Phone randomly goes straight to Voicemail, and no incoming texts.

[lemon40]

I've got a Motorola One Vision running Android 10 May 2020 update.
Since the update a few weeks ago, randomly when people call or text, it goes straight to voicemail and I don't get texts. This is even with a strong signal. If I put the phone in airplane mode and then back, all of the texts come through and I can get phone calls again.
I don't know if the latest update is related or not or if it's something unrelated.
Any ideas? My thoughts are that it may be the SIM since it's years old and I had it with my old Nexus 6 from years ago.
Of course working mostly from home now makes it much more difficult to get a hold of me and I have no clue it's doing that.

I wasn't sure what category to put this in, so I just put it in the ask a question part because I would imagine it's common across many phones.

Thanks!

-d

 

[B. Diddy]

How frequently does this happen? If it's fairly frequent, then see if the problem persists in Safe Mode: Using Safe Mode on the motorola one vision

 

[methodman89]

Have you cleared the phones cache partition and rebooted?

 

[lemon40]

It's hard to say how often it happens, maybe once a day. The thing is, I don't always know and if I make a phone call, it seems to fix the issue.
I reboot frequently, I will try clearing the cache.
Thanks for the tips. I will see what happens in safe mode as well.

-d

 

[methodman89]

By cache partition I'm referring to the phones cache partition option, not an individual app. Your experience with this right after the update is common.
Good luck

 

[lemon40]

By cache partition I'm referring to the phones cache partition option, not an individual app. Your experience with this right after the update is common.
Good luck

So in Android 10, I went to settings then storage, I have the option to "free up space" and then I have the option to delete junk files. I'm assuming this is the cache now? I don't see anywhere where I can delete all of the cache otherwise. Only individual program caches.

-d

 

[methodman89]

Here are instructions for your phone.
https://www.hardreset.info/devices/motorola/motorola-one-vision/wipe-cache/

 

[lemon40]

Here are instructions for your phone.
https://www.hardreset.info/devices/motorola/motorola-one-vision/wipe-cache/

When follow the instructions, I don't have the option to wipe the cache. I can wipe/factory reset, but I don't want to do that obviously.

-d

 

[B. Diddy]

It's possible that the phone doesn't support wiping the cache partition, since Moto has been using dual A/B partitions on most if not all of their more recent phones (which allows for seamless system updates). Dual partitions take away the ability to wipe the cache partition, so don't be surprised if you don't see the option in the Recovery Menu. ( @methodman89, Hardreset.info is generally a good resource, but they've been known to get things wrong about specific devices from time to time.)
@lemon40, it may be worth asking your carrier to send you a replacement SIM, since yours sounds pretty old.

 

[lemon40]

Okay here is an update. I got a replacement SIM and I thought that took care of the issue as I didn't have problems for a few days.

It seems the problem is much worse when I'm connected to a bluetooth speaker and listening to music - specifically with Pandora and it's a Bose Soundlink Mini. Any ideas? BTW, I'm on the June 2020 update now.
So far it seems in safe mode this does not happen, however I can't use any apps in safe mode, so it's not a long term solution.
Thanks!

-d

 

[B. Diddy]

If it doesn't happen in Safe Mode, then you might have to try uninstalling apps one by one until the problem goes away. You can probably narrow things down by seeing which apps have Phone permission, and uninstall those first.

Since you mention Pandora, try uninstalling that first and seeing if the problem goes away.

 

[lemon40]

So the plot thickens a bit.
I think it's related to the Bluetooth. I can reproduce the issue if I have the bluetooth speaker connected and it's playing music or whatever, once it connects things seem okay. If I leave the room and it disconnects or whatever and then I come back, it goes straight to voicemail. At that point I seem to have to reboot the phone for it to work again and just switching between airplane mode and regular doesn't fix it like it would sometimes.
But then just earlier today, I turned off bluetooth completely and now randomly it seems to have gone straight to voicemail again. This time with bluetooth off, I switched into and out of airplane mode and it fixed the issue.

Any ideas now? I'm thinking of just backing everything up and doing a factory restore and then working on getting everything back to how I like it. Do you think this would help? If so, how long would it typically take to get all of the android updates up to date? It would downgrade back to version 9, even though I'm on 10 with the June updates, but then I assume it would start getting updates over the air.

Thanks!

-d

 

[B. Diddy]

Does the BT speaker connect for Phone Audio as well? If so, toggle that off in the Settings>Bluetooth menu and see if the problem persists.

 

[lemon40]

Ah, good idea, I will look for that setting and see if that helps.

-d

 

[lemon40]

This just keeps getting weirder and weirder. I disabled the speaker from answering the phone. Not sure that did anything.
This morning, I tested the phone, straight to voicemail. I turned off the bluetooth, still straight to voicemail. Then I turned off the wifi, and it rang just fine.
I thought that maybe it has to do with Wifi calling, but I don't see any sort of settings at all for Wifi calling. It appears on some versions of the One Vision it is an option, but others it isn't. I bought it off ebay and I think it was an international unlocked. For software version, it says "RETLA" Not sure if this helps or not.
Any thoughts? I guess I could just keep WIFI disabled and see if it works. I mean I don't use much data anyway even without wifi, I shouldn't come close to the throttle limit (hopefully)

-d

 

[B. Diddy]

Go to Settings>Apps>Permissions, and see which apps have Phone permission. Try turning off permission for the apps there one by one (or uninstall them) and see if that helps. I'm still thinking of the fact that the problem goes away in Safe Mode, so it must be some 3rd party app causing the problem.

 

[lemon40]

Okay, before I start disabling it on all of them, I'll list the ones with phone access. Obviously things like "Phone" need access, but I don't know about the others:

Android Accessibility Suite,
Contacts
GO Keyboard <-- I thought this could be it, but for a while I stopped using it and the issue still happened. Regardless, not sure if keyboard apps need access to the phone
Google
Google Play Store
Hangouts
Lookout
Messages
Phone <-- duh
Photos
T-Mobile
Visual Voicemail

Then I have a bunch that are denied which I don't need to list.

Thanks!

-d

 

[B. Diddy]

Even if you stopped using GO Keyboard, it might still cause issues if it's still installed. Try uninstalling it and use the stock keyboard app for a while.

The other one I'd uninstall (or disable, if it was preinstalled) would be Lookout. If you're not frequenting shady sites and if you're always installing apps from a trusted source like the Play Store, then your risk of malware is low, so you'll be ok without it.

 

[lemon40]

Okay thanks, I will try uninstalling the keyboard and disabling Lookout.

-d

 

[lemon40]

I uninstalled those and the problem didn't seem to change at all. I went back into T-Mobile for something unrelated and asked the person working if they had any ideas. He reset something on his end but it didn't help. He also told me to call 611 and see if they have any ideas or can see what's going on.
So the next time it happened and I had a full signal, I called from a different phone. The lady said they couldn't see anything on their end, but she recommended that I reset all of the network settings. So I did that and it didn't help.

So now yesterday even with the wifi off, it happened once. It's possible the phone just needed a reboot as it was kind of warm and the signal was wonky. So far today it's fine.

The only other thing I can think of is to do a factory restore and then just load back things like messages and photos etc. and then wait to get all of the updates again.

-d