. Anyone else?

 

[shemphoward]

My Vibrant also seems to be missing many incoming calls on 3G. But switching to Edge is worse; as and data transfer while in Edge mode will most often prevent calls from being sent to the phone, and this is seems to be with all phones on T-mobile, not just the Vibrant.

I would be interested in knowing if anyone is able to set their T-mobile phone to "2g" or "Edge" (it is in the Wireless menu under "settings") start a data transfer and see if it accepts incoming calls. Apparently there are two Network Operating Modes under Edge, and if your carrier is using NOM1 (rather then NOM2,) the call should go through and and interrupt the data stream.

Thanks.

 

[foxxy106]

I have a huawei u8100-9 wind. The phone rings 4 times then goes to voicemail. I have tried all the settings and can not find out how to change the number of rings to 7 or 8 before it transfers it to voicemail.
Can anyone help

Thanks

 

[Jmarita1]

Okay, I am beyond frustrated. Yesterday was when the issue began (to my knowledge). I will say I noticed on Saturday that my phone is now connecting to Edge, and that no matter what I do, I cannot figure out how to switch it back to 3G, or why it switched to Edge in the first place (this is the first time since getting the phone a little over a month ago). The only thing I know is that I just moved to a different part of town, but it's still IN town, and I still have 3-4 bars at all times.

I was in the MIDDLE of a conversation (via text) yesterday. The conversation suddenly stopped--I hadn't received any other texts from the other person. I didn't think anything of it, as that is fairly normal. But about 15 minutes later, I got 6 text messages all at the same time. 3 were from the person I was talking to, 2 were from my best friend, and 1 was from another person. The 2 from my best friend said, "Okay, I'm leaving now, what's your address?" and the second (received at exactly the same time), said "Okay well I think your phone is dead so I'm just gonna go ahead and go without you. Call me when you get this."

I called her, and it turns out that she had tried calling me twice and sent the first text about 20 minutes previously and the second text about 15 minutes previously. I never got any indication that she called.

The rest of the night seemed fine. This morning I was up for awhile and didn't have any notifications on my phone. I went into messaging though, and immediately saw that there was a new text, which was supposedly received an hour previously. Based on what it says, I can see that it was sent much earlier than that. So now, not only am I not receiving calls, but I am also not receiving notifications. Everything is on auto sync, etc.

I don't HAVE visual voicemail, and I haven't downloaded anything new (well I did last night, but only after the issue started. Just mahjong and world at war or something).

The best I can think is that it's Edge that is causing the problem, as that's when this all started.

Can someone help me please???

 

[Jmarita1]

OKay so just in case it helps anyone, I called TMobile yesterday, and she said I probably got stuck on a tower. They "refreshed my signal" for me. It seems to be working well. It does still switch to Edge when I'm at home but it seems I was still receiving texts and calls normally.