Straight to voicemail

[treaze]

Hi - I bot my 650 about 1-1/2 yrs ago from Cingular. I bot it so I could use email and surf the web, but I found that way too often my incoming calls would go straight to voicemail, which was very irritating. After numerous calls to Cingular to try to fix this, I finally just canceled the data package about 6 mos ago, and I haven't had the problem since. I met a guy who had a 650 with Sprint and I asked him if he had a problem with calls going straight to vm and he said, "all the time!" So I figured it's a phone problem vs a carrier problem. But almost no posts in various forums on this topic, so I figure it's not a prevalent problem. So what's going on? What can I check on my phone to see why it's doing it? Hopefully there is some unadvertised setting that "even" Cingular tech support doesn't know about that will fix this major problem. I've done all the resets in the manual and as far as I know have downloaded the latest software. Thanks, Terry:frown:

[greeniis]

While actively online, or checking email, calls will go to voicemail. I believe, though I am not 100% certain, that this is true with all carriers.

[stevetaz]

Hi treaze and welcome to ET.

I believe what you are describing is probably related to one of two things:
1) As noted by greeniis, your Treo is communicating and receiving email from a server or you have an actve Internet connection using the data network.
2) Your Treo has a weak signal that connects and disconnects, which happens at my house. One side I get a good connection and the other I am roaming. I only get about 50% of the calls at home, but immediately, I get an alarm telling me I missed a call. I guess data moves easier than voice.

Try a search of these boards using "calls go to voicemail" and you will get a bunch of threads with similar issues. Here's a link to one thread:
http://www.everythingtreo.com/forum/...mail-6308.html

SteveTaz

[treaze]

Thanks to Greenlis & SteveTaz. I went to the other threads indicated. I can discount the cause being because of emails coming in or me being online because those couldn't have been the case. And I had set my phone to never check for emails. But it may possibly have been due to weak signal strength causing my phone to disconnect and reconnect, I suppose, during a time when I had an incoming call. I do live in an area of marginal signal strength sometimes. It's as good a theory as any I've heard, and also could account for why it's not a problem everybody is experiencing. But that's a thoroughly unsatisfactory system. Did I understand one of those threads correctly that there is one system out there that separates the data from the voice so that there's no interference between the two? Thanks, Terry

[stevetaz]

One other thought....Have you updated your phone for possible network and tower changes? There is a code to dial that can do the update, depending on the carrier. I am sure you can find more with a search of the boards...

SteveTaz

[plunker]

I was having some missed calls that went to voice mail. It turned out that one of the treos buttons is depressed by the case I was using causing the phone not to ring and go to vm or it would answer and I would not be aware of it.

[treaze]

Thanks Plunker. I have my phone out of the case at home, so that wasn't causing my prob. Interesting, though. I suppose there could be a stuck key. Which key depressed would cause your problem like that? Terry.

[stevetaz]

Terry:

Any key pressed could cause that kind of problem.

[treaze]

One other thought....Have you updated your phone for possible network and tower changes? There is a code to dial that can do the update, depending on the carrier. I am sure you can find more with a search of the boards...

SteveTaz

What do you mean? Would my phone need to have software specific to whatever cell tower(s) I was normally using? And if so, shouldn't Cingular have mentioned something like that during my many calls with them? They kept saying something was wrong with my phone and I should send it off to them. Yeah, right, like I was gonna do that. Terry

[plunker]

I do not know how Cing. does there upgrades but give them a call to try that out first. Sprint you dial *2 or with my Treo just turn it off and on (Not sure about that one but the rep. said it would do it).

When they upgrade their towers your phone will not find the new ones until you do an upgrade/reset. If your signal is weak in your area and they have improved their tower this may help you.

I have a good signal at home but every once in a while my phone will roam or be out of service if the phone is on the floor or in the bottom of my chair.

If you depress a key the phone thinks you want the ringing to stop and cancels the incoming ring tone and the call will go to voicemail when you don't answer.