If you are wondering “why is my phone not ringing” it could be due to some negligence, software-related issue, or hardware issue. You open your mobile phone, be it android or iPhone, and you see missed calls and are wondering how this happened even if the phone did not ring. Then there could be something that held back this activity. There could be multiple reasons for this, but that does not necessarily mean that you are having system damage or a hardware problem. Simple negligence can also cause this. Let us get to one by one and try solving the problem.
Reasons why is my phone not ringing?
- You might have reduced the ringtone sound.
- The mobile phone is on “Do Not Disturb” mode.
- Call Forwarding is ON for some contacts.
- Forgot to unpair the Bluetooth devices.
- Problem with the third-party ringtone.
- The Speaker port is damaged.
- The phone could be infected with external software.
- The mobile is physically damaged.
Almost all the fixes are similar for both Android and iPhone, if there are any differences we will try to explain on to move forward from there. This article will have all the details to take care of all the problems regarding the issue.
Clean your Speakers
Speakers issue might pop up due to dirt or lint present in the speaker of your phone. So before trying any of the fixes try cleaning your speaker port. You can observe the problem if you are having a low volume for your ringtones. Take a cotton swab or a brush and clean the port.
Check the Ringer Volume
This is the most basic thing you need to do, since many people work in offices, and students go to school, they might have reduced the ringer volume and forgotten to increase it. So check the volume settings before moving further. If this is the problem, you can notice that the other sounds associated with the media like music and video are still working properly.
Steps to check for the ringer volume
For iPhone:
- Go to the settings app on the iPhone.
- Navigate to the “sounds and Haptics.”
- Click on the “Ringtone” settings and see the ringtone volume.
- If it is reduced or made to zero, increase it with the touch or you can use the volume buttons to increase the volume up.
For Android:
- Open Settings on your phone.
- Navigate to sounds and vibrations.
- Click on the Ring and Notifications to check for the ringer volume.
- Drag the volume slider to increase the volume or use the volume buttons to increase the volume.
We can also increase the ringer volume without having to go to the settings using the volume buttons, but this is only possible when you are on a call. When the phone is not used for calling, the volume buttons are used for the media volume, but when you are speaking to someone on the mobile the volume buttons are controlling the ringer volume, so we can increase or decrease the ringer volume directly using the volume buttons. This works for both Android and iPhone.
Turn Off silent mode or Do Not Disturb Mode
When your phone is on silent or do not disturb mode, these settings disable the sounds from the calls and message notifications. This could be one of the reasons why is my phone not ringing. So we need to disable these features to get back the sounds on phone calls and text notifications.
Steps to turn off silent mode or do not disturb mode
For iPhone
- We can check for the do not disturb mode on the control panel.
- To bring up the control panel, swipe down from the top-right corner of the screen.
- Disable the Do Not Disturb button, the button has a quarter moon icon, make sure it is not lighting.
There is a special side button, above the volume buttons for the iPhone to put the phone on silent mode instantly. Press the button slowly, and a microphone speaker symbol pops on the screen, if the band below the speaker is red, and the phone is on silent mode, this could happen accidentally. Press it again so that the phone goes off from silent mode.
For Android
- Open the settings.
- Navigate to the notifications settings.
- Scroll down to the Do Not Disturb button and make sure it is off. If not tap on it turn it off or turn off the toggle button.
Sometimes the Do Not Disturb setting is on due to some schedule settings, so check the schedule settings and other settings, so that it does not turn on again.
Check Whether Airplane Mode is Off
People usually forget to turn off the Airplane mode when they get off airplanes, If your phone is in airplane mode, it won’t ring. Some people use airplane mode to refresh their network also. So this might be one of the reasons for the question of why is my phone not ringing. So let us try to know how to check whether your phone is on Airplane mode or not and how to turn it off to receive the phone calls.
For iPhone
- Unlock your iPhone.
- Swipe down from the top-right corner of the screen to get the control panel.
- Check whether the icon with the airplane symbol is on or not.
- If it is on, it means that the airplane mode is on, click on it to turn it off.
For Android
- Unlock the mobile phone.
- swipe down from the top to access the quick settings on your phone.
- Check whether the icon with the airplane symbol is on or not.
- If it is on, it means that the airplane mode is on, click on it to turn it off.
Check if the Audio is on another device
If you are using any Bluetooth devices, there might be a chance that accidentally they are connected to the phone. Due to this reason, the phone ring can only be heard on Bluetooth devices only. So we need to turn it off to get back the ringtone.
For iPhone
Open the control panel and turn off the Bluetooth.
For Android
Open the quick settings and turn off the Bluetooth.
For iPhones, there is a possibility that they are stuck in headphone mode, where it thinks that the ringer is properly working, but instead, it is not audible to the users. In such cases, try playing the audio files on the phone to check if they work. Make sure you are not connected to another audio device like Airplay, etc.
Remove the third-party ringtones
People fancy different kinds of music, they try to set their favorite audios as their ringtones. The third-party ringtones are from the internet, sometimes they contain external malware, which causes internal damage to your phone. So it is better to use the default ringtones to avoid such problems. If you are using any such ringtones and facing the problem of why is my phone not ringing then you need to set the default ringtone to avoid the problem.
For iPhone:
- Go to the settings app on the iPhone.
- Click on the Sounds and Haptics.
- Select any ringtones which are on the phone by default.
- Tap on done after completing the setting.
For Android:
- Open the Settings app on the mobile phone.
- Navigate to the Sounds and Notifications.
- Click on Ringtone settings.
- Select any one of the default ringtones and press OK to save it.
Check the Call forwarding feature
We have the call forwarding feature on our phones, that is we select a number, and all the calls that our phone receives are forwarded to that number. This could be one of the reasons why your phone is not ringing when somebody calls you. You need to turn off the call forwarding feature if you no longer want another number to receive your number calls.
For iPhone:
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
- Navigate to the Phone section.
- Click on the call forwarding feature.
- All we have to do is to turn off the toggle button beside the Call Forwarding feature.
- This option will make the call forward off.
For Android:
- Open the Phone app on your phone.
- On the top-right corner of the screen, you can see three vertical dots, tap on them.
- The three vertical dots will display the options, select the settings in those options.
- In the settings, tap on the Supplementary devices and navigate to the call forwarding options.
Do not forget to turn off all the call forwarding options before completing the process.
Restart the phone
Restart is the best thing to do if you think any of the features in your phone are not functioning properly. It will give a fresh start to the internal software in the phone. The OS will recover from the glitches in the phone. The restart methods are different for different phones and different models. so let us see the general way of restarting the devices.
For iPhone:
We can use the volume buttons and side buttons for the newer versions of the iPhone, but for the older ones, we can use the home button. Just press and hold the combination to power off the mobile, wait for a few seconds and do the same to power it back on.
For Android:
The process is almost the same, we need to press and hold the power and volume buttons to restart the phone. For android phones, they have a restart option too. Go to the settings and navigate to the power or battery settings and click on the restart to do the process.
Reset the cellular network settings
Sometimes you might also face cellular network issues too. which may result in the issue. So go to the reset options on your phone and reset the cellular options. The process is the same for both Android and iPhone. The network connections will be freshly made for better connectivity.
Factory Reset
This is one of the best methods to remove any external software present on the phone. iPhone or Android, a factory reset will restore all the default settings on your phone, just like the one you have bought. The only and the main disadvantage with this is that personal data will be lost, you can either upload all the important things on your phone into the cloud accounts or transfer the data onto other phones. This fix will solve the problem of why is my phone not ringing. So be patient since this process takes some time. Steps to do the factory reset on your phones.
For iPhone:
- Go to the Settings app on your iPhone.
- Navigate to the general settings.
- Click on the Transfer or Reset phone.
- Confirm the action by entering the passcode and clicking on erase.
For Android:
- Go to the settings on your phone.
- Scroll down to the Factory reset options.
- Confirm the action by clicking on “Yes, I am Sure.”
Customer Support
The last fix you want to try is customer support, if all the above fixes fail to solve your problem, it could be definitely due to a hardware issue. A hardware issue is something a normal person cannot solve, so we need experts to rectify or replace the parts to get the phone to ring. They will do their best to solve the problem. Some people block the contacts to avoid unnecessary calling, do check that block list if any of the contacts might accidentally be put there.
Apple customer support is solid and does check up on the offers available on the service support online. For Android, we can either go to the nearest mobile store to get the repair or directly contact your company’s support.
These are all the fixes you can try if you are facing the issue of why is my phone not ringing. One of the above will definitely solve the problem. Do share the article with your friends who are facing similar kinds of problems.
