Pixel phones dropping calls: IMS bug explained and workarounds
Some Pixel owners are missing calls that never ring and never show up as missed. The phone sits there looking normal while the caller hits voicemail. Complaints have accumulated on Reddit and Google's Issue Tracker across multiple Pixel models, with no confirmed cause and no fix, according to Android Police this week.
The pattern points toward IMS registration loss as the most plausible explanation, though that hasn't been confirmed. IMS, or IP Multimedia Subsystem, is the layer that tells a carrier network a device is reachable for calls over LTE or Wi-Fi. When it drops and doesn't recover on its own, incoming calls have nowhere to land. No ring, no notification, no missed-call entry. Data and SMS keep working. The phone looks fine.
This symptom isn't new territory for Pixel. When Pixel 7 and 8 series users reported calls going straight to voicemail without ringing in early 2024, Google shipped an out-of-cycle OTA within days. Google Support described it as delivering "network stability and performance improvements" for Pixel 7 and newer; Verizon's changelog noted it addressed "performance improvements for LTE call/data and network issues," per 9to5Google. The current reports describe a similar symptom pattern. As of July 1, 2026, Google has not publicly identified a cause or published a fix timeline.
How to recognize the problem, and who's most at risk
This isn't a muted notification or a Do Not Disturb setting left on. The caller hears ringing and reaches voicemail. On the Pixel, nothing happens at all. One XDA Forums user described waking up to multiple voicemails after their phone lost IMS connectivity overnight and never recovered it, with no network error visible on screen a pattern documented as far back as May 2023 across Pixel 6 and 7 devices on Android 13.
Three configurations surface repeatedly in documented reports: Wi-Fi Calling set to "Wi-Fi only" mode, preferred network type set to "LTE only," and devices that have recently rebooted or had an eSIM activated. These are the conditions under which IMS registration failures appear most reproducible, based on the GrapheneOS issue tracker reports detailed below.
A quick way to check: call your Pixel from another number, wait about 10 to 30 seconds, then call again. If the first call rings through and the second goes straight to voicemail, that matches the failure pattern documented in the issue tracker. Also worth doing right now: check voicemail for messages from people you never heard from. Unexplained voicemails are the clearest sign the problem has already cost you calls.
Is a Google Pixel call screening issue to blame?
Some users and early coverage have pointed to Pixel's Scam Detection and Call Screening features as a possible culprit. The reasoning is straightforward: overzealous filtering could be silently routing legitimate calls. Reports are split, with some users saying that dialing back those settings resolved the problem and others saying it made no difference, per Android Police.
Mixed results make Call Screening hard to treat as a single explanation. If it were the primary mechanism, reducing its sensitivity should produce consistent relief, not a coin-flip outcome. The GrapheneOS issue reports, by contrast, document a reproducible IMS registration failure under specific network settings, independent of any filtering feature. Testing Call Screening adjustments is still worth doing because it's a simple settings change, but it should come after the IMS-focused steps below. If reducing sensitivity changes nothing, the IMS evidence becomes the stronger lead.
Why Pixel phones are not receiving calls: the IMS registration evidence
Modern Pixel phones route voice calls over LTE and Wi-Fi through IMS. When IMS loses its registration and doesn't automatically recover, incoming calls have nowhere to go. The failure sits below the ringtone, below the notification layer, entirely out of view.
The most rigorous documented case involves a Pixel device running Android 16 with Wi-Fi Calling set to "Wi-Fi only." The phone handles exactly one VoWiFi call per session. The moment that call ends, device logs show the IMS stack deregistering and the IMS data connection tearing down. A second call fails immediately. The logs include the entries Unable to complete updateImsRegistrationInfo because service IMS is not available and onImsDisconnected … CODE_LOCAL_NOT_REGISTERED. The failure reproduced across multiple Wi-Fi networks and multiple carriers, and resetting mobile network settings had no effect, ruling out a router problem or carrier misconfiguration (GrapheneOS Issue #7327, March 2026).
A separate report on a Pixel 7 Pro shows the same failure under different conditions: setting the preferred network type to "LTE only" leaves IMS unregistered and VoLTE unavailable, with both incoming and outgoing calls failing while data and SMS continue normally. Switching to "5G + LTE" restores calling immediately. A Pixel 8 user reported the same behavior and noted that IMS only activates after manually toggling away from LTE-only mode, a step that has to be repeated after every reboot or eSIM activation (GrapheneOS Issue #7059, January 2026). Same failure, two different Pixel generations, two different network configurations.
One caveat matters here. These reports were filed against GrapheneOS running on Pixel hardware. Whether the same IMS state machine failure occurs in unmodified stock Pixel software under identical conditions has not been confirmed. The circumstantial case connecting these logs to the broader pattern of missed calls is strong; direct proof on stock Android is not yet available. The XDA material from 2023 is useful for showing this IMS behavior spans Pixel 6 and 7 hardware going back several Android versions, but it's older and more anecdotal. It extends the pattern back in time, but carries less evidential weight than the issue tracker logs.
What to try while waiting on Google
Each of the steps below targets the same underlying goal: forcing IMS to re-register with the network. None of them is a permanent fix. They work temporarily because the registration failure recurs whenever a trigger event resets the relevant state.
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Airplane Mode toggle: Switch Airplane Mode on, wait five seconds, switch it off. This forces the entire radio stack, including IMS, to reconnect from scratch. Some Pixel 7 and 7 Pro users have reported temporary relief this way, though it doesn't survive reboots or subsequent state changes, per Android Authority. It's also the fastest way to confirm whether IMS is involved: if calls work normally right after the toggle and then fail again later, that's a strong signal.
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Wi-Fi Calling mode toggle (if you use "Wi-Fi only"): Switch temporarily to "Wi-Fi preferred," wait for the connection to re-establish, then switch back. This restores calling for one call before the failure repeats (GrapheneOS Issue #7327, March 2026). Inconvenient as a daily workaround, but it tells you whether the Wi-Fi Calling state machine is the specific failure point.
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Switch away from "LTE only" network mode: Change the preferred network type to "5G + LTE." IMS registers correctly under that setting and voice calls resume, but the change needs to be reapplied after each reboot or eSIM swap (GrapheneOS Issue #7059, January 2026).
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Test Call Screening last: After working through the above steps, reduce Scam Detection and Call Screening sensitivity in the Phone app and run test calls. If calls now ring through, document your specific settings and file that result on Google's Issue Tracker. The more precisely a report describes device model, carrier, network mode, Wi-Fi Calling setting, and test call results, the more useful it is to engineers trying to reproduce the problem.
What Google did last time, and what's still unknown
The 2024 precedent cuts both ways. Google moved quickly when the pattern was clearly documented, shipping a targeted out-of-cycle update for Pixel 7 and 8 series within days of reports surfacing, per 9to5Google. That history suggests both the capability and willingness to act fast on cellular issues. Whether the current situation meets the threshold for the same response remains an open question.
Several things are unresolved: whether the IMS state machine failures documented in the GrapheneOS reports represent the same underlying defect as the mainstream missed-call complaints, which Pixel generations are most affected, and how many users are actually experiencing the problem. No public acknowledgment of a root cause or fix timeline has appeared as of July 1, 2026.
Check voicemail now for calls you didn't know you missed. Run the Airplane Mode test. If you're affected, file a detailed report on Google's Issue Tracker with your device model, carrier, network mode setting, Wi-Fi Calling configuration, and test call results. Keep automatic updates enabled. A stock-Android reproduction of the IMS failure under the same conditions documented in the GrapheneOS reports, or a patch note from Google explicitly referencing IMS or cellular calling behavior, would go a long way toward confirming whether this is one problem or several converging at once.
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