How to turn off visual voicemail

OK after 5 days of back and forward with straight talk (ST) and trying what was suggested in the thread - the *5005* .... string and finding that it did not fix the problem (it just turned on cal forwarding for some strange reason!!!) I have a solution 🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂

1) Get a SIM card from another iphone 4, 4S and swap it out with the ST SIM card. Connect to the network on this carrier - in my case I got hold of an active Tmobile sim card and used that.

2) Swap back the ST sim and your visual voicmail is now gone and your voicemail functions as before.

Don't ask me how it works and if your voice mail will go wonky agian but my VM is now fixed, it dials voicemail whenI hit the voicemail icon on the very bottom right on the phone screen, no Visual voicemail is seen and I get notifcations, something I didn't get before.

(Note: At no stage did I try a total wipe and reinstall of ioS 6.0.1 on my phone 4S - this may of fixed the issue but I have too many programs installed and did not want to re enter all the usernames and passwords)

DJLove,

I am so glad you submitted your post. It really worked. I had been unsuccessful with my prior post instructions since Apple updated to iOS 6.0.

Just as a note on my Straight Talk situation. I have a SIM card which has a Tracfone label on it TF64PSIMC4MB. Perhaps there is something curious about that SIM card model which makes iPhone believe I have visual voicemail when I don't. I replaced my SIM with a non-provisioned AT&T SIM - The phone showed No Service. I opened up the phone icon and then hit the voicemail icon. The phone tried dialing 611 (since the SIM was not provisioned). I hung up before reaching an operator. Then I replaced the AT&T SIM with my ST Tracfone SIM and walla! No Visual Voicemail!!!!!!! This is so much easier than any of the steps that have been suggested.

I my estimation, it doesn’t matter what other SIM card you get AT&T or T-Mobile, nor does it matter having active service on that SIM. It just seems as though the iPhone will reset to standard voicemail with a different SIM card inserted.

Thanks DJLove!

Thanks to everyone who have posted in this thread so far. I too have an AT&T 3Gs that I recently had an IMEI unlock done and updated to iOS 6.1.3 from iOS 5.1.1. I am on iWireless Megatalk (a T-Mobile subsidiary pre-paid plan) that does not support visual voicemail. In fact, iWireless has never sold iPhones and does not support them at all. I recently upgraded my calling plan from voice only to voice, text and a small amount of data, and set the phone up to access the data network and began using text for the first time, still on jailbroken and a hack unlocked copy of iOS 5.1.1.

Without warning, my "dial up" voicemail switched to visual voicemail and I was not receiving voicemail notifications, nor could I dial voicemail from the native IOS voicemail app. I changed from the jailbreak unlock to the IMEI unlock and updated to stock iOS 6.1.3 and the problem seemed to be fixed. I attributed it to something gone wrong in the jailbreak. Almost immediately after reconfiguring my phone for data, I lost my "regular" voicemail again and had visual voicemail and couldn't access my voicemail from the app.

I found this thread and found the various fixes, none of which worked except switching out the iWireless SIM for the old AT&T sim, switched back again, and had my "regular" dial up voicemail app working... for a while. I tracked down its switching to sending a text. The text hesitated for a minute, said "unable to send message" and the "sending via SMS" and then "sending complete." I found immediately after that visual voicemail was back.

I switched the SIM cards out again, and regained my "regular" dial up voicemail. The culprit seems to be iMessage. When iMessage is turned on in the "Message" app in Settings, it apparently presupposes that visual voicemail is supported by your carrier and auto switches to visual voicemail from the dial up app.

So... it appears that when you are using a carrier that doesn't support visual voicemail or iMessage, if you turn iMessage off, the phone works as you need it to and uses straight SMS and your voicemail app will dial your service provider voicemail instead of switching to visual voicemail with the first text you send. Switching to a different SIM and back to your activated SIM does clear visual voiceemail and return you to your dial-up voicemail app. Turning iMessage off allows the phone to work normally for carries that don't support visual voicemail.

I had the same problem my iPhone does not have a data plan. So it worked when I switched sim cards from my iphone to another iPhone and then switched it back. Now my iphone voicemail notification works! I had tried all the other things, reset network settings, *5005*..., they did not work.

Laurie,

Thank you for your reply. Much easier than finding another sim card and changing it out.

I went to message settings and turned off iMessage as you specified. Then I closed the Phone app by doubling clicking the Home Button and dragging it upward. Then I tapped on the Phone app and visual voicemail was gone, along with the message I received that possibly caused it. Then I went back to settings and turned iMessage back on. VVM was still gone.

Laurie's tip is the solution! Never mind SIM cards, #61 or anything else: just go to settings and turn off iMessage (I had to do it more than once; iMessage really wanted to be on and "turned itself back on" a couple of times!)

Big thanks to those "experts" that speed-read the question early and said to call you carrier, lol.

ditto, Thanks to Laurie and DJLove's tip, I was able to make it work, easy and effective. Ignore the "expert" advice calling carrier and can't afford data etc... Visualvoice never worked correctly and users should have a way to turn any thing off that don't work or they don't like, period. Any way thanks for the help, I almost gave up on the thread after reading first few comments.

I'm still not 100% happy. After turning iMessage off, I stopped getting texts, so I turned it back on. Visual voicemail has still stayed off, which is good, but every message is already "skipped" when I call my "real" voicemail, as if Visual Voicemail already "heard" it. Clicking the Voicemail icon in Phone lists all the calls that went to voicemail under the heading "Visual Voicemail is currently unavailable. Call Voicemail". "Call Voicemail" is a link that doesn't use the stored number I have in contacts for my voicemail; mine includes my password etc. So, better than it was, but still not what I'd like.

Eddie, do you have more than one i device attached to your Apple account? If so, and you've still got iMessage enabled on it (iPad?) your texts will all go to that device. You have to disable it on all devices attached to your apple account. It seems that the operating system looks for iMessage devices first and sends the texts there and if there's one device enabled, it gets ALL the action. Been there done that with that one too.

An update... When Apple released IOS 7, they saw fit not to release it for the 3Gs, even though they released it for the iPad 2, which has the same processor. So I sold my 3Gs and found a used 4s cheap (since all of the iPhone 5 series have hit the market.) Fortunately, iWireless has decided to carry the iPhone 5 series now, so they did an update in the carrier service driver. They still (AFAIK) don't support i Message (at least in pre-paid) but with the 4s and IOS 7, all works as it should with iMessage disabled.

BTW, even if you're really... umm... frugal (read cheap here) like me, the 3GS to 4s upgrade is truly worthwhile.

Roger (Laurie's husband...)

I only own one Apple device, my iPhone 4 (unless iPods count). When I turned iMessage OFF, I stopped getting texts; doesn't that make sense? I don't think they were going anywhere else; I only know I wasn't getting them cuz my wife called and said "I tried to text you but it wouldn't go through."

Also, the Voicemail screen continues to show 5 voicemails, and I can't clear them:

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v115/eddieo45/Mobile%20Uploads/photo_zps492573 25.png[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v115/eddieo45/Mobile%20Uploads/photo_zps2afac2 66.png[/IMG]

Well after a week the visual voicemail came back on. iMessage is turned off so that did not work for me. I tried to turn iMessage on and back off and swipe away the phone app but it still did not work. on the phone app when I push the voicemail button the visual voicemail shows up. I have not called my carrier yet to see if they can disable that feature, that is my next step.

Thanks ZZ. I just did that too and now my wife can't text me from HER iPhone! I do get group texts she replies to, and when a text fails, she gets the option "send as text message?" (Ummm, what WAS it before??)

Does THAT tell us anything?

Dude, your tone was unnecessary. It really irks me when people are condescending ***** on forums where others come to ask questions. You shouldn't be attempting to help if you can't do so respectfully.

RBraet wrote:

Dude, your tone was unnecessary. It really irks me when people are condescending ***** on forums where others come to ask questions. You shouldn't be attempting to help if you can't do so respectfully.

wjosten hasn't postd in this thread for about two years. He stated facts. Based on the number of points he has, all awarded by fellow users who found his answers helpful, he's pretty good at helping people. And he does it without resorting to profanity.

If you have a technical support question, people will be happy to answer it. Making your first post here a rather rude remark isn't a good way to start.

Well, I can honestly say I was unaware that "***" was considered profanity (even my most conservative friends would likely raise an eyebrow), so apologies if you personally found that offensive. I've been in IT for many years, so I know that having knowledge that may indeed be helpful is not synonymous with treating others as equals, and not idiots for simply not knowing as much about a given topic as someone with far more expertise naturally would. To ask, "What part of [statement] did you not understand?" is patently, objectively patronizing, and I suspect is something you would find quite offensive (especially given that you were offended by a word as innocuous as "***"). 🙂