Users of Google Voice and Hangouts Caller are reporting an unusual problem regarding their voice calls, where the call notifications are disappearing and popping up unstable notifications. This results in missing most of the calls since no rings or one-ring events are occurring, and Google acknowledged the problem to be affecting more of iPhones than Androids.
Google Acknowledged Voice Calls Problems in Google Voice App
Google Voice app is a free telephony service for users who can get a new US number to redirect their calls to that. Users can use it as an alternative number for receiving calls, calling, texting, etc. While this service is limited to some users, most of them are facing an unusual problem now.
As Google reported, it has discovered a typical issue from users tickets, where the inbound calls received by Google Voice and Hangouts are fumbling.
In some cases, it may ring via the original phone carrier instead of Voice app, and that too may happen properly on Wi-Fi but not on LTE. Further, a quick pop-up appears when a call is arrived and disappears, making the user unable to take the call.
This has turned into a real issue when a Reddit user reported missing most of his calls, as he would hear either one ring or no ring for incoming calls most of the time. Google says this issue is seen in those who’re setting the “Making and receiving calls” setting in Google Voice to “Prefer Wi-Fi and mobile data“.
The same issues happen with the Hangouts call too, as users claim a pop-up saying “Google Voice audio” or the Hangouts green icon with “Hangouts audio” appear when receiving incoming calls. Google said the problem is deeply baked into the infrastructure of this service, so may take more time to fix.
Workaround
Meanwhile, it suggested some workarounds like toggling off the notifications in Hangouts like Menu > Settings > Account Address > Turn off the Toggle to address this issue in Android users. And for iOS users, turn off the toggle in “Incoming phone calls” from Menu Settings. And in Google Voice app, both Android and iOS users can set to Menu > Settings > Calls > Making and receiving calls > Use carrier only.
