Missed calls on S3

[Ockham1974]

Hi,
Just got my first Android (Galaxy S3 on ATT) but am already having issues with receiving calls. In a 12-hr period, at least 4 out of 5 calls did not reach the phone, i.e. there was no missed call logged by the phone; 1 of these calls was successfully forwarded to my Google voice. Since then, calls seem OK, making it harder to troubleshoot. Despite all of the cool, advanced features of the phone, I still need reliable phone service!
Has anyone else had similar issues? Any suggestions?

 

[nobodyisherenow]

i have the same issue. i notice when i miss calls, there is no log of the phone number i missed and the times seem to be late at night to about mid morning when the calls are missed. my phone simply doesn't ring and i just happen to notice a voice mail notification. so at least i am able to hear the message i missed, but i don't understand why my phone is not ringing. i can receive calls fine during the day to late afternoon no problem.

on top of this missed call issue, my stock email app is not receiving emails properly. i have it set on auto retrieve, but it only retrieves my emails when i go into the app. not sure why it has such a hard time with this as well.

in any case, i'm going to research why the s3 has these issues as my previous phone (s2) never had any issues like this before.

edit: just updated my operating software to the latest version. maybe we'll see fixes on the two issues i listed above.

 

[D16RR]

I changed my phone settings to forward unanswered, etc. calls to my service rather than going to the voicemail number. After doing so, the phone did not ring, register calls, etc. A restart fixed it.

 

[Voliam]

I have had that issue on and off w/AT&T over the years, regardless of phone model (no ring, no missed call notification, but an almost instant voice mail notification). What is your coverage like when the calls come in? I experience what you describe when my signal is low/bad.

 

[nobodyisherenow]

well i had a time this happened around 9pm so i guess my battery was somewhat low. however, the next time it happened was in the morning and my phone was fully charged as it was plugged into the charger.

i went to an at&t store to see if they could fix it. i was thinking it was a software/hardware issue, but the at&t rep told me if it was it would be happening all the time rather than a few select incidences. he said if the problem persists that i should call 611 - at&t customer service and they can look at the issue more directly.

 

[Rodger Beard]

I agree with the comment about AT&T dropping calls ramdomly sometimes as well as not ringing in when a connection request is pending. When it happens it can be several hours until a voicemail arrives in my inbox. I think this is a little secret none of the carriers want to let get out.

I've an AT&T customer for years (yikes, 14+ years now that I think about it!) and my experience is that when their pipe gets full (whatever cell tower is currently supposed to be servicing you has too many phones active in its service area) then some calls don't go thru. If the get really busy then calls start getting dropped too. Pisses me off when it happens to me, but given the technology what else could they except decline service to the latest arrival? ... and you know they won't do that for the obvious reason that it would be bad PR.

At least with analog service gone they can't subdivide an assigned channel anymore so when there is a connection we can understand the party we're connected with. (Anyway, that's my understanding. Others may know better.)

The root cause is insufficient service capacity, of course, and answer is simply to provide more capacity. On that front I've been getting quite a few text messages lately saying they're doing that and the problem has been less frequent here I am.

Sent from my SAMSUNG Galaxy S3 using Android Central Forums

 

[dibesh638]

My S3 has similar problems as well. I've noticed that this usually happens when I have 1-3 signal bars. I tried calling my phone several times when I have 1-3 bars; with 1 bar, I barely get any calls. With 3 bars, 1-2 times out of 4, the phone does not ring. Additionally, I have realized that dropped calls happen more often on my phone when I am using an app with 1-3 bars. I have also noticed that when I have 2 bars or so with LTE signal, the phone switches to 4G when receiving a call and the bar increases from 2 to 4.

I was wondering if this is a phone issue or ATT issue. I recently switched from Verizon, and even with 1 bar I received almost all my calls with Verizon.

 

[bags51]

Having the same issues with ATT and Samsung S3, Calls go directly to VM without ringing and then no visual or audio notification. Call dos not show up in call logs either. If you look at Verizon forums they have same issues. Can't understand why a there will be a voice mail, but not show up as a missed call or in phone log. My guess is for some reasons the phones are not showing up as being registered ( for whatever reason) resulting in calls going to VM with out ringing. Just my guess.

 

[KreepyKen]

It's AT&T. Never had the problem with Verizon or T-Mobile, but both phones on AT&T that I've had have experienced this from time to time.

In fact, I was trying to show my wife how the bluetooth works in my car and had her call me (we were both in the car). She kept getting my voicemail. We both had GS3s and both had 3 or 4 bars of service. But her call just refused to go through. I restarted my phone, and her calls still went right to voicemail.

I'll tell you, I really like AT&T's customer service...they've been great every time I've called them, but their network is crap. If T-Mobile can get some semblance of a network together by the time my contract is up in 18 months, I'll switch back to them in a heartbeat.

 

[greysonofusa]

I have been having this problem with incoming and outgoing calls ever since I updated the phone to android 4.1.1 with Kies. I tried everything from factory resets to battery pulls to new micro SIM card. AT&T finally sent me a new s3. Today I received the brand new s3 I booted it up and noticed it had 4.1.1 prei-nstalled. Soon enough once I got done with the setup I called my wife and it took like ten seconds of silence and then beep. --Call Cancelled. I now know that this is a software glitch.

 

[Nophix]

My wife is having the same problem on her One X, so it isn't the phone. I'm never on one tower long enough.



Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

[Kelly Kearns]

I'll copy and paste my post from another thread and this might help you out. I never had this issue with a 3G phone and with a 4G phone, a tower far away is "pulling" my phone and it is connecting to that tower, rather than the 4G tower 1/2 a mile from me. I am convinced this is Tower issues, I was even bouncing from tower to tower the other night when I was talking to AT&T and I was sitting in my chair in my living room, not driving through the city. I'm surrounded by 4, 4G towers, in the best coverage they have, but one tower 4 miles away is overriding 3 towers that are W/E/S of me and they are 1 mile away on both sides of me and 1/2 a mile away behind me and yet, my phone and many others in this neighborhood are going to the one 4 miles north. There are several microcells in my area but there shouldn't be any, because like I said, we are in the best coverage area, right in the middle of it, not even on the line. This is what I am doing:

I would suggest opening a network ticket with 611, then after the ticket is opened and they give you the number, call 888-343-7992. That is a very small department, they can look at everything and every tower your phone has connected to, they can tell you how many dropped calls, not connected calls, etc and they can tell you what your phone is doing in real time.

You have to open a network ticket first, for them to check towers. Of course going through 611, they are going to want to "troubleshoot" your device, even though you have replaced it, that is their script at 611 and they must do that first. If they don't go ahead and open a network ticket, they will send you to Tier 2 and they might want to troubleshoot it again, but if you explain about exchanging the phone and the SIM card, chances are good they will open the network ticket for you and that ticket will go to Tier 3, then call the number I gave you and they can give you a ton of info then what is going on with your calls and the towers and they will add that info to your network ticket. Those are the people that get to the engineers, because this is most likely a 4G/LTE Tower issue. I'm having an issue myself, not with the dropped calls, I've only had 4, but my phone is connecting to the wrong tower far away and sometimes my phone doesn't ring, I just suddenly have a voicemail.

Now I have also found if you go through these steps and still are having an issue and call Samsung, they will take your phone and check it out completely (I'm assuming it is under the 1 year warranty) for free and then fix it for free if they find an issue.

This department can and will also tell you real time if there is any minor or major issue with a specific tower.

 

[Nophix]

Your phone is doing exactly what my wife's phone is doing. It isn't so much dropping calls as it is just not ringing.

I suspect there his something going on with the tower I can see from my deck, and its trying to grab one of the others. Her signal strength fluctuations back this up. It seems to be worse mid day. Overload on that tower perhaps, since its right in the middle of town?

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

[Kelly Kearns]

Your phone is doing exactly what my wife's phone is doing. It isn't so much dropping calls as it is just not ringing.

I suspect there his something going on with the tower I can see from my deck, and its trying to grab one of the others. Her signal strength fluctuations back this up. It seems to be worse mid day. Overload on that tower perhaps, since its right in the middle of town?

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

File a network ticket, call the department I have suggested and even call them back if you get a call that the towers are ok and they closed the ticket. They will know exactly what towers she is connecting to. I've been dealing with this for 6 weeks and have just gotten to this dept and gotten the info and help from them in the last week.

 

[greysonofusa]

Try adding a new APN it turns out the apn in Jelly Bean has changed from Ice Cream Sandwich.
I was having issues with outgoing and incoming calls until I did this. I even got a replacement phone and had the same issue.



This is the APN in Ice Cream Sandwich:




Name: pta
APN: pta
Proxy: Blank
Port: Blank
Username: blank
Password: blank
Server: blank
MMSC: blank
MMS Proxy: blank
MMS Port: blank
MCC: 310
MNC: 410
Authentication type: Blank
APN Type: default,internet,mms,supl
APN protocol: leave as is
Bearer: leave as is

 

[Samsunglover]

When I had verizon i had the same problems! Had to switch the phone in multiple times, still the same problems. Ended up switching to at&t and all is well.

 

[Aquagirl574]

It's not AT&T, it's Galaxy S3. I use VzW and the issue of not showing missed call log has been bothering me since the first month I got this phone. I've been trying to be careful by checking my overall phone status from time to time to make sure that I don't have missed calls, but still, it still happened, and thanks to S3, I might have just lost a good business opportunity. I'm hitting the VzW store and see if they can fix the problem for me. If they can't, I am trading this phone in today.

 

[mty msi]

I don't know if this is still an issue with AT&T but I do know earlier this year (late Jan.) AT&T had an issue with a Lucent (name of manufacturer) switch which caused random intermittent missed phone calls for every 4G phone in every market AT&T has 4G service. AT&T called and told me this about a week after I started having problems. The biggest problem I encountered while trying to resolve the issue is AT&T did not disseminate that info to their frontline tech support personnel so every time I called Tech Support I got a different response, none of them correct. My phone has the 4G switched off as this alleviates the problem. I've never turned the 4G back on to conserve battery life (which is still very mediocre at best). Like I said, I have no idea if this is still a problem but I know for a fact is was.