Depending on the country where you are located and which cellular provider you use, a variety of issues may affect your ability to receive and respond to PagerDuty phone notifications. For these reasons, PagerDuty does not have full control over the deliverability of phone notifications.

We highly recommend using push notifications and Slack as your primary notification methods, as these mechanisms are 99.99% reliable. Staggering your notification rules can also help deliverability.

If other notification methods are not a viable option, the following sections provide troubleshooting tips for phone notification delivery issues.

Check Country Availability

There may be regulatory policies or carrier restrictions preventing PagerDuty from delivering phone notifications to your location.

You can review the full list of countries that are able to receive phone notifications from PagerDuty in Supported Countries. Check this list before conducting further troubleshooting. Countries marked with an asterisk (*) indicate Partial Support due to local restrictions and regulations in the region.

Duplicate Phone Notifications

PagerDuty relies on third-party vendors to deliver phone notifications. These vendors, in turn, rely on several phone partners and carriers to deliver phone calls to end users. PagerDuty relies on a delivery receipt from carriers and providers to determine if a phone notification was delivered. In cases where a delivery receipt is not received, PagerDuty takes a cautious approach and sends the notification again. If the first notification was successful, this will result in a duplicate notification.

Consider reaching out to your provider if you are experiencing issues with duplicate notifications.

Notifications may also appear as duplicates if there are duplicated incidents, or if you have configured your notification rules to send multiple notifications.

Phone Notification Not Received

Check PagerDuty

Check the incident and user configuration in PagerDuty to determine if a notification should have been sent.

• Incident Timeline: An incident's timeline keeps a log of all attempted incident notifications. If you do not see an entry for the expected phone notification, review Expected Notification Behavior to determine why a notification was not sent.
• Incorrect or Inactive Number: Navigate to your user profile and confirm your phone number for errors or missing digits. Inactive and invalid numbers will result in delivery failure.

Check Mobile Device Settings

Check if any mobile device settings are enabled that may prevent you from receiving the notification.

• Blocked Number: Check your mobile device to confirm if any settings are enabled to block calls from unknown numbers.
• Third-Party Apps: Issues may occur when delivering phone notifications to virtual numbers from third-party messaging apps. In the event of an application outage or service degradation, you may not be able to receive calls to your virtual number. We recommend sending phone notifications to your primary mobile device instead.

Check for Provider Issues

Check if there were any local or provider issues that affected your ability to receive phone calls.

• Carrier Outage: Check with your mobile service provider to confirm if there was an outage or service issue at the time you were expecting to receive the notification.
• Roaming: Prior to traveling, check with your mobile service provider to confirm if there are any additional requirements or restrictions when traveling.
• Cell Service: Phone notifications may not be delivered to areas with poor cell service, such as inside a building with thick walls, remote areas with limited service coverage, or underground.
• Do Not Call Registry: Your phone number may be registered in a do-not-call registry, which may prevent you from receiving calls from certain numbers.
• Call Routing: The call may have gone through a call routing or call transfer system that did not route the call properly.

Response Did Not Action the Incident

• Touch-Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF) Issues
• Performing an Incident Action on an Old Notification

Touch-Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF) Issues

Touch-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) signals are the beeping tones generated from keypad responses. They let you navigate menus, select options, and input information. When the signal is interrupted or unclear, unintended behavior may occur.

• Connection Issues: A weak signal, data packet loss, or overloaded infrastructure can disrupt the clear transmission of DTMF signals.
• Carrier Issues: Compatibility issues, misconfigured system settings, or outdated equipment can sometimes cause DTMF signals to be misinterpreted. This can be more common with older phones or specific VoIP services.
• Keypad Buttons: Worn-out or sticky buttons on your device's keypad may not register presses accurately. Try cleaning them or using a different device.
• Audible Touch Tones: If you turn off audible touch tones, the signal cannot be sent back to our providers and the keypad response will not update the incident.
  • Android Devices: Navigate to Settings Sound & Notification Audible touch tones/Dial pad tones Enable Audible Touch Tones.
• WiFi Calling: DTMF tones may not work when WiFi calling is enabled.

Performing an Incident Action on an Old Notification

PagerDuty takes a cautious approach to notifications so that older notifications do not overwrite newer, important incident state changes.

The following are examples of incident state changes:

• Escalations
• Resolves
• Reassigning an incident

Once an incident changes state, you can no longer take action on it using older notifications that were generated prior to the state change.

Phone Numbers with Extensions

To send phone notifications to a number with an extension, refer to the following article sections:

• Phone Contact Methods with an Extension or Delay
• Phone Number Formatting

Call Length Restrictions

Phone notifications are limited to two minutes and 30 seconds. After that point, the call will end, which may cause some calls to be cut short.