I just purchased my iphone and set it up yesterday. However the voice mail button doesn't take me to voice mail. I have not yet been able to set up my voice mail since nothing happens when I hit the button. When someone calls my phone and it goes to voice mail, they are given a message that says that the user has not set up voice mail yet and then it says "goodbye". Is there some trick to setting up voice mail for the first time?
You may need to contact ATT to find out if there is an issue with your account. Also, try resetting your iPhone by turning it off then back on again and see if that changes anything.
Resetting it by turning it off and then back on again doesn't seem to help. I was hoping that there was another way of correcting the problem without ATT since they are closed today. I guess I'll wait it out until tomorrow and then take your suggestion to contact them. Thanks.
You can actually try a reset of the phone. The first solution you were given is not really a reset. It is however, the first step in the troubleshooting. Power the phone off/on. If that doesn't help, then a reset. A reset is accomplished by pressing and holding the home button and the sleep/wake button at the same time until you see the Apple logo, then releasing. Ignore the screen that shows "slide to power off". This is a reset. If the reset doesn't work, then you would do a restore. That is accomplished in iTunes. Connect the phone to the computer. When it shows up in iTunes, press the restore button. Make sure however,that you have done a sync just prior to ensure you have a backup file. When doing the restore, you can either restore from a backup or as a new phone. Hope this helps you.
Also, if the Voice Mail option doesn't work you can always try going to the keypad and pressing and holding down the number 1. This should call into voice mail like older phones. If you still cannot get in, then for sure you need to contact AT&T about your accout/voicemail setup.
I had this same problem (I got the iPhone activated about 2 weeks ago and never bothered w/the voice mail until a few days ago). Called AT&T, which was no help. They suggested I pop out the SIM card, while on the phone. Good one. Anyway, I tried popping out the SIM (with the phone on and off), turning the phone on and off and a restore. None of that worked.
So, then I logged into my account at ATT.com, thinking maybe I could find the voice mail phone number (the old number from my old phone didn't work either). Didn't find that, but I did find a "reset voicemail password" link and on a whim clicked it, which sent a text to the phone w/a new password. Voila! The voice mail button works and I was able to set it up (finally).
I had something similar happen. Apparently, there is an AT&T data plan without Visual Voice Mail. I called AT&T and they set it up, restarted the phone and my VVM works now.
mine did that the other day, thought it was just cause i didn't have any voicemails in there, i ended calling my # (1 button didn't work for me) went thru all that, then when i hit it again it said password wrong and i put it in again and it started working again, maybe it lost the password? no idea