Apple’s new iOS 13 update and its point releases appear to be causing dropped call issues for many iPhones, causing frustration and confusion among the Apple user base.
Here’s everything you should know about the dropped calls bug, why it may or may not be affecting you, and how to carry out some steps to fix the issue.
Quick tips
Follow these quick tips to help fix when your iPhone calls drop out with iOS 13
Remove your iPhone from its case, place a call, and see if the case causes any issues with calls
Restart or force restart your device
Toggle off silence unknown callers
Update to the latest iOS
Check if there is a carrier update for your device
Remove and then reseat your SIM card
For lingering problems, ask your carrier to provide you a new SIM card (if applicable) or transfer to eSIM service on compatible iPhones
Since iOS 13 was first released, users have been running into various problems with the Phone app and cellular connectivity. Many of Apple’s subsequent point releases (iOS 13.1, 13.1.1, etc.) fixed these issues.
But many users have reported significant problems with calls dropping. The issue actually appeared to get worse after iOS 13.x+. More than that, Apple’s latest iOS 13.2 software update doesn’t seem to have fixed it.
It’s not clear how many users this bug is impacting, but it does seem to hit iPhones regardless of their model or carrier.
We’ve seen reports of the bug on everything from an iPhone SE to an iPhone 11 Pro Max. As stated earlier, the carrier a user has doesn’t seem to have anything to do with it, either. That indicates that it’s a software-based issue.
By the looks of it, iOS 13 and its point releases have a call-dropping problem.
The problem appears to vary in severity. Some users indicate that cellular reception is poorer than normal and calls drop frequently. Others complain that the bug is “constant” and that “virtually all” calls drop after a short amount of time.
If this issue hasn’t been affecting you, good. Despite the number of reports, we can safely say that it isn’t impacting every iPhone running iOS 13. But for affected users, the problem is annoying — especially since it appears annoyingly persistent.
Apple hasn’t acknowledged the issue, but it’s likely aware of it. While iOS 13.1.3 didn’t appear to solve it completely, a forthcoming iOS update may. Keep an eye out for that. In the meantime, you can attempt to troubleshoot your iPhone yourself.
Troubleshooting dropped calls
Even though Apple’s latest software update didn’t mitigate the issue, there’s a chance that you can troubleshoot and fix it yourself. Try these steps.
The basics
Switching Airplane Mode on and off will disable all of the antennas on your device, including the cellular antennas.
Remove any case or cover. Sometimes, the cases or covers for our iPhones get in the way. So take your iPhone out of its case/cover and then run some tests, calling people and asking people to call you. If your iPhone doesn’t drop a call during these tests, it’s likely your case is causing a problem.
Restart. In many cases, simply restarting or powering down your device is enough to fix bugs or glitchy behavior. So we recommend starting with that.
Update your iOS. As always, it’s also recommended that you ensure your iPhone is running the most up-to-date software available. You can see if there’s a new iOS update by going to Settings —> General —> Software Update.
Try Airplane Mode. Open up Control Center and temporarily disable cellular connectivity by turning Airplane Mode on. Wait a few moments and then turn it back off.
Turn off Silence Unknown Callers feature
A new option for the Phone app with iOS 13 is Silence Unknown Callers. This feature helps you avoid getting calls from people, businesses, and phone numbers that you don’t recognize or know.
When you toggle on Silence Unknown Callers, it blocks phone numbers that have previously never called or numbers that you did not save to your contacts list. Any phone number that you previously added to your contacts, phoned, or texted automatically goes through as well as any phone numbers sent to you an email.
However, some folks discovered that turning off this feature helped with problems with dropped calls, so give it a shot!
This simple iOS 13 feature will block any number that’s not in Contacts, Messages or Mail.
To toggle it off, go to Settings > Phone and toggle off Silence Unknown Callers.
Look for a carrier update
Carrier Settings updates are little-known, but they could fix some dropped call issues.
There’s also a chance that there’s a Carrier Settings update needed for your device to continue working properly. Carrier Settings update isn’t the most well-known iOS feature, but you may have seen a pop-up dialog box about them in the past.
To see if there’s a Carrier Settings update available and to manually install it, head to Settings —> General —> About. If an update is available, you should be notified here.
Take out your SIM card
Take out your SIM card and pop it back in. It may not do anything, but it’s worth a shot.
While it’s not the most likely, there may be an issue with your iPhone’s SIM card. Because of that, it may be worth taking it out and putting it back in.
Just power down your device and look for a small SIM try on the side of your iPhone. You’ll need a paperclip or a similar tool to pop it out.
If problems continue after reseating your SIM card, ask your carrier to provide you a new SIM card or switch to eSIM service instead of a physical SIM card!
Experiment with Wi-Fi calling
It isn’t clear if Wi-Fi calling has an effect on dropped calls, so your own mileage may vary.
Some users have reported problems with iOS’s Wi-Fi Calling feature. It’s not clear if this may not be directly connected to missed calls. But it’s possible a bug with the feature could be snarling your cellular connection.
Try making and receiving calls with the Wi-Fi Calling feature both enabled and disabled to see if it makes a difference. To turn the setting on or off, navigate to Settings —> Phone —> Wi-Fi Calling.
Reset your network settings
Resetting your network settings may fix the issue. But it’s also kind of a pain to reinput your Wi-Fi passwords, reconnect your Bluetooth devices, etc.
Some users have reported improved cellular connectivity and fewer dropped calls after resetting their network settings. This is actually a recommended troubleshooting move for any type of cellular, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth problems.
Just head to Settings —> General —> Reset and tap on Reset Network Settings. Do keep in mind that you’ll need to reconnect to all of your Wi-Fi networks, and you may have to reconfigure certain cellular or VPN preferences.
Call your carrier support
If the problem persists, it may be time to call your carrier.
If you keep experiencing dropped calls after all of the above troubleshooting tips, it’s time to call your carrier. Dropped calls after a major software update isn’t new. And, in the past, some users have fixed the problem by talking about their carrier.
First off, ask if your account is still active and about any outages in your area. If that all checks out, you may need to ask your carrier to reset your cellular connectivity from their end.
In the worst-case scenarios, they may need to send you a new SIM card. If that’s the case, just make sure to update your Carrier Settings once you install it.
Mike is a freelance journalist from San Diego, California.
While he primarily covers Apple and consumer technology, he has past experience writing about public safety, local government, and education for a variety of publications.
He’s worn quite a few hats in the journalism field, including writer, editor, and news designer.
My Iphone 11 was dropping calls and after 3 failed attempts with Apple support, I figured out my problem. I shut off wifi calling under Cellular and haven’t dropped a call. Go to settings, cellular, wifi calling.
iPhone 11
“Call Failed” Problem
Checked/removed and replaced SIM card / – no luck
Updated iOS to 14.2 – no luck
Turned “Silence Unknown Callers” to off – no luck
WiFi on – 3 “Call Failed” messages in a row (8 Min; 10.41 Min; 5.27 Min)
Turned WiFi off – 42.42 min and counting – that seemed to do the trick!
So, this shouldn’t be happening considering the iPhone investment – I really miss my old iPhone 8.
I tried everything as the dropping of calls was so frustrating I reverted to having to use my landline. However I revisited google and saw about the case could be an issue. Case removed and replaced with silicone cover. Fingers crossed it’s been perfect and now I can actually speak to people without fear of the calls dropping. Not a brilliant solution as I used my case to carry bank cards etc but at least the phone is useable.
Hi i purchased a iphone XR as as a upgrade from my 5s a couple of months ago
I have not been able to make a phone call since i have had it without losing the signal and the call being cut off .Its been really frustrating paying £600 for a phone and not been able to use it . People would say the audio was cracking up and couldn’t understand what i was saying .
i contacted apple who advised me it was the signal and to contact BT they advised i do a video recording and if the audio was ok it wasn’t the phone . i did this and the audio on the video was clear.
i tried all the solutions to no avail connected to call dropping and having no service and its taken me 2 weeks to hopefully solve .
BT have been great trying to help me solve the problem emailing me daily .
anyway after trying everything i decided to wipe the phone .
i backed up my phone and i did a factory reset but made the mistake of setting it up and transferring the data off icloud which made no difference at all still was having dropped calls .
i have just done another factory reset and manually set it up and saved to icloud before wiping it but not reinstalling the back up and yeah it seems to have worked . early days and annoyed that i lost some of my saved passwords but hopefully it may have solved the problem and i have a phone that works if not its going straight back to apple and i will go back to android
I have iPhone 8 Plus and having frequent dropped calls recently .However i found it does not drop any more call after i disable Truecaller app from blocking my call in the call setting.
I’m using Digi network.
Have had my new I phone 11 pro max about a month now, it is constantly dropping calls after a few minutes, in addition to this my album artwork in my music app has been completely jumbled up! Really not impressed after upgrading to this handset to have all these issues. Apple Please sort this out it is really frustrating
This has been so incredibly helpful. Thank you. I am going to try this and see if my phone will stop hanging up after my call passes one hour. Thank you.
Paula Marie
Getting the run around from Apple and Verizon each blames each other for the issues.
First, when making calls the caller and callee could not hear each other – this was intermittent and a pain. I took it to Verizon and of course, it worked so I left.
About an hour later it was not working but would work through Bluetooth in my car. Went back to Verizon and they did something and it worked but only for an hour or so.
I went back to Verizon and it would not work and they recommended I call Apple. They had me take it to Best Buy who wiped it.
I tried it and this time all calls had call failed.
They took it back and again did something and this time the calls did not fail but were dropped calls.
Again though I could make and receive calls through Bluetooth. Best Buy recommended I contact Apple.
After going through Adam. Jesse, Josh and the last whose name I don’t remember I am back to where I started with a wiped phone that doesn’t work.
The last person told me to call Verizon.
I read her the comments on the internet about it and she still insisted it is a hardware or Verizon problem.
I tried all the suggestions above and it is a no go and I am going to call Verizon phone support for one last-ditch.
Any other suggestions other than don’t buy an Apple?
Linda try this I fixed my iphone xr by reset all my setting first and backup to icloud and erase all settig like new phone and reactive your phone and download your backup this should fixed the problems I believed sometime when we change some setting on our phone it create some conflicts with the setting results in drop calls after I did the above procedures finally clear the issue now hope this will help you
I tried all of these and nothing worked until…I took my phone out of the fold-over cover!!
My phone case or cover had a front cover that magnetically stayed closed. But as soon as I took it out of this case not one call dropped out! The case was a JISONCASE-AJS-IPX-10M30
I had the identic same issue and performed every imaginable fix. The problem is the new iphone software only works on 5Ghz, therefore the fix is to disable 2.4Ghz on the WiFi router. Very simple to do. Go to your WiFi router’s system page using its IP address–fidn it in the documents that came with your router (most router manufacturers use 192.168. 0.1 or 192.168. 1.1 as the default IP address)
Log in with your credentials; go to Broadband; then under that go to wifi; you may need your router access code printed on the router; then advanced options; click disable on the 2.4Ghz; scroll to the bottom and click save. That‘s it.
Hope this helps.
I just purchased a new iPhone 11 because I upgraded from 10 because of same reasons (drop calls) because I thought it was just the phone, now less than a week this iPhone 11 is doing the same thing.
I have had several dropped calls for the past many months of 2019. Sometimes having to call back Several times on a call. A new SIM card did not help. All the recommended thoughts on what to try have had no effect.
You would think Apple would acknowledge this and just Maybe, offer a fix. They WERE caught messing with our phones and slowing them down. That made the news.
Might be time to try the Quad camera Huawei phone . . .
No matter if I’m using WiFi calling or not, the problem is the same. Dropped calls, poor reception, calls not ringing through and going to voice mail, calls not being able to connect from other people, unable to make outgoing calls. It’s not only my phone but others in the family, too. We all have different models, so it appears to be a software bug,
I’m updating to 13.2.3 to see if this makes a difference. I certainly hope so as this is very frustrating.
I am having this problem in a major way! None of these have fixed it yet but have just turned off unknown callers. I am in sales and use my phone for business so that isn’t a great fix! Come on Apple!
>You may also want opening up the Control Center and disabling cellular connectivity by turning Airplane Mode off. Wait a few moments and then turn it back on.
Such a timely article! My dropped call problem started when iPhone/Apple insisted that I update to the IOS 13.1.3. Now the business calls I am making are dropping too frequently! It’s embarrassing! Never had this problem before with such frequency. It must be resolved!
Thanks for all of that. I have been struggling with this for two weeks back-and-forth to the carrier and to apple. Sadly none of the above works but at least with my last go around with Apple they have acknowledged the problem whereas previous reps would say “oh, nothing wrong at our end” Bah! Same old Kool-Aid. Fortunately I have an iPhone 6 that I can revert to which will not accept 13 .x.x. The only problem is when I try and change my Apple Watch to that phone I am told I need to update my iPhone which is in fact already updated. Vicious circle. Only other advice I received was to wipe the phone completely and start a new which is fine just a ton of work with no guaranteed results
My Iphone 11 was dropping calls and after 3 failed attempts with Apple support, I figured out my problem. I shut off wifi calling under Cellular and haven’t dropped a call. Go to settings, cellular, wifi calling.
iPhone 11
“Call Failed” Problem
Checked/removed and replaced SIM card / – no luck
Updated iOS to 14.2 – no luck
Turned “Silence Unknown Callers” to off – no luck
WiFi on – 3 “Call Failed” messages in a row (8 Min; 10.41 Min; 5.27 Min)
Turned WiFi off – 42.42 min and counting – that seemed to do the trick!
So, this shouldn’t be happening considering the iPhone investment – I really miss my old iPhone 8.
I tried everything as the dropping of calls was so frustrating I reverted to having to use my landline. However I revisited google and saw about the case could be an issue. Case removed and replaced with silicone cover. Fingers crossed it’s been perfect and now I can actually speak to people without fear of the calls dropping. Not a brilliant solution as I used my case to carry bank cards etc but at least the phone is useable.
Hi i purchased a iphone XR as as a upgrade from my 5s a couple of months ago
I have not been able to make a phone call since i have had it without losing the signal and the call being cut off .Its been really frustrating paying £600 for a phone and not been able to use it . People would say the audio was cracking up and couldn’t understand what i was saying .
i contacted apple who advised me it was the signal and to contact BT they advised i do a video recording and if the audio was ok it wasn’t the phone . i did this and the audio on the video was clear.
i tried all the solutions to no avail connected to call dropping and having no service and its taken me 2 weeks to hopefully solve .
BT have been great trying to help me solve the problem emailing me daily .
anyway after trying everything i decided to wipe the phone .
i backed up my phone and i did a factory reset but made the mistake of setting it up and transferring the data off icloud which made no difference at all still was having dropped calls .
i have just done another factory reset and manually set it up and saved to icloud before wiping it but not reinstalling the back up and yeah it seems to have worked . early days and annoyed that i lost some of my saved passwords but hopefully it may have solved the problem and i have a phone that works if not its going straight back to apple and i will go back to android
I have iPhone 8 Plus and having frequent dropped calls recently .However i found it does not drop any more call after i disable Truecaller app from blocking my call in the call setting.
I’m using Digi network.
No one can call me, this phone has constant busy signal.
I can’t access voicemail to record a message.
Have had my new I phone 11 pro max about a month now, it is constantly dropping calls after a few minutes, in addition to this my album artwork in my music app has been completely jumbled up! Really not impressed after upgrading to this handset to have all these issues. Apple Please sort this out it is really frustrating
This is really frustrating and embarrassing, I am facing the same issue with my new xr. I should have bought a Samsung or a Huawei.
This has been so incredibly helpful. Thank you. I am going to try this and see if my phone will stop hanging up after my call passes one hour. Thank you.
Paula Marie
Getting the run around from Apple and Verizon each blames each other for the issues.
First, when making calls the caller and callee could not hear each other – this was intermittent and a pain. I took it to Verizon and of course, it worked so I left.
About an hour later it was not working but would work through Bluetooth in my car. Went back to Verizon and they did something and it worked but only for an hour or so.
I went back to Verizon and it would not work and they recommended I call Apple. They had me take it to Best Buy who wiped it.
I tried it and this time all calls had call failed.
They took it back and again did something and this time the calls did not fail but were dropped calls.
Again though I could make and receive calls through Bluetooth. Best Buy recommended I contact Apple.
After going through Adam. Jesse, Josh and the last whose name I don’t remember I am back to where I started with a wiped phone that doesn’t work.
The last person told me to call Verizon.
I read her the comments on the internet about it and she still insisted it is a hardware or Verizon problem.
I tried all the suggestions above and it is a no go and I am going to call Verizon phone support for one last-ditch.
Any other suggestions other than don’t buy an Apple?
Linda try this I fixed my iphone xr by reset all my setting first and backup to icloud and erase all settig like new phone and reactive your phone and download your backup this should fixed the problems I believed sometime when we change some setting on our phone it create some conflicts with the setting results in drop calls after I did the above procedures finally clear the issue now hope this will help you
I tried all of these and nothing worked until…I took my phone out of the fold-over cover!!
My phone case or cover had a front cover that magnetically stayed closed. But as soon as I took it out of this case not one call dropped out! The case was a JISONCASE-AJS-IPX-10M30
I had the identic same issue and performed every imaginable fix. The problem is the new iphone software only works on 5Ghz, therefore the fix is to disable 2.4Ghz on the WiFi router. Very simple to do. Go to your WiFi router’s system page using its IP address–fidn it in the documents that came with your router (most router manufacturers use 192.168. 0.1 or 192.168. 1.1 as the default IP address)
Log in with your credentials; go to Broadband; then under that go to wifi; you may need your router access code printed on the router; then advanced options; click disable on the 2.4Ghz; scroll to the bottom and click save. That‘s it.
Hope this helps.
I just purchased a new iPhone 11 because I upgraded from 10 because of same reasons (drop calls) because I thought it was just the phone, now less than a week this iPhone 11 is doing the same thing.
Very frustrating
I am having the same problem, just upgraded because of the issue and now I have the same BS issue
I have had several dropped calls for the past many months of 2019. Sometimes having to call back Several times on a call. A new SIM card did not help. All the recommended thoughts on what to try have had no effect.
You would think Apple would acknowledge this and just Maybe, offer a fix. They WERE caught messing with our phones and slowing them down. That made the news.
Might be time to try the Quad camera Huawei phone . . .
Thank you help tremendously!!
No matter if I’m using WiFi calling or not, the problem is the same. Dropped calls, poor reception, calls not ringing through and going to voice mail, calls not being able to connect from other people, unable to make outgoing calls. It’s not only my phone but others in the family, too. We all have different models, so it appears to be a software bug,
I’m updating to 13.2.3 to see if this makes a difference. I certainly hope so as this is very frustrating.
I am having this problem in a major way! None of these have fixed it yet but have just turned off unknown callers. I am in sales and use my phone for business so that isn’t a great fix! Come on Apple!
I too had issue, able to fix by doing following change after seeing pain for some time.
Settings -> phone -> silence unknown callers -> turn off
Try this.
>You may also want opening up the Control Center and disabling cellular connectivity by turning Airplane Mode off. Wait a few moments and then turn it back on.
You got that backwards, chief.
Such a timely article! My dropped call problem started when iPhone/Apple insisted that I update to the IOS 13.1.3. Now the business calls I am making are dropping too frequently! It’s embarrassing! Never had this problem before with such frequency. It must be resolved!
Thanks for all of that. I have been struggling with this for two weeks back-and-forth to the carrier and to apple. Sadly none of the above works but at least with my last go around with Apple they have acknowledged the problem whereas previous reps would say “oh, nothing wrong at our end” Bah! Same old Kool-Aid. Fortunately I have an iPhone 6 that I can revert to which will not accept 13 .x.x. The only problem is when I try and change my Apple Watch to that phone I am told I need to update my iPhone which is in fact already updated. Vicious circle. Only other advice I received was to wipe the phone completely and start a new which is fine just a ton of work with no guaranteed results