Android 10 not so blocked calls

Photo by NordWood Themes on Unsplash

TL;DR

If your calls aren’t coming trough check and you checked your block list, look at voicemail routing settings as it may be the culprit. (see #Solution for more details)

Story time

Several months ago (just before the outbreak of Corona virus here in Czech republic) we got my grandma her first touchscreen, fully “smart” phone. And she quickly learned how to use it and was really happy with it too. Until today when I got to troubleshoot a very intriguing problem on my grandma’s phone.

When she was calling my dad she clicked “something” and after which my dad couldn’t call her phone anymore. It also coincidentally happened just after update to new Android 10. After experimenting with it for some time I established following:

• Other numbers work normally
• Outgoing calls to dad’s number work
• SMS messages work in both directions
• Clearing the cache of the Phone app did nothing (as did the reinstall of the application)
• There’re no call-blocking settings nor 3rd party apps (there was TrueCaller but it was uninstalled during the troubleshooting), no call forwarding or barring
• The Phone shows the calls as blocked in the call history, but the notification for calls is not displayed

I started to dig on google and run up the wall when all of the articles and websites were describing how to block calls and nothing more. After some refinement of the search query I found several unanswered threads on various forums or the tutorials with steps as: checking Google Voice or VerizonApp or doing a factory reset. I didn’t have Google Voice, we don’t have Verizon as a service provider (nor was there any other service provider app installed on the phone) and I considered the factory reset as the nuclear option.

Debugging

I then started to search for the ways to identify the reason for blocking the call which resulted in me firing up a terminal and enabling the USB debugging on the phone. Then I used the command

adb logcat

to get the logs directly from the phone and quite quickly I found several lines where I suspected the problem lied:

05-28 13:39:21.909  1163  1163 I Telecom : Event: RecordEntry TC@4: FILTERING_COMPLETED, [Reject, logged, notified, mCallBlockReason = 2]: CSCR.aC->ICF.oCFC@A0E
05-28 13:39:21.909  1163  1163 I Telecom : CallsManager: setCallState NEW -> RINGING, call: [TC@4, NEW, com.android.phone/com.android.services.telephony.TelephonyConnectionService, tel:*************, A, childs(0), has_parent(false), [Capabilities: CAPABILITY_SUPPORT_HOLD CAPABILITY_MUTE CAPABILITY_CANNOT_DOWNGRADE_VIDEO_TO_AUDIO CAPABILITY_SPEED_UP_MT_AUDIO], [Properties:]]: CSCR.aC->ICF.oCFC@A0E
05-28 13:39:21.909  1163  1163 I Telecom : CallsManager: lsj lsjvolumetrue: CSCR.aC->ICF.oCFC@A0E
05-28 13:39:21.909  1163  1163 I Telecom : CallsManager: LSJ ringerMode2: CSCR.aC->ICF.oCFC@A0E
05-28 13:39:21.909  1163  1163 I Telecom : CallsManager: LSJ RINGER_MODE_SILENT0: CSCR.aC->ICF.oCFC@A0E
05-28 13:39:21.909  1163  1163 I Telecom : CallsManager: LSJ RINGER_MODE_VIBRATE1: CSCR.aC->ICF.oCFC@A0E
05-28 13:39:21.912  1163  1163 I Telecom : Event: RecordEntry TC@4: SET_RINGING, blocking call: CSCR.aC->ICF.oCFC@A0E
05-28 13:39:21.912  1163  1163 I Telecom : CallsManager: onCallFilteringCompleted: blocked call, rejecting.: CSCR.aC->ICF.oCFC@A0E
05-28 13:39:21.913  1163  1163 I Telecom : Event: RecordEntry TC@4: REQUEST_REJECT, internal: CSCR.aC->ICF.oCFC@A0E
05-28 13:39:21.913  1163  1163 I Telecom : CallsManager: onCallScreeningCompleted: blocked call, adding to call log.: CSCR.aC->ICF.oCFC@A0E
05-28 13:39:21.913  1163  1163 W Telecom : CallsManager: onCallScreeningCompleted: blocked call, showing notification.: CSCR.aC->ICF.oCFC@A0E

At first I was focused on the REQUEST_REJECT call entry and overlooked the FILTERING_COMPLETED entry several times, but then when I finally saw the reason for the blocked call:

mCallBlockReason = 2

Solution

After a quick search in Android CallLog.Calls documentation, I found out that the code stands for “direct to voicemail” rejection. It was then that I at last was on the right track. In mere seconds I found setting “hidden” in the Contacts application forwarding the calls straight to the voicemail (Or simply dropping the call when the voicemail is disabled).

Contacts app has option to send call directly to voicemail

After clicking “Unroute to voicemail” the calls started to come through again! I just wish that the Android would provide some kind of explanation (like info button) for the reason the call was blocked in the first place, so that this debugging which took me over two hours could be done almost in seconds — or maybe it’s just me…

Hope that this article helped You if you found yourself in the same situation!