Jim Rossman: Calls not ringing? Check Do Not Disturb mode

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

I received this email from a reader last week:“I have an IPhone XR, which has stopped ringing on incoming calls. (If someone calls), it goes immediately into voice mail. The call also does not show up on my Apple Watch and texts do not ring. I have done everything, including spending an hour on a chat with Apple (to no avail).

"I made an appointment with Apple's Genius Bar. The gentleman helping me flipped a few switches, called me and the phone rang. I came home and again calls did not ring. If someone calls and immediately calls me a second time, the phone will ring.

"Could it have something to do with Apple's update IOS 18.6.2?”

____

The software update may have had something to do with this issue, especially if this is new behavior since the update.

There are several things that could silence your ringing and notifications, but when the reader mentioned the second call ringing through, that made the answer obvious.

The symptoms you describe point to “Do Not Disturb” mode being enabled.

Do Not Disturb is turned on or off by swiping down from the upper right corner of the screen to bring up the control center. Then tap the Focus button and choose Do Not Disturb.

When DND is enabled, you’ll see a small crescent moon icon next to the clock on top of your screen.

DND is a nice way to limit the disturbances when you need to concentrate or need some silence. There are options you can configure to allow calls or messages from certain people or notifications from certain apps to ring through, while blocking everything else.

By default, DND blocks every interruption unless you put some people or apps on the “notifications allowed” lists. If there are only a few people that you’d like to silence, you can also choose to create a “Silence Calls From” list instead.

You can also choose to allow rings from contacts on your favorites list.

One of the tell-tale features of DND is the option to allow a second call from the same person within three minutes to ring through.

I asked the reader to check Do Not Disturb and to check if the DND mode was set to be activated on a schedule.

In a follow up with the reader, she mentioned Do Not Disturb mode had been scheduled for late nights, but when she checked again, the schedule had reverted to enable DND from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. That’s what was causing the calls not to ring during the day.

Android phone users also have a similar Do Not Disturb mode.