Why do I get a message asking for a password for voicemail?

Contact your carrier, voicemail is their service.

My carrier, Verizon, allows you to reset your VM password through their app or through your account on the website. So, if you have a carrier app, check there.

Joey C 2 wrote:

Thanks. T-mobile had me do it thru their app. Once I found out how on their complicated system, it took about one minute!

Cellular carriers seem determined to make everything harder than it needs to be. Glad you got it figured out!

Joey C 2 wrote:

I just traded in my iPhone 15 for an iPhone 17 and am running 26.2.1. On both my phone and my wife's when I go to Voicemail we get a message saying "To retrieve a voicemail first set a password and greeting." The greetings are as they were on the old phone and the voicemail works fine when someone leaves a message. I don't recall ever having a password associated with voicemail. I tried entering one just to get rid of that message. No matter what I enter, it says "Voicemail Error try again later". Do I really need to do this, and if so, how? Thanks.

All carriers require a passcode to access your voicemail. This is more so you can check your voicemail, not from your iPhone. So yes, you likely at one time did set up one, but like so many people, important passcodes and passwords are not written down for future recall.

When we got our new iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, we did have to set up our mailboxes again. Perhaps it's a carrier thing, but if I were you, I'd just go through the procedure of recording a new message and creating a passcode for your voicemail box. It doesn't take much time and will solve this for you.

Joey C 2 wrote:

Thanks. Found the method t-mobile uses (though had to hunt hard on their app to find it!) and got it done quickly.

You're welcome and glad you got it taken care of!

You're welcome, glad you got it resolved.