iPhone Missing Calls & Texts, Not Ringing? Here’s How to Fix It

A significant number of iPhone users run into situations where they discover their iPhone is not ringing or making sounds with incoming phone calls, text messages, and alerts, leading to missed calls and texts. This is hugely frustrating, but for most situations the reason why this happens is pretty simple; the iPhone has accidentally been placed in Focus or Do Not Disturb mode.

We’ll show you how to fix this problem and turn off Do Not Disturb mode so that you can get phone calls and texts again, and you won’t miss anymore calls or messages.

Disabling Do Not Disturb / Focus Mode on iPhone to Get Phone Calls & Texts Again

Do Not Disturb Mode / Focus Mode is the number one reason that most peoples iPhone seems to randomly stop getting phone calls and texts, with the next reason being accidentally enabling AirPlane mode.

• Open Control Center by swiping down from the top right of the iPhone screen, and then, depending on the version of iOS, you’re going to o either looking for a Moon icon, or buttons that say something like “Focus” or “Do Not Disturb” and turn that OFF

You can also go to Settings app and look for the setting to change there, also potentially labeled as “Do Not Disturb” or “Focus”, depending on the iOS version on the iPhone.

And yes, everyone but the user loves how Apple has changed this setting enough times there’s no universal answer for all iOS versions, so keep this in mind if you’re helping a friend, relative, colleague, or someone else with this problem. Even if they learned how to effectively turn this off and manage it at some point in time, the iOS version may have changed making the wording or button different.

I had to walk through this exact scenario recently with an older relative, who had been missing phone calls and texts for days on end, and they could not figure out why. They missed family and friend calls, appointments, followup calls to reschedule, all phone calls and texts from family and friends, and more. Because they did not intend to enable Do Not Disturb mode, and hadn’t even noticed toggling it on accidentally, they thought their was something wrong with their iPhone, and almost went to go get a new iPhone to fix the problem. From my end, the phone was going straight to voicemail and fortunately when I went to message them, I saw the little notification in their Messages chat that their device was in Sleep Mode and to “Notify Anyway” to which I did, told them to call me, and walked them through fixing the problem over the phone.

This is a surprisingly common situation for more casual iPhone users and those who tend to use their iPhone mostly as a phone and message device instead of a Super Cool Geeky Gadget like some of us (guilty of the latter myself, but most my friends and relatives fall into the former). So if you experience this, you’re not alone, there are many people who complain of the same annoyance and are forced to investigate the various potential reasons for them to miss calls and texts, though usually the answer is Focus/Do Not Disturb/Sleep mode.

Personally, I really like the Do Not Disturb feature and use it often while working and at night, but with how easy it is to accidentally enable for casual users, and how non-obvious it is that it’s toggled on, and how vague “Focus” sounds, it’s understandable to see why this is a confusing feature for some.