Can't receive or make calls

Help Fairphone 4
,
1

I’m having some issues with my Fairphone 4, and was hoping someone here might be able to help me troubleshoot. I’ve contacted Fairphone support, but they are slow to respond and have not been of much help so far.

Description of issues:
Phone can’t receive or make phone calls. When receiving a call the phone doesn’t ring and no notification is given that a phone call is inbound. When making a call no ringetone is heard, the signal indicator drops to no signal, and the call gets canceled. Calling and receiving calls will sometimes work with 4G calling turned on. When a different SIM-card is placed in the phone the issues are the same. When my own SIM-card is placed in a different phone it works.

Timeframe:
Issues started 2-3 months ago. Seemed to get worse over time.

I’ve tried:
Turning flight mode on and off.
Turning phone off and on.
Reset APN settings.
Manually set APN.
Reset WI-FI, mobile and bluetooth in settings.
Factory reset phone.
Boot phone in safe mode.

I suspect a faulty connection somewhere, or maybe sometimes wrong with the antenna? Any way I can located where the problem is?

2

Bonjour,

je suggère un test supplémentaire : choisir data 4G pas 5G.
Si ok alors M.A.J. OS.

Eric De Brueker

3

Stop answering everything in french.

2 Likes
4

Did you try with both 5G and 4G off, so try depending of what is available in your country with 3G or 2G.
Is the other SIM you tested from the same provider? Can you test another providers SIM card?
Are you sure when 4G calling is enabled its really available? Call *#*#4636#*#* and check under phone information, three dots, IMS Status.
It somehow sounds that fallback to 3G/2G does not work and 4G Calling does not really work either

5

I’ve now tried with only 2G/3G/4G, only 2G/3G, and only 2G. Issues stay the same. My connection would sometimes drop to nothing when switching between them.

I think they all the SIM-Cards were from the same provider. I’ll see if I can get one that isn’t and try that. But I don’t understand how the SIM-card is at fault when it seems to be working fine in my old phone.

When I turn on 4G calling and the symbol appears in the top bar it works every time. Sometimes the symbol doesn’t appear when i turn it on, and it doesn’t work.

The IMS-Status screen shows:
IMS-registered: Not registered
LTE speech: Unavailable
WI-FI speech: Unavailable
Video calling: Unavailable
UT-interface: Available
Don’t know what any of it means tho.

6

So when 4G Calling is turned on, LTE Speech should show available.

IMS not registered seem wrong actually

Maybee this helps

Reg the SIM: it can theoratically be faulty even if working in another phone.

Beside waiting for support and testing another provider, def get in contact with your provider as well.

7

It does. I had it turned off when I checked yesterday.

The troubleshooter you provided tells me to enter a number to reset SCNRT, but it doesn’t seem to do anything on my phone. Think I’ve tried all the other possible solutions it suggests.

I will continue trying to get my hands on a SIM from a different provider. I will also contact my provider again.

Thank you for the help. I appreciate it.

8

I have the same issue! Did you manage to solve it @Will.iam ?

Though sometimes randomly it works… most of the times it doesn’t. It especially gets worse in the cold.

9

I did. After manually installing the fp os this has not been an issue. Manually installing the os was, however, fairly complicated. Contacting fp support, and sending the phone to their repair center, will probably be easier.

10

I have the same issue started also couple of months ago. Sometimes I need to initiate a call up to 4 times before it succeeds. Not sure whether an OS upgrade started the issue, but it is very inconvenient :confused:

11

Who is your provider? Are you using VoLTE?
How long are you using your SIM card or is it a E-SIM?

12

Vodafone (Czechia), the SIM card is probably more than 2 years old.
However, I tried to disable 4G,5G and VoLTE today and since then I had two successfull calls which is definitely an improvement! :slight_smile:

Should I request an eSIM or is it a software-related issue? Thank you!

13

Give it a try with 5G and VoLTE disabled. Perhaps 4G will work.

14

So I tried it with VoLTE disabled: the issue is reproducible with both 4G and 5G enabled, so the only way for me is to stick with 3G which makes browsing very slow. Not sure what should be the next steps, but I am considering switching to an eSIM.

15

I think it’s a good idea to either swap the SIM card for a new one or change to eSIM.
No guarantee that this will solve your problem, but it is worth it.

16

So I set up an eSIM and the issue still persists :confused: Neither disabling VolTE nor disabling 4G/5G helped. The next step will be reaching out to FP support then…

17

Probably a VoLTE issue.
Try to search your operator in this list:

18

As mentioned in the comment above, both VoLTE and VoWi-Fi are disabled and the issue still persists.

19

VoLTE Is also about your operator that uses this kind of technology and probably in the meanwhile It disabled the 3G and It use only antennas with VoLTE enabled…

20

:it:
Mi trovo nella vostra stessa condizione da circa una settimana. Non posso ricevere né effettuare chiamate e non posso inviare né ricevere sms. Ho provato la mia SIM in altri due smartphone e funziona perfettamente. Mia moglie ha anche lei un FairPhone 4 e nel suo, la SIM, funziona perfettamente. Ho notato però che se vado nelle impostazioni di Rete e Internet —> Chiamate e SMS la voce riguardante le Wi-Fi Calling è assente. Un’altra differenza sta nel menù Rete e Internet —> SIM le voci “Wi-Fi Calling” —> “Off” e “Chiamate 4G” —> “toggle off” anch’esse sono assenti.

Ieri sono stato un’ora in chat con il mio operatore telefonico Fastweb che mi ha fatto fare questa operazione:

  1. Apri l’app Kit strumenti SIM;
  2. Tap su “Servizi Roaming”;
  3. Tap su “Seleziona Modalità”;
  4. Tap su “Manuale”;
  5. Tap su “Internazionale”;
  6. Restart the device;
  7. Dopo il restart, apri l’app Kit strumenti SIM;
  8. Tap su “Servizi Roaming”;
  9. Tap su “Seleziona Modalità”;
  10. Tap su “Automatica”;
  11. Esci dall’app.

Dopo questa procedura lo smartphone funziona correttamente per un paio di telefonate e poi torna alla situazione precedente.

Ho provato a controllare lo Status IMS, attraverso una chiamata al seguente numero *#*#4636#*#*, sia sul mio Fp4 che su quello di mia moglie ed in entrambi i casi risulta “Not Registered” ma dal telefono di mia moglie, come già accennato sopra, la mia SIM funziona correttamente.

Spero di essere stato un pochino di aiuto.

:uk:
I have been in the same situation for about a week. I cannot receive or make calls, and I cannot send or receive SMS. I tried my SIM in two other smartphones, and it works perfectly. My wife also has a FairPhone 4, and in hers, the SIM works perfectly. However, I noticed that if I go to Network and Internet settings —> Calls and SMS, the Wi-Fi Calling option is missing. Another difference is in the Network and Internet —> SIM menu, where the “Wi-Fi Calling” —> “Off” and “4G Calls” —> “toggle off” options are also missing.

Yesterday, I spent an hour in chat with my phone operator Fastweb, who had me perform the following steps:

  1. Open the SIM Toolkit app;
  2. Tap on “Roaming Services”;
  3. Tap on “Select Mode”;
  4. Tap on “Manual”;
  5. Tap on “International”;
  6. Restart the device;
  7. After the restart, open the SIM Toolkit app;
  8. Tap on “Roaming Services”;
  9. Tap on “Select Mode”;
  10. Tap on “Automatic”;
  11. Exit the app.

After this procedure, the smartphone works correctly for a couple of calls and then returns to the previous situation.

I tried to check the IMS Status by dialing the following number *#*#4636#*#* on both my FP4 and my wife’s, and in both cases, it shows “Not Registered,” but from my wife’s phone, as mentioned above, my SIM works correctly.

I hope this has been somewhat helpful.