Fixing Skype not calling on iOS

So I got a new iPhone for my wife, and I wanted to put Skype on it. During the setup, it asked me for access to the microphone, the camera and contacts. The first two were obviously needed, but I didn’t think it would be necessary to give access to the contacts. So once I was able to log her in, I figured all was well.

Except it wasn’t. She wasn’t able to make any calls, either to regular numbers or other Skype accounts. The call buttons just wouldn’t work. Didn’t matter if you manually typed in a number or chose it from your Skype contacts.

Long story short, it turns out you do need to give Skype access to your contacts or it throws a fit in the form of not being able to call out.

You can grant that access after the fact by going into the phone Settings and scrolling down to find Skype in the list of apps. It is one of the options in there.

Hope this helps someone else because from what I could tell by searching, there were many people with the same issue, but no solutions that I could find.

Also, while I’m talking about Skype on the iPhone, if you try calling and you get a crying emoji with the message that something went wrong, check that you aren’t connected to a VPN. I have found that at least some VPNs, even if connected via the router, cause Skype some issues. At least recently.