Sometimes when I pickup a ringing phone, the caller does not hear me. The phone stops ringing, but my phone system does not seem to connect properly to the phone line. If I hangup without hold and reanswer the phone, I can talk to the caller. This problem does not occur every time the phone rings. Could this be a setting?

What model phone does this happen on?
Do you have a headset connected to the phone?
Is the handset curly cord connected to the correct port or is it connected to the headset port by mistake?

Early phone models suffered from hook switch issues, have you tried swapping over the phone with one you know is working correctly?

I think I had a similar problem many years ago at a house. I don't remember all the details, but I do remember that the owner could not talk to the caller.

Just an FYI, when you select a line to make a call, you are muted util you dial a phone number. There may be a case where the phone system is thinking that you are trying to make an outgoing call instead of pickup up an incoming call.

At that time I tried to do an Immediate cut-though on the CO trunk. This worked but it completely messed up the redial function.

Another option is to create a new public numbering plan to use a single digit for an outgoing number. Next time the caller can not hear you , you can press the single digit and the Toshiba will assume that you dialed a valid number and un-mute your phone. You should be able to use a code that you would normally not dial, such as the * or #.

You can try this after you made sure that you don't have a handset, hook-switch, or cord issue.

My phones are DKT3020-SD. I doubt the problem is with the phone. I liked the suggestions from Newtecky. Thanks.

The issue you are talking about is due to the hook switch causing the incoming call to be hung up on when trying to answer the call.
Because the call came in on a PSTN CO line you could press the line key to get the caller back but as you had not dialled anything the speech path would not be opened, therefore if you dialled something like a single digit and it matched the dialling plan then the speech would be opened up.

I would be still looking at the cause of the issue as probably a faulty phone.

Have you changed the phone yet?

I have experienced the same problem on three of my many phones. Years ago I bought hook switches for my DKT2020-SD phones.

If my problem were a hook switch, how come I can make outgoing calls without an issue?

You said "3 of my many phones". Are there phones on the same system that have not experienced this issue? Have you tried one of these working phones into the same port? You say it does not always happen.

If the problem was due to programming the symptom would be consistant.

My guess is a hookswitch issue, even though the 3000 series was not known for that like the 2000 series was. Pretty sure the hookswitch has 2 circuits in it. 1 for control of data and 1 for control of audio. The audio contacts may be intermittent and performance will vary according to humidity.

Also, on received calls, these should be no delay due to inter-digit timeout like on outgoing calls. Make sure that you are not receiving the call based upon a transfer from your auto-attendant that is using supervised transfer. That will cause an answer delay due to it waiting to see that you answered and waiting for the "A" tone to be sent from the VM to the KSU.

I meant "A" tone from KSU to VM not the other way around.....