Can't receive calls or texts or MMS on Samsung Galaxy S5 or S6?

Have you suddenly woke up and your Samsung Galaxy S5 or S6/S6 Edge has suddenly decided not to receive any calls, texts, messages, MMS, anything?

It might be a call forwarding bug - the good news is,  it's pretty easy to fix.

Completely out of the blue today my wife and I suddenly found out that we couldn't text nor call each other, even sitting on the same couch within burping distance. Considering our phones are roughly a month old (She rocks a Samsung Galaxy S5 while I have a touch more screen with the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge) it couldn't be the age. 

The fact that they both had the same problem on the same day? Well either something has gone a little pear shaped with our data sharing plan through Telstra or it's national day of call forwarding bug and we forgot to read the menu.

Time taken to see if this is the problem?

About 60 seconds. Not really enough time to make a coffee really...but hey, hopefully in 60 seconds you'll have a working phone again!

So what's the problem?

You receive no texts, all calls to your phone go straight to message bank. You have no idea why people are ignoring you.

How to correct the call forwarding bug on Samsung Galaxy S5

1. Go to Phone

2. Tap on Keypad up the top

3. Tap the three little dots under Contacts to show the menu 

4. From the open menu, select Settings

5. Go to Call

6. Scroll down and press more settings

7. Tap Call Forwarding

8. Tap Voice calls

9. Now it will take a few moments for the phone to work out what diverts are in place. If you haven't put in anything specifically, they should be pointing at your message bank service. Both of our phones had no diverts in place but suddenly a warning popped up sim card/network error (Happened on both phones, but don't panic!). Press back and watch as all of a sudden your text messaging and dialing services are returned. 

How to correct the call forwarding bug on Samsung Galaxy S6/S6 Edge

1. Go to Phone

2. Tap More (top right)

3. Choose Settings

4. Then More settings

5. Tap Call Forwarding

6. Select Voice Call

7. Like with the Samsung Galaxy S5 above, after a few seconds of loading up the registered diverts you should receive a sim card/network error. Just press back. Moments later any missing SMS's should suddenly appear. Calls can now be received too.

How? 

At a guess this resets your call forwarding memory and suddenly the phone remembers that no diverts are in place. Or it's black magic that I truly don't understand. Regardless both phones work now and communication is resumed.

So fingers crossed, it was an easy fix for you. If this worked (or something else did), I'd love to hear it in a comment below :)

Cheers

-Almigo