The Samsung Galaxy S24
j5k's profile

Teacher

 • 

1 Message

Friday, August 10th, 2012 12:15 AM

Closed

Samsung Galaxy S3 Not Receiving Calls - Phone issue or Android issue?

I just got a Samsung S3 a week ago.  I have received calls and texts on it, but it appears that I am missing calls.  Somebody tried calling me 6-7 times in a row in a 30 minute time span yesterday and it never rang, and only one of those showed up as a missed call.  Today, the same thing happened again with two calls, and neither appeared in my missed call log.  They sent a text and it didn't appear until about 20 minutes after it was sent.

 

I live in a built up area where there should be good coverage, and looked at the map and am rated as "best coverage."  In the past six months, there were maybe two incidents at most when my old phone (not a smart phone) did not ring.  I have a normal amount of bars on my phone.

 

During both of these incidents, my phone was not in use, and the ringer was on with sufficent volume.

 

Does anybody have any recommendations for solving this?

Tutor

 • 

4 Messages

11 years ago

My wife and I are being bitten by this but we only recently realized it. The issue is not confined to Samsung or even Android; my wife's phone is an iPhone 5 (mine is the Galaxy Note II). Oddly, we can get calls and texts on 4G LTE if and only if we stay disconnected from our home wifi. If we connect to our home wifi, calls and texts stop coming in. Turn off the wifi, reboot, and the backlog (including voicemail notifications) comes through. It's very repeatable.

 

My kids' phones are HSPA+ and are not affected. They get calls and texts even while on the home wifi.

 

The fix from jan_raghavan doesn't work for me. When I set up the new APN, my phone doesn't connect to any data network at all which is weird; since the kids' phones immediately show an "H+" icon when I take them off the wifi, I would expect my Galaxy Note II to switch over the 4G without the "LTE" in the icon just as was shown in the youtube video. But it doesn't. It just sits there.

 

At least I can work around the issue while at home by turning off the wifi. But I have no idea if the phone is actually missing calls when I visit relatives and am on their wifi networks.

Mentor

 • 

37 Messages

11 years ago

I'm still not convinced wifi has much to do with it - I think it's a design flaw in the whole 4G-LTE concept requiring multiple radios (one for data, one for voice). We had the problem a lot on the S3's, but on the S4's I've only had a couple of missed calls in the past two months. I turn the wifi on when I'm at home, off when I leave, but have missed the occasional call both at home with it on, and at work with it off.

 

After filing an FCC complaint, I received a call from someone at AT&T that told me they were unable to fix the problem and would I like to be let out of my contract. I suspect they can make it better (as the S4 did) by pushing everyone to Android 4.2.2, but that doesn't seem to eliminate it completely. I bet they could also make it better by tweaking the firmware in the towers themselves, but they don't seem to be so inclined. I've also heard it can be solved with something called "Voice over LTE" but that won't roll out for a couple of years.

 

Earlier posters here stated that rooting your phone, and installing the newest Android for that model, eliminates the problem, but I cannot verify as that voids the warranty and I don't want to do that yet.

Tutor

 • 

4 Messages

11 years ago

Wifi may not intrinsically be the cause, it could be some side effect of something else when I turn on wifi, but there is no doubt that for my home, turning on wifi results in the phone not ringing, turning wifi off results in the phone ringing. I repeated this little experiment just an hour ago. However, with my wife's iPhone 5, there is the option of turning off LTE (it's native in the menus, Settings -> General -> Cellular -> LTE). Turning off LTE for the iPhone 5 "solves" the problem for her. I don't know why the workaround from jan_raghavan won't work for me...Meanwhile, I just have wifi off except when I periodically decide to update apps. My data plan is enough to cover emails and normal web browsing.

Mentor

 • 

38 Messages

11 years ago

If the workaround you are referring to is the one that creates a new APN, it didn't work for me either. Use the one outlined in earlier pages by M.A.S.E. using the stock dialer. It does work. 

Tutor

 • 

4 Messages

11 years ago

Thanks for that tip, yes its the new APN that doesn't work.

I also found the status menu on my phone and found it quite curious that the "Mobile network state" is listed as "Disconnected" when I turn on my phone's wifi (and it connects to the my home wifi). But as soon as I turn off the phone's wifi, it reports "Connected." If that means what I think it means, it looks pretty clear-cut that something in the settings/toggle is interfering between the two, for me at least.

Mentor

 • 

53 Messages

11 years ago

That's normal. Mobile network state is if the phone is connected to the internet via 4G/3G. If you're connected to Wifi, you don't need a 2nd internet connection.

Tutor

 • 

4 Messages

11 years ago

Well, at least the "solution" from M.A.S.E. "works" to keep me from missing calls at home.

It's a bit of a pain to implement since I have my Galaxy Note II in a Otterbox case and the SIM card doesn't come out far enough for the *#2263# to work without taking the battery out completely. At home it won't matter since I will be on the wifi network. I wish there was an easy way to toggle LTE for phone 😞

Mentor

 • 

53 Messages

11 years ago

You don't need to take the battery or SIM out if you first do the *#197328640# thing (Umts / Debug Screen / Phone Control / Network Lock / Rat_Free_Supporting ON)
Then you can basically disable LTE with *#2263#, but unfortunately you're only option for disabling it is to lock yourself to 2G or 3G with no option for auto-selection between the two.

Mentor

 • 

42 Messages

11 years ago

So, essentially, We're still locked into a contract and paying for services that AT&T is incapable of delivering at this point in time.
In fact, they knew that at the time the contract was signed.
As they knew that, and we didn't, doesn't that constitute a form of fraud on their part, and, forcing us to pay, and holding us to a contract that they're completely incapable of fulfilling, compound it?

[Legal discussions are not permitted per the Guidelines]

Teacher

 • 

14 Messages

11 years ago

Well I am officially free of this problem, so far.  I bought out of my ATT contract, which I will admit they were generous with my buy out.  My new phones and service with V- - - z- - n has been great with no problems like these in this forum.  I am fortunate to live and work in areas that are signal-strong and the 4G LTE is spot on, for me anyway.

 

As much as I would like to give my old Galaxy S3s a Darth Vader funeral I will contemplate selling.  I don't feel right selling a problem like this to anyone. 

Not finding what you're looking for?
New to AT&T Community?
New to the AT&T Community? Start by visiting the Community How-To.
New to the AT&T Community?
Visit the Community How-To.