WIFI Calling Preferences Being Forced to Cellular Preferred

crackers8199 wrote:

a quick update: in the few weeks i’ve been using this fix, i have since seen the notification come back up again from time to time, but it seems the fix does still hold. you can just disregard the notification (or silence it if you’d rather do that), tasker will still handle making the switch for you.

Yeah, I noticed your message about that.  I figured I would disable the notifications for that if possible or whatever.  ¡Gracias!

Jim8046 wrote:

I am experiencing my WIFI Calling Preferences always being forced to "cellular preferred", as are others.   I live in an area with poor T-mobile mobile data signal and this recent behavior makes my phone unable to make and receive calls and text messages.   I believe the problem only started happening after the next to last T-Mobile software update.  Everything was fine for my first 5 months of ownership.  A Google search shows posts of other users experiencing the same issue, but no options other than a tedious workaround of manually switching the phone to Airplane mode and changing the WIFI calling preferences back to "WIFI preferred".  I have to do this kind of process each time I enter and leave my home, and sometimes have to reboot my phone as well.   The times I've forgotten, I've missed package deliveries and went to a doctor appointment when the doctor had left a message that he was out sick.  This appears to be a carrier specific issue as far as I can see.   I even tried replacing my rock solid Netgear R6400 router with an ASUS AX3000 router with no resulting changes.   I'm in a small apartment only 10 feet from the router, with a very strong WIFI signal.  I have two Samsung Galaxy S20 phones (March 2020) which both exhibit the exact same behavior.   I spoke with T-Mobile Tech support which appeared to be clueless about this issue other than to send me two new S20 phones under warranty to my T-Mobile store.   I do not have high confidence in this approach but will try the new phones and report back. 

Does anyone know anything more?   I am not aware of T-Mobile publicly acknowledging this issue.

I am having the same problem and tech support advised I turn off 5G which made things better for a few days, but now the phone is back to switching to "cellular preferred" on its own. This is very frustrating because I constantly drop calls. I live in an area with poor t-mobile coverage so I rely heavily on Wi-Fi calling. I have an unlocked Samsung Galaxy Note 20 ultra 5G with the January update. 

I've been having the same issue for months on my S10 and now also on my newly purchased S21 for a couple of weeks.

Wow, unbelievable! It's hard to believe that this is a problem with all the carriers and there isn't some kind of uprising. I am impressed that you've found a work around, but it is just too complicated for the average person (and maybe me too). Why can't the carriers come up with a solution? Of course I suppose they like for you to use cellular using chargeable data….though using wifi would reduce congestion…..I just don't get it. But, what used to be a reliable phone & service has become practically unusable! Is this progress? I would be very happy to go back to where my service was a year ago….it worked great then. Strange that they appear unmotivated to fix this. Surely they will have to come up with a fix…..and soon! …..or not!?!?

But, reading the Verizon community forum that you provided was quite interesting….what was most revealing was that apparently this isn't a problem with iPhones. I've always been an android user, but now maybe it's time to make a switch. It would be nice to see more confirmation on the iPhone not having this problem. Have you heard any more about that? I just spent $2500 on new phones (partly to correct this issue), but I need reliability! I might have to spend more (iPhones)….I just need to know my options and you seem to be the only source. Thanks for that!!!

Thanks for jumping in with this….but, unfortunately this doesn't solve the problem. I've had all my phones properly set up with e911 and still have the same problem. I certainly wish it was that simple!

Today I was on the phone with tech support for over two hours. I was not impressed with their level of knowledge (on anything!). Surprisingly (or maybe not) the first level support person I spoke with had never heard of this problem (it didn't help that she was so heavily accented I couldn't understand her half the time …..why do they use those folks for tech support???). I assured her that it was all over the internet. Ultimately I explained in detail the situation and she consulted other support folks and came up with a workaround. Not a great one certainly, but something that should help….at least at my house. The workaround? A cell phone signal booster. They've agreed to send me one (a loaner w' a $25 deposit). In theory, this will amplify the 4G LTE signal enough that, if, by chance, my phone randomly switches from WiFi preferred to Cellular preferred at least the cellular signal will be strong enough that I can still send and receive calls/texts. This does not change the annoying fact that the phone won't stay on WiFi preferred. Annoying also because, not only am I unable to get texts or make calls when it swaps, but if it does swap to cellular and still works, I unknowingly use cellular data rather than Wifi data so it can end up costing more. And I will still have the issue at my vacation home where the problem is far worse (they'll only give me one of these boosters!). At this date there is no proposed fix for the random swapping to cellular preferred….unless you use "DazedandConfused" method which I'm not quite up to tackling at this point (his method would likely leave me dazed and confused!). They did suggest to turn on airplane mode and then turn WiFi on…..this would keep it from going to cellular….but, as I pointed out to them, then if you wonder away from your wifi (you might forget) you get absolutely nothing. That's even worse! Apparently all android phones...especially Samsung ...have been plagued by this after an update about 6 months ago. In hindsight, this would have been the time to swap to an iPhone. Certainly the android folks will come up with a real fix….right???   Although I guess I can't really blame T-Mobile for all of this, I'm still very disappointed in their tech support…..they should have had this all figured out with all possible workarounds….it shouldn't take two hours! 

Welcome to customer support and sales experience. Thats precisely why I am a technician now, I see no point in ignorantly lying aimlessly to people just to make more sales. Pretty disgracing of a customer service team though altogether, never in my life, let alone on multiple recent hour plus long calls to these "let play stupid and clueless" antic assholes, if you have noise cancellation off on your sound you can here the agent and the group of thieves surrounding them in a hopeless lonely cubicle literally laughing along while saying they have never heard of this in all their years in prepaid/postpaid support, it has to be your phone, come into our store and we'll explain it all for you with a new $1800, all glass cased device with new 5G technology which is slower and less storage capacity than your outdated IP68 military grade rating that runs smoother and faster than new, only functioning thing accounting for this $1400 price difference is an updated over-rated high mega-pixel camera that actually takes the same 1080p picture edited with software rendering, also of which comes standard on $100 price range models today

The only select few apps I set to allow location access to is Google Maps cloned along with google play services, isolated in my cloned Island work profile for when needed , then two I set to "allow only while using the app which are both needed for IMS registration to successfully complete at boot: DiagMonAgent and IMS Service. Since IMS registration takes place only once on devices at bootup, if I have wifi left on before rebooting it may trip to Cellular Preferred only once just at this moment depending how fast wifi connects vs completion of IMS registation. So as long as I don't restart with wifi on my issue is now 100% resolved and now completely entirely non-existent, "WiFi Preferred" calling mode is now holding persistently, only now accurately displaying unavailable currently when wifi diminishes before dropping or as changing WiFi to another connection, IMS re-establishes and maintains "WiFi Preferred" option through every transition. The other guy can above can run back to Verizon if so he chooses but either way we ALL live in this Google/Microsoft driven world whom both want to know every last detail of none other than you, good luck getting them to change their ways or to get your new carrier to sell you a device that has neither but works on their network, otherwise mod your own device you personally own how you like the way, we in the free/open-source Linux community, always have. Windows 95 does still function also if you so choose to use it for something or like demonstrating how things USED to work in days of ol, but if you want to use it with today's world of software and hardware both, you won't have much luck.  If you merely buy a device from any standard Cell Phone Carrier you are in fact buying into their whole entire knowledgeably ignorant scheme to hand them hundreds of dollars only because their service is somehow unexplainably "better" than their identical competition with identical devices and consolidated shared Cell towers, sales are not developers are not technicians, continue the endless loop. Open source already fixed the problem, Google and Microsoft never will because it is 100% strictly marketing based and profiting them, if a product doesn't work well or no longer does after being updated to "latest improved software" you'll come shovel out hundreds for another new one to replace a 6 month old new one….right??? There are other forums for those carriers too once you find yourself in the exact same current situation once your new device updates itself. Also good preventative to avoid vendor forced OS updates that some have found their devices booting up to regardless of disabling automatic system updates (vendor/carriers do have the ability to and do force system updates occasionally in waves to all devices reporting not being updated after a set time duration expires pushed through SMS/GMS code in the System Update app) if using Island then freeze (disabled until YOU open it)the update app and only update once you know updates are stable, most vendors wait months after security updates are released before they push them to available for your device to see in the first place so a little extra time on your end to actually verify stability between other actual users will keep this and any other unexpected downgraded updates from disrupting life

Getting an E911 address set in the first place is the first essential part for Voice over LTE, video calling, and WiFi calling features to become active and usable at all in the first place, otherwise yours was functionally disabled without it, even though the toggle is there, with no E911 it causes IMS registration to fail, dis-allowing these functions entirely from the cell tower on device bootup. Testing with Airplane mode on then wifi, calls will drop regardless if E911 address is not in place, IMS Registration status is verified in SIM card status will tell you if Voice over LTE, video calling, and WiFi calling features are active and functioning Now that you have it, it WILL be a matter of time until you find this setting changing to cellular preferred constantly occurring throughout use as most ALL other carriers included Android 9+ Google software bundled phones go. Tracing through logs in App Ops I have identified this change over issue down to a combination of all softwares, implemented first by Google through most any Play Store apps eventually brought into standard Android OS development and also infused into vendor/carrier installed apps just the same is the ongoingly largest battery draining issue - randomly occurring wifi scanning also mixed in with Geo Location/NFC triggers which are all binded directly with GPS Location Services function. Bottom line primary trigger causing "Cellular Preferred" changes is limited consistent Wi-Fi internet data throughput or bandwidth, this by absolutely no means is wifi signal strength at the router but combination of all specifically between the modem itself and the wifi calling app itself on your device, home modem internet signals are rarely consistent although your wifi might be bad ass at hiding it for other types of devices; this can all drastically be affected also by excessive Google/games/apps limiting bandwidth to wifi calling app also multiplying the issue also having wifi scanning built into everything. 

Bottom line primary trigger causing "Cellular Preferred" changes is limited consistent Wi-Fi internet data throughput or bandwidth, this by absolutely no means is wifi signal strength at the router but combination of all specifically between the modem itself and the wifi calling app itself on your device, home modem internet signals are rarely consistent although your wifi might be bad ass at hiding it for other types of devices; this can all drastically be affected also by excessive Google/games/apps limiting bandwidth to wifi calling app also multiplying the issue also having wifi scanning built into everything.  Wifi scanning basically momentarily pauses or severely limits your current wifi connection while the radio adjusts between wifi channels trying to locate other networks to meter yours against, causing the wifi calling app to disconnect unexpectedly and flip to cellular. This in turn blows for us all because it is implemented into almost all newly developed/updated apps to be allowed in the Google Play Store, even the built in Android app that senses input from a simple touch of your touch screen and keyboard apps cause wifi scanning to momentarily take place, had mine changing it seemed 50% of the time swiping my screen to unlock. The standard Android settings menu allows you turn off wifi scanning so they make it seem but this toggle only disables wifi scanning features at user level installed apps, not wifi and GPS scanning for system based ones provided by Android/vendor/Google.

Bottom line primary trigger causing "Cellular Preferred" changes is limited consistent Wi-Fi internet data throughput or bandwidth, this by absolutely no means is wifi signal strength at the router but combination of all specifically between the modem itself and the wifi calling app itself on your device, home modem internet signals are rarely consistent although your wifi might be bad ass at hiding it for other types of devices; this can all drastically be affected also by excessive Google/games/apps limiting bandwidth to wifi calling app also multiplying the issue also having wifi scanning built into everything.  Wifi scanning basically momentarily pauses or severely limits your current wifi connection while the radio adjusts between wifi channels trying to locate other networks to meter yours against, causing the wifi calling app to disconnect unexpectedly and flip to cellular.