Having trouble ending calls, very strange problem

By Blindcat, 16 May, 2014

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Has anyone else ever encountered this problem? I had it for a time when my iPhone 4 was new and thought it was in the past, now my 5s is doing it, and seems to be doing it even worse.

Very often, the end call button will stubbornly refuse to even read. This happens whether the phone was locked when I recieved a call, if I make a call using SIRI or have the phone app up and make the call by tapping a contact. The button just stubbornly refuses to read sometimes. Today, it happened when I called an office that turned out to be closed and the phone rang and rang, all the while I am trying to get the end call button to come up. A couple of times I got it to read and double tapping it or split tapping it would not work. I think that had the phone system I called not finally have given me an automated message after literally nearly 50 rings and dumped my call, I would still be frantically trying to get my phone to disconnect. I have even tried clicking the home button and then bringing the phone app up again as well as locking the phone, unlocking it and getting the phone app back up, all while the phone is merrily ringing away.

Is there something wrong with my phone? This has to be one of the weirdest things to happen to me with a cel phone. Is there something I can do to make this problem go away, other than to make all calls with a headset with a physical connect/disconnect button?

Any help appreciated.

Thanks,

chris

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Comments

By riyu12345 (not verified) on Saturday, May 24, 2014 - 19:20

Hi.
When you want to end a call, double tap on the screen with two fingers.
That always works for me.
I hope this helps.

By Blindcat on Saturday, May 24, 2014 - 19:20

In reply to by riyu12345 (not verified)

Thanks,

This is what I get for trying to teach myself. I learned some gestures but not others. After getting a visual description that there was an end call button and finding it with Voice Over, I never looked any further. Knowing that this gesture works will be a huge help to me.

thanks Again,

chris

By MHicok on Saturday, May 24, 2014 - 19:20

In reply to by Blindcat

The lock button is usually how I end a call. I know you mentioned that you tried that and it did not work. It always works for me, so not really sure why it works for me and does not for you.

By Siobhan on Saturday, May 24, 2014 - 19:20

Hi Chris I think your name is? If not, forgive me. Hold the phone to your ear, hold down the lock button for a quarter of a second. As in hold... lock. so not long at all, and it should click in your ear. I like others use the lock button most times. Hope that hleps.

Thanks, I will try using the lock button again. I think the problem was that I was just clicking the button and releasing it instead of holding it down. I think I just got so focused on the end call button and why it was such a pain that I didn't look at gestures or doing something different with the lock button.

Regards,

chris

By KE7ZUM on Saturday, May 24, 2014 - 19:20

In reply to by Blindcat

Hmm. I click the lock button twice. I don't hold it down as that's what I was taught by someone or other. lol! I might try the holding down the button for a second or so and seeing if that works.

too bad this does not work on a facetime call I don't think. I have to find the end button as double tapping does not for me hang up the call. Strange but I'll take it as a friend of mine says.

By Blindcat on Saturday, May 24, 2014 - 19:20

I haven't been able to get the double tap to work as of yet. Don't know if it is something in the way I've tapped, but the two finger double tap works fine to start and stop playing music.

Using the lock button got very odd results. Perhaps I held it too long. To make sure I called somewhere that would not mind an interruption for me testing, I called my mother at work and then held down the lock button to hang up. The hiss of the open line did not go away, so I continued to hold down the button and after a couple of seconds, I could hear the line ringing with an outgoing call and after a moment, my brother answered his cel phone. I don't know why the phone called him. Obviously, it did eventually disconnect the first call, but why it then made another call, and why it called that number in particular instead of any other number in my contacts, I just don't know. I will just have to continue to experiment.

Thanks for the help everyone,

chris

By KE7ZUM on Saturday, May 24, 2014 - 19:20

In reply to by Blindcat

Looks like a call forwarding thing happened on yoru mom's end maybe or some feature of her work line. This was not an ios bug.

the 2 finger double tap works flawless for me and I've been using it for 4 years now almost 5. wow how time flies.

By Justice on Saturday, May 24, 2014 - 19:20

I have experienced this problem on my iPhone 5, when the end call button decided not to respond I had to shut down my phone by holding the lock button and then rebooting my phone, this only temporarily fixed the issue

By Aidan JK on Saturday, May 24, 2014 - 19:20

A mistake I have made a couple of times, is doing the 2-finger tap too quickly. The phone automatically switches to loud speaker when held away from the ear, which is one of the most impressive features of the iPhone in my view. Sometimes I've performed the gesture immediately upon lifting away from the ear, and it was too quick so failed to work. Wait a second until you clearly hear the noise of the call coming from the speaker, then do it. Maybe you've done that, but for me when I do it that little bit more slowly, it works every time.

By Unregistered User (not verified) on Saturday, May 24, 2014 - 19:20

Sometimes an iPhone might go a little wonky. To repair whatever issue that might be going on such as the end but not registering or working, you can do either a hard or soft reset.

A soft reset is pressing the lock button six times in a row. This will quickly shut down the phone and restarted immediately. This is used sometimes to get out of a locked up phone. Or a feature that seems to be stuck for some reason. Again, you just have to press the lock button six times in a row quickly.

A hard reset is more involved and takes slightly more time. This actually completely shuts down the phone and initializes a full restart. It can be useful if the soft reset did not work for whatever reason. To do this, you must hold the lock and home buttons simultaneously together for Ace certain amount of time until the phone automatically shuts down and resets itself. If you have some site, you simply have to hold it down until the phone screen shuts off and you see the Apple logo. If you do not have any usable vision or at least enough to see the screen, you can hold the lock and home button together for about 10 to 15 seconds and it should automatically restart the phone. As stated this is more involved and might take a few more moments than a soft reset. It just gives users a different way to shutdown and restart their phone without having to go through the process of holding down the lock button and slighting to shut it down, waiting a few moments, and then restarting by holding down the lock button again. Also, it reinitializes the iOS operating system and may help to resolve any issues that are not bug related

By Brooke on Saturday, May 24, 2014 - 19:20

In the little over a year I've had my iPhone 5, I've never been able to end a call with the Lock button. I've tried every possible variation... holding it down for a split second, pressing it twice, and probably 2 or 3 other variations. Nothing has ever worked. The only way I've ever been able to end a call is to pull the phone away from my ear, wait a split second until it switches to speaker, and then do a two-finger double-tap. When you do the double-tap, make sure your fingers are toward the middle of the phone's screen, because if one of your fingers is toward the edge, it may not register correctly.

By Fran on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 19:20

Hi all, I think this is one of the few but very annoying accessibility problems of the Iphone. Making and ending calls should be the primary function of a phone...and it's with that that I seem to have the biggest troubles, especially with ending calls. I've tried every variation suggested here and more...Nothing seems to work every time; most times I can end a call but how I do it depends on the mood my phone is in! LOL It can be very embarrassing at times, like when you call someone by mistake and want to hang up but can't. There should be a safe way to end calls, and from what I've heard, there still isn't.
What I'd like to know is whether I'm doing something wrong or if the problem happens random.

By splyt on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 19:20

Aparently the magic double tap does not work before the VO cursor is focused on something. So one should put their gfinger somehwere in the screen flicr right untill something is announced and then perform the magic two fingers double tap.
This solved my issues ending a call. The reazon keep trying to double tap works is that aparently something is focused under the VO cursor by one of these trials and the subsequente gesture works as it should.
Notice that this is my experience and do not mean that it's everyone's else.

By John Lipsey on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 19:20

I've always used the two-finger double-tap to end calls. For the last 5 years, this method has worked perfectly for me. Now though, this fails to reliably answer calls. Ending still works as expected, just not answering.

By Usman on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 19:20

For it to reliably work, one has to move the phone away from the head and double tap with two fingers. Because of the proximity sensor, the gesture won't always work unless the phone is away from the head.