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Visual Voicemail and Verizon Voicemail Not Working After 3 Hours on Support Chat

supsvcmi

Device: Samsung S24

This is long, sorry - but it's a weird situation.

There was a Verizon outage in my area about a month or so ago - and ever since then, I haven't been receiving voicemails. I didn't notice it at first, because I don't get that many, but then people started telling me they left me a voicemail - and I never received any.

I checked both the Visual Voicemail app and called *86 to access my regular Verizon voicemail box - nothing in either one - but callers were saying they were sent to voicemail that played a greeting including my phone number, and they left a message. At this point, I've missed 5 or 6 messages.

Now people are calling and leaving messages, and telling me that the greeting they receive does not include my phone number - they leave a message, but I never receive it.

The current scenario:
- Under Settings > Voicemail, there should be 2 options: "My Carrier" and "Visual Voicemail". On my phone, only "My Carrier" shows up - and despite all attempts by Verizon support to fix it, that's still the only option showing up.

- The Visual Voicemail app is on my phone - it came with it built in - and it's active.

- I have Verizon Call Filter active on my phone, and just out of curiosity, I changed the settings to allow blocked numbers to leave voicemails - and oddly enough, that works - but blocked number voicemails are the ONLY voicemails I'm getting right now - legitimate callers leave voicemails that never reach me.

I spent 3 hours on support chat with Verizon last night, which was probably the most frustrating support experience I've ever had in my life. I was cut off from chat (after 2 different reps told me it wouldn't cut me off), told multiple times that I was connected to a "senior tech support rep" - and then transferred to another one after long periods of silence while they "worked on the problem" - and in the end, after 3 hours of this, I was no further ahead than I was when I started.

Here's what was tried (several times) without success, on the advice of Verizon support:
- Force stopped the Visual Voicemail app
- Rep said they removed the Visual Voicemail service from my account and then added it back, saying it would force the service to work again (it didn't)
- Cleared Visual Voicemail app data and cache
- Rebooted the phone after changes
- Turned airplane mode on and off
- Turned wifi off and on several times, as Visual Voicemail requires mobile data to connect
- Made sure mobile data usage was turned on
- Set Visual Voicemail back up after changes
- Reset mobile network settings
- Call forwarding had somehow been turned on for my account - they turned it off (I never turned that feature on, so I'm not sure how that happened)
- One rep claimed they needed to "re-provision my voicemail box" to "wake it up" - but they never confirmed if this had been done before transferring me to someone else - and if they did, it didn't work

This morning, I had someone call and try to leave voice mail messages under 2 different circumstances:
First, I declined the call after 4 rings, which should force it to go to voicemail (in theory) - the caller said they left a voicemail, but the greeting was a generic recording with no number stated - which is not how my voicemail is set up - I have it set up to give the generic greeting that includes my phone number.
Second, I had them call again, and let it ring until it went to voicemail - but it never did. It just rang 11 times and disconnected the caller.

Neither one of these calls resulted in any notification from voicemail, and neither the Visual Voicemail or Verizon Voicemail have any messages in them.

I still don't have working voicemail.
The Visual Voicemail app worked fine before the outage about a month ago - now the only voicemails I receive are from blocked numbers - legitimate callers tell me they're leaving messages, but I never receive them. No idea where those messages are going.

HELP, PLEASE!

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supsvcmi

UPDATE: As of this morning (4/9/2026, the morning after spending 3 hrs on support chat with no results), now Visual Voicemail is completely non-functional - it keeps telling me to set up Visual Voicemail, but when I try, there's just a spinning icon on the screen that says, "Please wait while we check your account information" - then after about 7 minutes, it says, "There's a problem, please check later or call customer support".

So now I can't even get into Visual Voicemail at all.

SynthpopAddict

I looked elsewhere on the internet, and one thing to check is that the basic (free) Visual Voicemail service is enabled on your account. Someone in tech support may have to put it back on for you or reprovision something on Verizon's side. The agent you spoke with before who mentioned this might not have done it. Another thing I came across for Samsung phones is to clear the cache on your phone app, not just the visual voicemail app.

There is conflicting information on whether or not Verizon's Visual Voicemail app can be downloaded on the Google Play store. Do a search for it at the app store and see if anything comes up. If the app is available there, then there's typically an "app support" section which will have contact information to reach the Verizon department responsible for the app.

I am not sure why the *86 voicemails aren't working for you either. Would recommend resetting your voicemail password in My Verizon to see if that helps for the *86 voicemails at least, and then reconfigure your *86 voicemails to have a custom greeting. Then you could at least check by calling from a different phone to see if your plain voicemail will pick up.

People have been reporting that contacting Verizon via social media works the best, so if you have any social media, try sending a private message to them at one of their social media channels. The CSRs are currently unable to use these forums due to backend work in progress.

SynthpopAddict

I think it might've been on Reddit where someone reported that using the Samsung visual voicemail app will work on Verizon. It was posted in another thread where someone believes Verizon's Visual Voicemail app may be discontinued.

supsvcmi

Thank you - I'll check both of these out.

Oddly enough, I received 2 phone calls this morning - 1 was a blocked number, and the other was not, but it was also not a number in my known contacts. The 2nd number rang through, and I declined the call because I didn't recognize it.

About 2 hours later, just on a whim, I decided to dial *86 to check the Verizon voicemail box, because the Visual Voicemail app still doesn't work at all for me. Can't even get into it at all.

There were 2 voicemails in the Verizon inbox - one from the blocked number and one from the 2nd number that called. So I guess I'm just going to hope that at least THAT voicemail option is working, but I will also check out the Samsung visual voicemail app - thanks for that tip. I did check on the Verizon Visual Voicemail app in the Google Play Store, and it doesn't come up in search at all, and is not listed in the apps I've already downloaded. I know my phone came with it already installed, and it can't be removed, so it's a built-in app. I have to wonder if that will interfere with the use of the Samsung visual voicemail app.

SynthpopAddict

You're welcome. Appreciate your letting me know that the Verizon Visual Voicemail app is not available for download via Google Play Store. There is definitely some misinformation out there regarding this.

With your *86 voicemail also being broken, this is pointing to a problem on Verizon's side. I would contact Verizon via social media or through the "contact us" link, or try the live chat again and request that a ticket or a support case be opened for you.

supsvcmi

Thanks, but after spending 3 hours on chat support last night with them and not getting anywhere, I am not at all eager to repeat that experience.

Ann154

It was been a while since I paid attention to it, but I thought the Verizon Visual Voicemail application was obsoleted and removed from the Play Store. The replacement was Visual Voicemail option within the dialing (phone) application from Google (or Samsung) in this case. Have you checked the settings in the phone app for the visual voicemail feature?

For reference, I have a Pixel phone, but I don't use the visual voicemail feature in phone app and just use the basic non-visual voicemail. For the most part I receive the notifications for new voicemails.

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