Having your Samsung S6, s5, Note, Note II or other device send calls directly to voicemail can be caused by several things, most of which are easily resolved:

CALL REJECTION IS TURNED ON:

  1. Start your PHONE app
  2. Click MORE (or three dots icon) in the top right corner of the screen (or the OPTIONS/MENU button on older devices)
  3. Click SETTINGS
  4. Click AUTO REJECT LIST
  5. Remove any numbers in the list

BLUETOOTH IS CONFUSED:

If all of your inbound calls are going straight to voicemail, try turning OFF your Bluetooth connection.  Sometimes your phone may think it has a connection to a Bluetooth device (like your car or an earpiece) but that device is not talking to the phone.  In this situation, you will not hear the phone ring and think that the calls are going straight to voicemail.

  1. Swipe down from the top to bring up the status / notices screen
  2. Click on the BLUETOOTH icon to turn it off

CALL BARRING IS TURNED ON:

  1. Start your PHONE appwhat-is-call-barring-international-usage-cell-android-samsung
  2. Click MORE (or three dots icon) in the top right corner of the screen (or the OPTIONS/MENU button on older devices)
  3. Click SETTINGS
  4. Click MORE in the top right corner of the screen (or the OPTIONS/MENU button on older devices)
  5. Click CALL BARRING
    1. These settings let you block inbound or outbound calls in various situations like:
      1. ALL INCOMING CALLS
      2. ALL INCOMING CALLS WHEN ROAMING
      3. ALL INTERNATIONAL CALLS
    2. If you click MORE in the top right corner of the screen (or the OPTIONS/MENU button on older devices) you can then set a password for these rules.  This is a great tool for parents that a travelling with kids who are too little or too stupid to understand the cost of international calls.

SIM CARD HAS SHIFTED:

  1. Swipe down from the top to bring up the status / notices screen
  2. At the bottom right confirm that your cellular provider name is shown on the bottom of the screen .
  3. If you see NO SERVICE it means there is something wrong with your account with your provider (Telus, AT&T, Orange…) or your SIM card
  4. If your account is fine, it likely means the SIM card has shifted and you should:
    1. Power down the phone
    2. Take the SIM card out
    3. Put the SIM card in
    4. Power up
    5. Swipe down from the top to bring up the status / notices screen
    6. Within one minute or so, your cell should show the name of your cellular provider at the bottom of the notices screen
  5. If this still shows no service, you might have a bad SIM and you should take it back to the store for them to check it

VOLUME IS TURNED DOWN:

If your volume is turned down, the calls may be coming in but you did not hear the ringing so you think they are being sent directly to voicemail.

  1. Start your PHONE app
  2. Click the VOLUME UP button (physical button on the side of your cell)

FORWARD TO VOICEMAIL IS ON:

  1. Start your PHONE app
  2. Click MORE (or three dots icon) in the top right corner of the screen (or the OPTIONS/MENU button on older devices)
  3. Click SETTINGS
  4. Click CALL FORWARDING
  5. Click VOICE CALL
  6. Click ALWAYS FORWARD and then DISABLE

VOICE OVER LTE IS ON:

  1. Start your PHONE app
  2. Click MORE (or three dots icon) in the top right corner of the screen (or the OPTIONS/MENU button on older devices)
  3. Click SETTINGS
  4. Find and disable VOICE OVER LTE
    1. only available on some models and firmware versions, so don’t look too hard
    2. This will be on ALL devices in the future
    3. LTE is a Data Only network and does not carry voice… but voice can be converted into digital data and sent over LTE.

ANTENNA IS BROKEN:

This is quite rare but possible.  If your cell have very intermittent connectivity the cold solder joint that connects the internal antenna (really just a small white clad  copper wire) may have come loose.  To test this turn OFF your WiFi to verify that you are ONLY receiving data from your cellular provider and try to send or receive calls, or surf the internet or send/receive emails… .

 


38 Comments

Christelle Carstensen · August 27, 2021 at 6:04 am

I’ve tried just about everything, my Samsung Phone still won’t accept calls or sms’s. Is there not a reset button. i’ve tried everything now already.

    voicebio8 · June 3, 2022 at 6:09 am

    Verizon has an app called One Time Dialer. Once I uninstalled it, the phone was back. NOTHING else worked, not any of the bull above.

      Ian Matthews · June 13, 2022 at 4:00 pm

      Why would say “BULL ABOVE”. The information and processes we provided do solve the vast majority of straight to voicemail problems.

        Lucien · February 24, 2023 at 1:21 pm

        My phone doesn’t have any of the settings you show to solve the call going to voice.

Ninagc77 · May 15, 2021 at 11:19 am

I simply restarted my phone and that did the trick!

Shakira · January 18, 2021 at 9:31 am

I finally figured out what was causing my phone to go straight to voicemail. After trying everything on the internet and it not working I found out that the different phone companies have an app that is making the phone go straight to voicemail. For AT&T (my phone) it’s called Call Protect and on Sprint it’s called Call Screener. I never set up this app but apparently it comes pre-installed on the phone and there is a section called Block and under that there was a section labeled Unknown Callers and it was set to block. Once I changed that to allow I could receive all my phone calls. The basic is free and of course they have a premium that cost an extra $3.99 a month.

    Ian Matthews · January 19, 2021 at 3:45 pm

    Thanks Shakira. That is a great addition to this thread 🙂

    Nicola Gonzalez · July 8, 2023 at 8:07 am

    Thank you Shakira. I was having the same problem. Now I hope its fixed. I did see it in Google play and I left One Star because itss the lowest I could leave lol. thanks again!

georgiana hucko · December 25, 2020 at 2:32 pm

i don’t have on blue tooth on and it still doesn’t work now what

    Ian Matthews · December 30, 2020 at 10:59 am

    Hi Georgiana;

    I would go through the other items in our list including, reseating the SIM card.

Georgiana Hucko · December 25, 2020 at 2:25 pm

i still am unable to receive any incoming calls everything still goes to an automotic voice mail don’t know what to do help

    Ian Matthews · December 30, 2020 at 10:51 am

    Hi Georgiana;

    That is definitely odd. Have you contacted your carrier (cell provider) to see if the problem is on the back end?

MoniQue Alponte · February 15, 2020 at 8:56 pm

SOLVED: Turn OFF BLUE TOOTH + Turn OFF SPAM & CALLER ID PROTECTION” This worked for me.

MoniQue Alponte · February 15, 2020 at 8:55 pm

Also, turn off “spam protection.” My calls were sometimes going directly to voice mail and I turned off BLUE TOOTH and also turned off SPAM PROTECTION CALLER ID. Go to phone app then SETTINGS then MORE (with the 3 dots) and turn both of those off. Now my phone is not going straight to voice mail.

    Bill Lambert · October 13, 2022 at 7:13 am

    Thank you Monique. That was exactly my issue

Richard Graham · November 10, 2019 at 8:57 am

My phone goes straight to voicemail unless I dial *73….but if I turn the phone off I have to dial each time….(this turns off call forwarding)

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