voicemail stops playing when lifting my phone

Hi pkohn1164,

Thanks for the reply and additional information.

Did you have a chance to contact your carrier? If so, what did they have to say?

Do you have a case on your iPhone? If so, can you remove it and test, to certify it's not somehow interfering?

Also, if you hold your iPhone vertically, then tap play, and bring closer to your ear, does it still stop playing?

Keep in mind, if you have the voicemail playing with the iPhone up to your ear, then remove the iPhone from your ear, it will stop playing. This happens with and without the Attention Aware feature enabled. This is part of the function of the Proximity Sensor.

To verify the Proximity Sensor is working as expected, the iPhone screen should dim when the iPhone is up to your ear. You can look in a mirror, or have someone look at the iPhone screen while it's up to your ear. This reason this happens, is so your face and ear do not inadvertently trigger an action when touching the screen.

If the screen doesn't dim, that could be our issue here. You'd want to test without a case and/or screen protector, also. If still not dimming, here's the link to find an Apple Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider to have your iPhone serviced. iPhone Repair and Service

Cheers!

Hello pkohn1164,

Thanks for using Apple Support Communities! We see you're having an issue with listening to voicemail when Attention Aware is enabled, and we'd like to help.

First, restart your iPhone. Even through you've noticed this issue for awhile, restarting is always a good step.

Restart your iPhone

To clarify, are you changing from speaker to listening through the receiver, or vice versa, when this happens?

If so, does the volume stay the same if only using one method? Or, if you lower and raise a second time?

We also recommend contacting your carrier, and let them know what's happening. We weren't able to recreate the volume lowering, and since voicemail is provided by the cellular carrier, they may be able to help.

Take care!

Hi pkohn1164,

Nice job figuring that out! Thanks for letting us know.

Enjoy your weekend!