My landline phone works for outgoing calls, but not incoming calls

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My AT&T landline phone has a ringtone. I can call out from home but a few days ago, we found out that nobody could call us. The cordless phones we use are AT&T products. I think it is a mixed blessing but also sort of a curse, because now the zombie credit collectors can't call us. But neither can the library call us to let us know we have an item to pick up nor can we get calls in from family. But, there is a bright side to this story... If we can call out using one of our 3 cordless phones and get a good sound and hear the person on the other end, we can just tell them "Hey, we can call you, but you can't call us." The reason might very well be a faulty connection due to corrosion on one or more wires in the phone box screwed to the baseboard. We have like, about 4 or more phone boxes in the house, One of them could be the problem. Since we have a single line home phone, the way to check it is to connect a basic corded landline phone to the box on the outside of the house and see if we can get a call from a cell phone. There is also another possibility, the cordless phone battery might be bad so it prevents the answering machine from engaging causing the caller to get one ring followed by fast busy beeps and the phone will not ring on your end. Stranger things have happened. The cordless phone has to be in the cradle to charge also. There are so many things that can go wrong with a landline phone and Murphy's Law rules, as it is stated, by that law, "Anything that can go wrong, will." If it rings and we can pick up the phone and answer it then it's a-okay. Meanwhile I will be calling support tomorrow. As it turns out, their offices are closed and there seems to be no way to get support. So if you ever have this happen to you as this is common in many homes, even with digital phones and ours is digital but still landline, you might want to check your outlet boxes to see if there is dust or a loose connection at that little square box that is screwed to the wall at the baseboard. They have I think, 4 color coded wires. One of them could not be making good contact and maybe the wires that let you call out are okay but one of the 4 wires that allows you to get your phone to ring when you get an incoming call will just not happen.