Virgin Media Community

[fraser4]

Since I updated to iOS 11.4.1 my iPhone X attempts to use dial assist for mobile numbers which start 07.  The calls then fail with unknown number.  Any number in my contacts that's stored with +44 works fine.  If I switch dial assist off then the 07 numbers work.

I did the firmware update while in Ireland so I'm wondering if the phone thinks it's in Ireland.  I've checked and the region is set to UK.

Does anyone have any ideas?

[Terri_P]

Hi fraser4,

Sorry to hear that you are experiencing an issue with your iPhone X dial assist. Did you find a solution to this?

I can see that this has been reported to Apple, but you'll need to contact them direct here for further support on this: https://support.apple.com/ unless anyone on the Community can recommend an alternative workaround. I'm not aware of one.

Kind Regards,

Terri

Virgin Media Forum Team

[caroleanndrap]

Hi Fraser4, just wondering if and how you resolved this? I just returned from Iceland and got a message from Virgin to follow a link to set up my iOS device for internet. Upon doing which somehow my phone then displayed all UK numbers in an incorrect format (2, 3, 2, 2, 2 digits instead of 5, 6) unless they had the +44 prefix. The phone then wouldn't dial the number saying it wasn't recognised. No joy on calling Virgin or using the text service who I don't think fully understood and claimed the problem was with my phone and nothing to do with their settings but that is rubbish of course as the problem only happened after the update and return to the UK. I have turned off Dial Assist and it now can call the numbers although they still display incorrectly and not sure how to correct that unless I amend each and every contact to the +44 prefix. Frustrating so would be interested to know what happened for you 🙂 My phone is an Iphone 8 with 12.1.3 software.

[teabag]

This is quite a long running problem for iPhone users, where the phone numbers change to a foreign/international format while abroad.

Tap "iPhone contact number wrong format" into Google, lots of results with various clues on how to repair.

[caroleanndrap]

Teabag, thank you for that! After 2 long evenings spent trying to get someone at Virginmedia to help or even understand the issue I now know I was not going mad and it is a common issue. That said I have had iPhones for many years and this is the first time I have experienced this one! I believe it is due to the code a country sends when you are roaming abroad and that it somehow made my phone think I was now in that country despite the region set correctly in settings. I had already turned off dial assist. A quick change of region to Belgium then change back to UK did the trick. All numbers now formatted correctly.

thank you! Hope this helps someone else 🙂

[teabag]

Thanks for letting us know what fixed it 🤗

My wife also has had iPhones for many years, but not yet had that problem, I know what to try now if it does 😉

[frankgibb · Accepted solution]

This randomly happened to me today - and I haven't been out of the UK. Any numbers stored in my contact without the +44 prefix were being prefixed by +32 (Belgium).

The fix as described above was to go to Setttings / General / Language and Region and change my Region to Belgium (it was saying UK) and then back to UK.

Everything working as normal again. How strange.

[fyrstar]

@Frankgibb is 100% correct. Like him, this happened to me yesterday. I changed it to Belgium, the handset will then visably change region (the screen will dim and it will display a message whilst it does it), and then I changed it back again. Now it is fine.

Note that if you do not see the screen and the message about the region change then it will not work, as i discovered when i tried to change it to US and back again.

[nigeltn35]

I have also used this method - change regional settings away from UK and then back again. It works OK for a while, but soon (sometimes within hours) the phone numbers revert to 2, 3, 2, 2, 2 format. I have an iPhone SE; so does my wife - and we never have this problem with her phone!

[teabag]

@nigeltn35

Is Dial Assist also turned off in your phones settings?.  Also if you Google the problem, it seems also iCloud can also have same problem and change your phones settings back to a foreign format again.