I have a Samsung S21 Ultra Android phone which is behaving oddly and I am wondering if anyone has any suggestions … other than finding the local T-Mobile store. I got three calls this morning that went straight to voicemail, no ringing. If I dial the phone from my landline, I get a busy signal. If I dial the landline from my phone it works. An hour ago the phone rang and it was a call from Shanghai … in Chinese … no idea who. I have periodically seen an isolated voicemail which surprised me since the phone is in my pocket essentially all day long and there had been no ringing. But, I do periodically get calls, just not many.
I don’t think it is related, but I will also note that I keep a pair of AirBuds in the living room for when I get a Signal post from someone containing a video. The other day, I noticed in my office, which is below the living room, that I wasn’t hearing an expected sound and noticed that it was paired with the AirBuds. I now have Bluetooth turned off except when I want to use it.
I have but one thought, what I do first when things get crazy. It has worked well enough for me that I haven’t had to figure out what to do second. That is using iPhones, but so what?
So the way that works is your local phone land line reaches out to your cell phone and is told it is busy. Then your land line supplies a busy signal to your land line. So your local TMobile may have a problem. It sounds like maybe your tower is having intermittent problems. Are you in a high usage area? The reason I state that is it is automatically going to your voicemail.
It sounds like your tower is having an intermittent problem. Does this happen wherever you go or only when you are at your home/office? If it is everywhere you go it probably is a software problem in Tmobile and will have to be troubleshot by one of their technicians.
Only when I am home, that I have noticed, but then that is almost always, so I don’t have much of a sample outside. I do have a Personal CellSpot which provides local signal and connects to the internet here in the office with me, so I would guess that is the “tower” of reference. Sometime the GPS light on this unit went orange instead of the normal greenish yellow on all other lights. Don’t know what that means.
Sounds like a problem with the tower near you. Maybe congestion? I would contact Tmobile and talk to their technician letting them know what your problem is. Usually you do not have a problem with voice calls it is more the data that they restrict. They should be able to trouble shoot it over the phone.
Check the number of “bars” you have for your cellular signal. If it is not near the top, look in Settings for something called Wi-Fi Calling - at that is the name on iPhones and make sure that is turned on. This will actually makes the call in your house by using your internet connection - not the cell tower near your house.
I don’t know any reason why a weak signal would automatically go to voice mail, but no signal certainly will go to voice mail. So it is worth a try
It is possible I have fixed it. I noted the Personal CellSpot with the red GPS light. This is positioned such that I rarely see it, but some time back I noticed the GPS light was red instead of green. Having no idea why the unit even needs GPS and having no problem with my outbound calls and such, it didn’t occur to me that this might have anything to do with going to voicemail and the like.
But, yesterday I did a little googling and didn’t really find anything meaningful, but I ran across a troubleshooting discussion where they suggested a power off, power on, reset sequence which would both reset the box and do any pending software updates. So, I did that … it takes an unbelievably long time to fully boot … so I let it finish after I had quit for the day. This morning, all the lights are green and the land line to mobile test causes the phone to ring! So, we’ll see, but that may have fixed it. Thanks for the suggestions!