Iphone crackles when making calls

Solution to crackling and breaking up conversation on iPhone

Yesterday one of our iPhones developed an intermittent fault with the call quality.  Often we could hear the other party but they couldn't hear us, or vice versa.  It didn't seem to matter who initiated the call or wether it was a mobile to landline call or mobile to mobile.

Iphone crackles when making calls

We took the following diagnostic steps to try and track down the problem :

1) Made a sound recording with the Voice Memos app and played it back to confirm speaker / mic working.

ads

2) Powered off and on again

3) Reset (pressed Home and Power button simultaneously for 10 seconds)

4) Did a Restore  through iTunes.

All to no effect.  A quick call to O2 resulted in a couple more things to try :

1) Remove SIM card and give it a good clean.  It was surprising how much pocket fluff was in there!

2) Try the SIM card in another phone.

With the second option above we actually found that the other phone (a Nokia) started exhibiting the same behaviour so the problem appeared to be with the SIM, not the iPhone (phew!).

A quick trip to the local O2 retail store  for a SIM swap (done in the store with no temporary number or delay) and we're back up and running again.

We hope this helps someone else.

UPDATE :  the solution may not have been that simple as the problem resurfaced a few days later.  We've just done a complete factory reset and fingers-crossed we'll be OK.  Just made a 6 minute call which was impossible this morning.

Related posts

  • How to Turn Off Phone Calls on the iPhone but Keep Data & iMessage Ever wished you could turn off the phone call portion of your iPhone, while still retaining the ability to use data, access...

  • The Best Way to Answer “What’s Your Biggest Weakness?” “You’ve told me about your strengths—now, can you share what you consider to be your biggest weakness?” It’s the question that nobody...

  • Shattered iPhone screen: What would you do? The other day I was at work and all of the sudden I got a text from my wife that her iPhone had "cracked". My wife has been known to tell people that...

  • Ringtonium review: The best ringtone creation app for iPhone Ringtonium is simple and easy to use, and best of all saves you money by letting you use your already purchased songs as ringtones....

  • What exactly is included when I backup my iPhone 4 using iTunes? I have read this question Does an iTunes iOS device backup include everything on the device? but it doesn't seem to be...