{"id":2891,"date":"2020-10-27T15:03:40","date_gmt":"2020-10-27T20:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/?p=2891"},"modified":"2026-02-28T14:12:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T20:12:18","slug":"answer-incoming-call-from-lock-screen-after-android-9-update-16-aug-2019-sometimes-you-just-need-your-mobile-phone-to-act-like-a-phone-after-recent-update-android-operating-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/answer-incoming-call-from-lock-screen-after-android-9-update-16-aug-2019-sometimes-you-just-need-your-mobile-phone-to-act-like-a-phone-after-recent-update-android-operating-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Answer Incoming Call from Lock Screen Samsung Galaxy Android"},"content":{"rendered":"

Technical Writer Till the Day I Die<\/h2>\n

I'll admit it - after I bought my new Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, I had to search my own<\/em> site for \"can't answer incoming calls android.\" I figured out the answer, once - back when I had my Samsung Galaxy Note 9 and updated to Android 9 with OneUI.<\/p>\n

And I guess I just assumed they would have fixed this by now, but of course not.<\/p>\n

It's no secret that I spent the better part of my career as a senior technical writer. \"Information Architect,\" if you prefer late 1990s euphemisms, but I prefer things that emphasize the \"writing\" part of the job. I didn't so much build<\/em> data as untangle it and make sense of it.<\/p>\n

It's also no secret that I like to play with SEO. And I do mean \"play\" - I have not made a serious study of it, nor read the blog posts of others who have made a serious study of it, and I have in fact turned off readers here by even joking about it openly (mea culpa<\/em>, I apologize for the \"meta blogging,\" but you know I'm weirdly competitive and I do love a silly challenge). I like to think that my own writing is as scattered and niche-less as my search engine queries. But that's not what you want, is it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No - to be precise, it's what one family member, eleven friends and six random spammers who've kindly bothered to subscribe to this blog tolerate<\/em>, while the rest of the visits come through direct links or \"organic search\" to older incarnations of this blog by way of the following queries:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Without further ado, let's just answer the question...<\/p>\n

Samsung Galaxy Note 9 (Android 9)<\/h3>\n

Can't Answer Incoming Call from Lock Screen After Android 9 Update?<\/h4>\n

This is the original post. If this doesn't work for you, or you have a newer phone or Android version, skip to the next section.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, you just need your mobile phone to act like a phone. After a recent update to the Android operating system \u2013 Android 9, July 1 security patch \u2013 on my Samsung Galaxy Note 9, I was unable to answer a phone call from the lock screen. I could press the call answer or hang up icons, and could see that the touchscreen was registering my touch by the expanding glow around each icon as I tapped or pressed it, but nothing else would happen! Also, I could not dismiss the incoming call screen, nor could I unlock the phone until the caller hung up.<\/p>\n

My phone was possessed! I could answer calls normally if they came in while I was playing with another app on my phone. I could unlock my phone if there was no incoming call in the way. But if a call came in while the phone was sitting, idle, on a table or in my purse or pocket, I would miss it. I was about to do a factory reset \u2013 the only way to squash virtual gremlins with 99.8% certainty, but then that\u2019s hours of reinstalling apps and files from backups and I wasn\u2019t in the mood. Then, while waiting on\u00a0@TmobileHelp<\/a>\u00a0(the best support staff EVER) to figure out what on earth might be going on, I found two threads on Android Central:<\/p>\n