Voicemails delayed on iPhone

We have been testing iOS 17.1

Apple introduced live transcribing of voicemails and this has helped delivery of the voicemail notifications.

it is not 100% and we are still testing, but I would suggest trying iOS 17.

We also raised a ticket directly with the executive team at Verizon… they may have actually fixed something. We will never really know.. large companies rarely admit to an issue. (remember Apple throttling based on battery health)

We will keep this thread updated with our testing and results. Please keep replying if you have this issue.. it’s our belief this issue is VERY common.. but most people don’t say anything.

Yes the carrier sends the notification to the phone. There is still a possibility the phone itself is delaying the notification after that is received. It might be rare. But as we all know iOS is not bug free.

The solution to issues like this is for Apple and the carrier to work together. A user should be able to submit a joint trouble ticket, so that the entire system from the carrier to the iOS layer can be tested. Without this… I don’t believe it will be resolved.

We have seen both Apple and Verizon blame each. We believe both are at fault. Would open tickets with both and refer them to this thread. I will have Google rank this thread and hopefully more people can respond.

Clearly there is a problem.

While I agree this problem is most likely coming from the Verizon side. It is still possible it could be happing locally on the phone. Whenever the voicemail system is called directly *86 the voicemail is current and can be listen to, but this is not a long term solution. Verizon likes to pass the blame to Apple all the time.. but Apple has done the exact same thing in return. Unfortunately neither company is willing to take responsibility, and in the end it may be both at fault. There needs to be a channel where they can work together to find a solution instead of both playing the blame game.

5 hour delay

It will be one of three things -

1. An error on the carrier voicemail system and delayed notifications being sent to devices. 

2. An iOS error where the device is receiving the notification within a timely fashion max 60 seconds and it is delaying the notification to the user locally. 

3.A combination of both.

Apple and the carriers will always blame each other… unfortunately the users are the ones that suffer.

This issue is still occurring on iOS 17. We are still testing with the new live transcribing voicemail feature that was released.

I do find it interesting that users are facing voicemail notification issues in 2023. Maybe the carriers and Apple will work together in the future.

Also an interesting behavior of iOS. The voicemail icon in the phone app is delayed showing the red number of new voicemail messages. The voicemail notification is delayed and also the red badge number is missing until the phone app is opened and left open for ~1min to update.