Weird Fixes No.2

Welcome to the second installment of this series where I outline some of the weirdest fixes I've come across while working in IT.

The Problem

I recently ran into an issue on my iPhone where a person in my contacts list (and had been in my contacts list for a long time) would call me, and my phone would not ring at all. Sometimes the call would connect, but most of the time the caller would simply hear an endless ring on their end, and the call would not go through.

The Solution

Navigate to Settings > Phone > Silence Unknown Callers. Once there, uncheck or disable the setting.

Note: The exact setting name and path can vary slightly between iOS versions and carrier settings. In some versions, this may appear under Settings > Phone > Call Blocking & Identification.

The Explanation

This particular iPhone had the main physical SIM with its number AND an eSIM with a secondary number.

Now, full disclosure: I found some forums and search results online about people who resolved their issue by unchecking this setting, but their problem was with callers NOT in their contacts list. In my instance, the person calling me WAS in my contacts list. Furthermore, it was the only person with whom this was happening consistently. While it occurred occasionally with other contacts, it was most frequent with this one particular caller.

As soon as I disabled this feature, that person’s calls immediately started coming through normally without issue. I never found anyone else having this specific issue with existing, saved contacts, but it worked for me without fail.

I will note that disabling this feature, on paper, should mean that I get more spam calls. In reality, that hasn’t been the case. Even when the feature was enabled, I would still receive spam calls. Since turning it off, there was a slight initial increase, but the volume quickly returned to the same amount as before. That is just my experience; your mileage may vary.

Post Script note about AI Usage in this post

I made use of Google's Gemini AI to proofread and work through the clarity of this blog post; however, the contents contained therein are all my original thoughts.

Conclusion

That's it! Hope this helps someone out there and/or helps someone learn something new in tech.