iOS 17 screwed up my voicemail

I just realized that I never really outlined what I did in order to make my phone work normal again after the iOS 17 update. So I made one for you and other people who may be in the same situation. Hope this helps.

Update 10/17/2023: I've been in contact with Apple Support and my conversations with them confirm my suspicisons: there is a bug (either accidental or intentional) in iOS 17 that affects only users who previously had their voicemail service turned off. My voicemail service was previously turned off per my request by my carrier about 14 years ago. As a result, I had no voicemail service on my phone. When iOS 17 came on with "LiveVoicemail", iOS 17 turned on my voicemail service by default. When iOS 17 turned on my voicemail in my iPhone, it also turned on the voicemail recording/greeting/message. Since I didn't have any previous "custom" greeting, iOS 17 chose the default greeting by default. This did not affect customers who had current voicemail service on their phones. It only affected those who didn't. Why? In order to "shock and awe" the world with the AI-assisted "LiveVoicemail" feature, Apple forced that feature onto everyone, including those who had their voicemail service turned off. In order to make this PR campaign for LiveVoicemail to work, Apple told those phones to turn on their voicemail services even if the voicemail service was off before the update! Ironically, while I was trying to clean up Apple's mess, I got a sampling of their "LiveVoicemail". It was from a medical office. Oh my god. It was terrible! Errors, omissions, misspellings, etc. That's equivalent to medical malpractice. Anyway, the only way you can fix this is to: disable LiveVoicemail and contact your carrier to "reset" your entire voicemail service to ensure that everything stays off. This was a bleep for me to fix and I shouldn't have had to do it in the first place! I'm not a fan of AI. Just watch YouTube videos or even regular television programming with closed-captioning and you'll see why. Folks don't understand that closed-captioning has been around since the late 1970's and it's still not 100% today!!! And folks think that AI can do a better job? LiveVoicemail is a joke. I'm not using that function, ever. This topic is closed as far as I am concerned because it's "split milk". It's done. I'm just glad I was able to fix it and disable the LiveVoicemail feature for good.

Possible Solution.

If you want to disable Live Voicemail, reset your voicemail service, and/or view the Live Voicemail messages. This works for me, for my iPhone 13 Pro. This may work for you, but if you have a different iPhone, you may have slightly different settings or slightly different ways of getting into the settings. Apple cannot undo the mess they created because so many of us have so many different settings and carriers, so we have to fix it ourselves. This seems to be the best way. If anyone else has a better way, please put that info here. Thank you.

1. Make sure your iPhone is updated to the most current version. As of October 24, 2023, it seems to be iOS 17.0.3. This may vary between iPhone models.
2. Restart your iPhone. It's good practice to restart your iPhone after an update, especially as big as iOS 17.
3. Go to Settings > Phone > Live Voicemail. Turn it off.
4. Close the Settings window/tab.
5. Go to Phone > Voicemail. On the iPhone 13 Pro, there is a Voicemail icon in the lower right corner of the iPhone screen (not sure what this looks like on different iPhone models). When you enter the Voicemail part of the Phone app, it will ask you for a password. You might have never done this process before, but you will have to create a password in order to view the Live Voicemail messages. There is no way around this. Your carrier cannot see those messages because those messages are saved locally on your phone. It's a separate voicemail service (Live Voicemail is like Apple's iVoicemail) from your carrier's voicemail service. Create a password, write that password down, and save it someplace safe (ex. password manager, iPhone file in your filing cabinet, in your safe, but make sure you say "iPhone Voicemail Password" on that paper and put the date on it (October 24, 2023)). If you already have a password but forgot, reset it (Setting > Phone > Change Voicemail Password (this is highlighted in blue). Don't make it the same as the unlock code for your iPhone.
6. You should now be able to access your Live Voicemail messages. You should be able to view them, delete them, whatever you want to do.
7. If you're happy, stop here. If you're not, continue with the rest of the Possible Solution.
8. Close the Phone app.
9. If you want to completely disable your voicemail service (remember when I said there are two voicemail services---one from Apple and another from your carrier? You've already disabled Apple's Live Voicemail, so that one is already taken care of. But you will need to contact your carrier to disable your carrier voicemail service. One of the problems with the iOS 17 bug is that it turned back on voicemail service that had been previously disabled. Apple won't/can't fix that for you because they don't know who your carrier is. You will have to do the fix yourself), contact your carrier (in the USA, the top three carriers are Verizon, AT&T, and TMobile) and ask your carrier to "reset" your voicemail to disable it. Make it clear that you don't want any voicemail of any kind, not Traditional, not Visual, not Voicemail-to-Text. Then they will ask you to test it. You will need to have someone call your iPhone and hear what happens. They must be able to hear the rings. Typically, what happens is the iPhone will ring a few times then go blank, like there's nothing there. If that happens, that means that your voicemail service has been disabled. This may vary between carriers. If not, your carrier will have to keep working until they disable your voicemail service.
10. Check your phone bill. I found out the other day I got charged for voicemail. When the iOS 17 bug turned on my voicemail in order to push through the Live Voicemail, it turned on my voicemail service with my carrier and I got charged for it. Thank goodness I only had one call. But you will have extra charges from Apple's screw-up. Which is why it is important you contact your carrier to disable your voicemail service. Ask them to reset it and/or disable it because if you don't, you will get charged. I use a discounted Deaf plan and I am charged $0.25 per minute for incoming and outgoing calls, and that includes voicemail because voicemail is an incoming call. Then check your next month's bill to make sure everything is back to normal.

Best of luck!

Thank you for your suggestions. I have to say I am surprised at how challenging it is for Deaf customers to contact Apple Support. You would think that a company that prides itself on inclusivity would also ensure that their Deaf customers could contact them for help. Anyway, based on your suggestions, I left my feedback but had two odd issues. 1. They have a character cap in the "comments" section. 2. They didn't update their website to also include iOS 17 and 17.0.1., so I'm not sure if Apple ever checks that website.

I just realized that this is a bug in iOS 17 and 17.0.1. I've been with the same carrier for about 15 years now and never had a voicemail message until iOS 17. My carrier confirmed that my voicemail service on their side is still disabled and that my voicemail box is empty. I think iOS 17 thinks it's a voicemail service in itself. I've turned off "Live Voicemail" in my iPhone's settings, but I can't disable/delete the greeting. There are only two options; default and custom. I don't want a greeting on my iPhone. I want to set it up the way it's been set up for the past 15 years... whenever anyone calls, the phone rings constantly until they hang up. They shouldn't hear a recording or a greeting of any kind. Yet I don't know how to disable it from my end because of iOS 17. That's a major bug. I don't think many people will know about this until a year or two later when they realize they have two different voicemail services on their iPhones. Major os flaw. I only know about it because I had my carrier voicemail disabled so I shouldn't have ever gotten a voicemail message, ever. First time it happened was after iOS 17. Apple needs to go back to the drawing board, so to speak, and offer customers the option to disable Apple voicemail and to delete any greeting. Instead of "default" and "custom", there should be "no greeting", "default", and "custom".

Update 10/22/2023:

Check your phone bills! I got charged for Live Voicemail! I couldn't figure out why I had a higher bill this month so I went into my bill details and I was shocked to discover a charge for INCOMING call through Live Voicemail. And the joke was that when I called my carrier to find out what was going on, they had me do a *86 for them so they could hear into the audio message to see who the sender was (I'm Deaf!!! What part of that doesn't Apple understand?), I got charged again. So, Live Voicemail cost me $0.50. Granted, it's nothing, but Apple needs to realize that Deaf people use discounted Deaf plans through their carriers. My discounted Deaf plan with my carrier gives me 2 GB of data plus unlimited text plus $0.25 per minute. I'm Deaf so I can't use the "call/voice/minutes" part of a normal regular smartphone bill, so carriers offer Deaf customers discounted Deaf plans which takes out the "call/voice/minutes" part of the bill, but the trade-off is you have to pay something if you use the call part. My trade-off is $0.25 per minute. Thank God I turned off Live Voicemail right after that first call! Thank God!!! But, y'all need to check your phone bills and make sure that you're not being dinged for INCOMING calls because Apple turned on your voicemails on by default!!! Someone at Apple had a brain-dead moment when it comes to Deaf users. This is really bad!!! Check your phone bills!!!