Apple’s #iPhone7 is generally reliable when it comes to making and receiving calls but in these two cases below, you’ll see how voice calling problems can take extreme forms. As usual, we also provide our take of the situations and ways to fix them. We hope you’ll find our solutions effective.
Problem 1: iPhone 7 microphone stops working in the middle of calls
My iPhone 7 will stop working mid-conversation. The person on the other end can’t hear me and I can hear them. I will try and switch to speaker and nothing works. It happens with every call in my home. I warn people as soon as we begin a conversation because I know it’s going to happen. Apple thought it was microphone but it’s not. It happens with all 3 iPhones in my house. My brother came down for the weekend and he has Verizon and his iPhone didn’t have any issues. Is this an AT&T service issue or broken iPhone?? — Julianna Zubiate
Solution: Hi Julianna. If this issue occurs during ALL calls while device is on AT&T network, then it’s most probably not an iPhone problem but something on your carrier’s side. This may be the reason why your brother who’s on Verizon does not experience the same issue at all. That it also happens on at least 2 other different iPhones is a strong indication that there’s something in your network that causes it. We suggest that you contact AT&T and let them know about the problem. Apple and other third party support sites like us will not be of much help since you’re dealing with a network bug.
Problem 2: iPhone 7 can’t hear callers, callers can’t hear (microphone stops working)
iPhone 7 Plus is having a lot of issues all of a sudden. I can’t hear when I make calls and people can’t hear me. And it doesn’t detect my headphones when plugged in yet it still charges. I turned the phone off and when I turned it back on it took about 10 minutes to restart. That seemed to work as I was able to make a call but it wasn’t very clear. Some static. Then it stopped working again. I tried to record a voice memo and it wouldn’t let me. I tried to play back a video that I recorded yesterday and the sound was extremely weird. Sounded evil lol. But I can watch videos on Netflix or Facebook and no issues. I did the update and that didn’t help. I force restarted the phone and when I made a phone call I could hear it ring (first time all day) and then nothing. Tried again and no ringing. Siri is detecting my voice. Oh and I just tried to take some pictures and it was extremely slow at capturing and then it went blurry. I hate to close out the program and go back it to get a pic which took about 20 seconds to snap. The last time I reset the phone it took nearly 20 minuets to come back on and it was pretty hot. Of course my warranty was up 1/22/18! Also, I can still use the microphone to text. What the hell is going on here?? It’s crazy. — Danielle
Solution: Hi Danielle. Based on your problem description and the troubleshooting that you’ve tried, there are only two possible reasons why your phone isn’t working normally as it should. Either there’s a content/app or software bug behind all these troubles, or there’s a hardware malfunction that triggers an error in the system causing other components and/or the operating system to behave as you described.
We don’t have enough history of your device to be able to help you answer why it’s working badly at this time. Generally, any smartphone can show general performance issue, like the one happening in yours now, after it’s been physically damaged, exposed to water, or extreme temperature. If any of these happened to your iPhone, you can expect all sorts of problems. Hardware problems of course can’t be fixed by tweaking your iPhone’s software. In this situation, you need to let Apple check the phone physically so they can assess if it needs repair or replacement. Even if your device is out of warranty, we highly recommend that you let Apple handle the repair (as you’ll still pay for any repair to independent service centers anyway) so you have the assurance of a resolution.
If the device was never physically abused or damaged at all, then the problem is probably due to a software bug. To see if that’s the case, try to restore it using either you iTunes backup or iCloud backup. Alternatively, you can also perform a factory reset on it.
How to restore your iPhone from a backup in Cloud
Apple has designed its iOS devices with options to restore from an iCloud backup or using iTunes. To restore your iPhone from an iCloud backup, you need to erase all of its contents before you can restore from your backup. Here’s how it’s done:
- Turn on your iPhone 7.
- Wait for the Hello screen to show up. If you already set up your device, you need to erase it before restoring from an iCloud backup.
- Follow the onscreen setup steps until you get to the Apps & Data screen.
- On the Apps & Data screen, tap Restore from iCloud Backup.
- Sign in to iCloud with your Apple ID credentials.
- Select a backup to use. You can refer to the date and size of each backup file and then pick the most relevant. After selecting the backup file, the transfer begins.
- If prompted with a message requiring a newer version of iOS, follow the onscreen instructions to update. Otherwise, skip to the next step.
- If prompted, sign in to your Apple ID account to restore apps and purchases. Otherwise, skip this step and sign in later.
- Wait until the progress bar appears and completes. It can take a while to finish depending on the size of the backup and the network connection speed. The progress will pause if you disconnect from Wi-Fi too soon and resumes once you reconnect.
How to restore iPhone using iTunes
With iTunes, you have the options to restore your iphone x from a previous iOS backup or restore it to factory settings. A factory restore deletes your iPhone settings and the information stored on the internal storage, and installs the latest iOS version available for your device.
Considering that you already have created a backup of your iPhone X, follow these steps to restore your device to factory settings in Tunes:
- Connect your iPhone X to the computer using the supplied USB or Lightning cable.
- Open iTunes on the computer.
- If prompted, enter device passcode or select the option to Trust This Computer on your iPhone screen.
- Follow the onscreen instructions to continue.
- Select your iPhone X when it shows up in iTunes.
- Navigate to the Summary section in iTunes.
- Click Restore [device] or Restore Backup in Tunes then locate and select your preferred backup to restore from.
- Click Restore again to confirm action. iTunes will then start to erase your device and installs the latest iOS version for your iPhone. If prompted, enter the password for your encrypted backup.
How to factory reset your iPhone
A master reset or factory reset erases all media files, data and settings on your iPhone thus, creating a backup of your device information beforehand is highly recommended. Demonstrated below are standard procedures in performing a factory reset on the iPhone 7 handset:
- To get started, tap Settings from the Home screen.
- Scroll to and tap General from the Settings menu options.
- Next, scroll down to the bottom of the screen and tap Reset.
- Select the option to Erase All Content and Settings.
- Tap Erase iPhone to proceed.
- To confirm action, tap Erase iPhone again.
- If prompted, enter your Apple ID password and then tap Erase.
- Wait for your iPhone to complete the reset and after that your device should be good as new and ready to use.