Issue

When a caller or callee can't hear the other party on a call, we refer to this as one-way audio.

Product

Programmable Voice

Environment

legacy Twilio Console

Cause

One-way audio can be caused by a number of factors including issues with the call connection or routing, or from the source or destination. This guide covers the following topics for diagnosing and resolving your issues:

• Check for Twilio Incidents
• Identify the issue
• Attempt to replicate the issue
• Enable Voice Trace and escalate

Please start at the top, and walk through each of the troubleshooting steps as you work your way down the page.

For help with call issues not related to one-way audio, see Troubleshooting Audio Quality Issues on Twilio Voice Calls.

Resolution

Check for Twilio Incidents

Check the Twilio Status Page to see if there is an active incident, or an incident during the timeframe you reported issues, that could be causing your issues. For full details, please see Checking Twilio Service and API Status with the Status Page.

No incidents are listed that may be affecting calls: If you don't see an incident posted that may affect calls, then there is likely an issue elsewhere. 

An incident may be affecting calls: If you see an incident posted that may affect outgoing Twilio calls, please monitor the status, and then test again once the incident is resolved.

Identify the issue

Attempt to ascertain the full details surrounding this issue:

• Which side of the call is reporting the issue(s): caller, callee, or both?
• Was the audio missing the entire time, or was audio lost at some point in the call?
• Does this issue occur at the same time each call?
• Are any parties using mute, placing the call on hold, or using an external headset or other accessory for calls?
• Does this issue only occur with specific phone numbers or number types (landline, mobile, VoIP, etc.)?
• Does this issue only occur when calling or receiving calls from a specific region or country?
• Do other callers/callees report similar issues?

Once you are able to answer these questions, continue reading for additional troubleshooting.

Attempt to replicate the issue

Attempt another test call or two between the same phone numbers, and then try using the same Twilio phone number with different caller/callee phone numbers. The goal is to determine if this was a one-off, if the issue is limited to specific phone numbers or service providers, or if there may be a larger issue that requires investigation.

Issue is always replicated: If you are able to replicate the one-way audio issues on all calls in the same direction (to or from) with your Twilio phone number, we need to perform additional testing.

Issue is sometimes replicated: If you are able to replicate the one-way audio issues only some of the time on calls in the same direction, check for any patterns:

• If audio quality concerns are only coming from incoming callers using a specific service provider (or a small group of providers), escalate to the caller's service provider
• If audio quality concerns are only coming from outgoing callees using a specific service provider (or a small group of providers)
• If no pattern can be found.

Unable to replicate this issue: If you are unable to replicate the one-way audio issues, it's unlikely we will be able to address this report. Continue to monitor, and restart troubleshooting as needed if additional reports are received.

Enable Voice Trace and escalate

If you can rule out all of the above issues, Twilio's Support team can help investigate what went wrong. We ask that users enable Voice Trace in Console, and then attempt to recreate the issues once more. Voice trace produces a packet capture log for your calls, allowing our support and engineering staff to recreate call audio and investigate the reported issues.

For enabling and escalation instructions, see Enable Voice Trace for Troubleshooting Twilio Call Audio and DTMF Issues.