visual voice mail was working for years, now it is not working

Question

visual voice mail was working for years, now it is not working

Hi friends.

For years, I enjoyed visual voicemail, and now, it is not working. The only causal event I can point to is the 3G shutdown that may have caused something weird to happen. What is see on the screen, instead of the messages, is "Call Voicemail". THere is no way to reset it or configure it, since it was previously working.

The carrier is Verizon via an MVNO.

I have done the following:

Upgrade the phone to latest IOS
Update all apps to latest
Reset network settings like 10 times.
Call VM, reset/change PIN.
Send a VM to phone using different phone, dial VM, listen to the message, delete it.
Toggle Siri on/off (some posts suggested this)
Contacted the carrier, double, triple verified it is provisioned correctly.
Reboot the iphone like 10 times
make sure carrier updates are not pending. i am running Verizon 53.0

I am seeing SMS messages indicating VZW is trying to indicate to the phone when VMs are available, for example:

//VZWVVM:SYNC:ev=NM;id=575;c=1;t=v;s=1xxxxxxxxxx;dt=07/01/2023 20:34 -0500;l=5;dev_t=5

(note phone number x'ed out). I also have an SMS where I see the carrier pushed the Visual VM config/provisioning to my phone.

It feels to me like iOS is just blowing off these SMS's, If i had to guess on the under-the-covers implementation, I would guess there is some daemon on the phone that intercepts these SMSs, and does thigns with them to support visual VM (e.g., contact the carrier, download the voice mail, translate it to text, and build a local database of messages on the phone). Because when visual VM was working, I'd never, ever see these SMS messages from the 9000 number.

Things I have not done, which are a bigger hammer:

Backup iphone, erase it, then restore. Painful.
Ask carrier to revert me to basic VM, then go back to visual VM.

Anyone else have this issue and if so, what did you do to fix?

Are there other options?

thanks.

iPhone 13 mini, iOS 16

Posted on Jan 17, 2023 8:15 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Jan 19, 2023 6:49 PM in response to Eric--F

Visual Voicemail Enabled But Not Working - Apple Community

same problem as me. this guy set his phone up as a new phone, and voila, it worked. all the other tricks/tips he tried, i have tried, with the exception of restoring from backup. No change at the carrier. Still a carrier problem when the change made was on the phone only?

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Answer 2

MKS67

Level 1

12 points

Jan 31, 2023 12:56 PM in response to gary_johnston

I would try your option #2. Same happened to my husband’s phone in December… finally got to a higher tier technical support person who said the VM had been reset to basic. She fixed it and we received the garbled sms message indicating the VVM status had changed. VM worked great until I added data to his phone… now it’s back to “call for voicemail”… having trouble getting to the “higher tier” again!! Only happens on his iPhone 13… not my 7 plus. Strange!

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Answer 3

Jan 19, 2023 6:18 PM in response to justinb2603

Hi, I have contacted my carrier many times on this matter and they are now saying "contact apple".

I did a chat session with Apple and they said "contact your carrier". Now you are saying contact your carrier.

So, now the poor customer (me) is caught in the middle, which each of the two vendors saying "go talk to the other guy".

How about if the carrier gives me access to their code and logs, and apple gives me access to their code and logs, and I can solve it since both parties can't agree on ownership of the issue? :) OK, I know, that won't happen.

So, what am I do to? Just live w/o it because Apple and Verizon can't agree on who's issue it is? Switch to an android device? maybe they are more helpful?

I work (volunteer) for a municipality and this is a feature I rely on and pay for and I am not getting it. The carrier has said over and over again it is provisioned correctly on their end. I see SMS's I never saw before indicating it seems to be working on their end, e.g., SMS's indicating VVM is setup, when a VM comes in, and so on. the phone is getting these messages but VVM doesn't seem to pick them up on the phone.

anyone else have some magical ideas? or time to sledgehammer the iphone, sell my macbook, and go all in on linux and andriod?

Is there a way to extract logs out of the iphone to see what's going on?

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Answer 4

jeffd55

Community Specialist

Jan 19, 2023 7:15 PM in response to gary_johnston

gary_johnston,

Apple Support would be in a position to run the necessary checks on your iPhone. If you provide them the troubleshooting and what you are being by your carrier, they can check your phone and then provide you with specific items for your carrier to check and specific questions for you to check with your carrier.

Your carrier should also be able to provide you with specific questions to ask of Apple Support.

We understand the frustration being stuck in the middle like you seem to be. But getting specific items to check and questions to ask from both Apple and your carrier will allow both to provide the best possible assistance and outcome.

Best of luck.

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Answer 5

Eric--F

Community Specialist

Jan 19, 2023 6:40 PM in response to gary_johnston

Hello gary_johnston,

Anything more including gathering info off your device needs to be handled from Apple Support.

Contact Apple Support

Thanks.

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Answer 6

Jan 19, 2023 10:57 AM in response to gary_johnston

Hello gary_johnston,

Thanks for choosing the Apple Support Communities. Voicemail is actually governed by your wireless carrier. For this reason, we suggest following the link below, and if it doesn't help, continue to work with your carrier to hopefully resolve the issue.

Check your voicemail on iPhone - Apple Support

We hope this helps.

Cheers!

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Answer 7

Jan 19, 2023 6:45 PM in response to Eric--F

Hi Eric, Apple support already did a hardware diagnosis of my iphone and found nothing amiss. Apple Support did not seem interested in helping me out and instead telling me to contact the carrrier, who said, contact apple.

while (1) {

talk to apple who says talk to carrier

talk to carrier who says talk to apple

}

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visual voice mail was working for years, now it is not working

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