My main hope, therefore, is for some kind of 3rd party solution like the apps referred to above for keeping Skype active, or some general Android setting. I've discussed this with Skype customer support, who were unable to help beyond establishing that it's nothing to do with my Skype app settings (notifications are on) or being logged in on another device. However I couldn't find any such examples that wasn't followed by a comment later suggesting it no longer works (and I can't find any examples now I look for it).
If this is the case, it happens even when the optional Skype notification tray status icon shows the status as being "active" - some comments suggest this icon doesn't update when Skype becomes inactive in the background.
It used to be possible to fix this issue by downgrading to before version 4, but older versions now no longer connect, so this appears to be no longer an option.There are many long (and often angry) threads about this on Skype's forums, for example: No incoming call and chat notification on Android KitKat (12 pages), Skype never rings on Android phone (9 pages), skype not running in background anymore? (4 pages), and many others.įrom these threads I've extracted some clues:
There's a long-running issue with Skype for Android where, in recent versions (since 2014 I believe), it very often ignores incoming calls and doesn't notify about messages when it is running in the background.