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iPhone 5 visual voicemail issues

Hello,

I recently changed my cellular number, since I have moved to a new state and wanted to have a local number. Ever since the number change, the visual voicemail on my iPhone does not work. If I am in the phone app, and tap on voicemail, it automaticall dials the voicemail number. This worked perfectly before the number change, and I even checked my VMs about 10 minutes before the change took effect, just to be sure I wasn't going to miss some important email.

I did take my phone in to the Verizon store, but they were not able to fix it. We spoke to technical support, who had the person at the store switch out the SIM card, which also did not help. I have changed the VM pin, reset the network settings, completely reset the phone...nothing is helping. She also reset some settings on the backend while on the phoen with technical support. She told me that she was opening a trouble ticket, but I haven't heard anything about this.

Now, I am not even getting any sort of notification at all when I get a voicemail. This worries me. Can anyone help? Is this an Apple issue that I should be contacting them about? It's just that it did not start being an issue AT ALL, until the number change, so I figured it had more to do with that and less to do with something wrong with the phone. Thanks!

Comments

rcschnoor

It also sounds to me as if it is more a problem with changing the phone # than with the phone, too.

Let me guess, when you "completely reset" the phone, you then restored it from a backup either from the cloud or on your computer rather than set it up as a new phone? It sounds as if the number associated with VVM may have been restored from your backup when you restored the phone rather than using the new number. When resetting a phone, I don't really consider it being "completely reset" if you then go ahead and load saved settings from a restore file which may have been the root of the problem in the first place.

I would try resetting the phone and setting it up as a new phone instead of restoring it from a backup. Just an idea.

lzzchic14

I just tried that....it still didn't work :smileysad:

Ann154

When you change your number, you should have to setup the voicemail again for the new number. Has that been done or will it let you set it up for the new number?

lzzchic14

It did not promt me to set anything up again, just to change the password for my voicemail. I did that, more than once now. I am still getting voicemails, I just get no notification of them anymore. This is so frustrating!

Verizon_Support

Hello LzzChic14

Thanks for all the troubleshooting you've done. I have sent you a follow request here in the forum. Please access https://community.verizonwireless.com/actions to accept my request and follow me back so you can send me a private message with your name and mobile number. We'll take a closer look at all the work you've already done.

Thank you

JoeL_VZW

Please follow us on Twitter @vzwsupport

EricG561

VZW Support,

I am experienceing the exact same issue with a recent phone number change for my iPhone 5. I've also tried the reset, etc mentioned above without any luck. If you were able to find a fix for LzzChic then I'd appreciate some assistance as well.

Thanks,

Eric

Verizon_Support

rcschnoor, thanks for helping us support lzzchic14 with this visual voice mail issue. When hard resetting the iPhone device, I apologize that the messages saved in Visual Voice mail will be automatically deleted since you are unable to save voice mail messages in iCloud.

LasinaH_VZW

VZW Support

Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport

Verizon_Support

Ann154, change should energize you to set your voice mail greeting up again too. But, it's not mandatory that you do this. A mobile number change is updated on our network. However, your voice mail feature will not require a new setup. For more information and details regarding this featue, click http://vz.to/1f2S7i3

LasinaH_VZW

VZW Support

Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport

lzzchic14

Thanks for all the help everyone. I thought that I had direct messaged vanessas_vzw a couple of days ago...but I haven't heard anything and I'm not sure how to know if it went through? I'm still having the same issue with my VM...kind of wishing I hadn't changed my phone number now.

rcschnoor

Did you send a follow request to and has she accepted it? Did she send you a follow request and did you accept it? Until BOTH of those things have been completed, you would not be able to send a DM.

When I click on YOUR profile, it shows that 1 person is following you, however you are not following anyone, so you would not currently be able to send a DM to anyone.

lzzchic14

I thought I sent one to her...it says "awaiting approval" when I click on her name. I wish someone could help me....still having the same problems. I don't think there is anything else that I can do. I really hope that I can get my phone to AT LEAST tell me when I have a voicemail - otherwise I'm going to miss important calls. I don't understand why changing your phone number would do this. If I would have known this would happen, I would have just kept my old number.

SheppardS

I called Verizon support Friday and they fixed the issue for me. Make sure you call from a landline so they can re-boot your iPhone (or whatever they have to do).

Sent from my iPad

rcschnoor

lzzchic14 wrote:
I thought I sent one to her...it says "awaiting approval" when I click on her name.

I find it absolutely amazing the amount of customer service agents on these forums who never follow through with their useless offers of assistance when they either have NO intention to follow thru with the DM process or are completely clueless on how the DM process actually works on this forum.

aljoseph

I have the identical problem on my iPhone 5. I lost visual voice mail coincident with a phone number change. I've spent countless time both in person and on the phone with Verizon and Apple. Apple even gave me a new phone to ensure the problem wasn't hardware related. Still nothing. Verizon support has stopped calling me. Every time I post this problem I get a raft of responses telling me my problem can be fixed if only I reset the network settings, set the phone up as new, reboot the phone, change the sim card, etc.. All that has been tried and still nothing. Then the return phone calls and emails stop. I feel abandoned. Can't anyone offer a tried and true fix? Does this happen to everyone changing their phone numbers? Help.

lzzchic14

Yes -- This!! I've had several verizon customer support people offer their support, right here on this thread -- but i've sent follow requests, and not ONE of them has been accepted. I just want my voicemail to work!! I'm going to try calling them again...but I really don't think that I should have to spend hours of my time, fixing something that is a VERIZON problem. And, from this thread...a pretty common problem at that.

EricG561

Mine finally works...I went thru the same "fix" options and nothing worked. They said they never heard of this problem (obviously this seems more common than they think). Finally I was routed to a tech and I asked her to reset provisions based on another thread I read - it worked.

Sent from my iPhone

lzzchic14

I AM SO MAD!!!! And I don't usually type in all caps. I just called verizon customer service, the same number that someone listed as so helpful above...and NOBODY knows what is wrong with my phone. They told me to call apple customer service -- which is crap, because this is so obviously something wrong with verizon's settings, which i'm pretty sure apple can't fix. Not to mention I had to stay on hold for 20 minutes, before my call was even answered. I am so irritated, I feel like changing my wireless service!!! And i've had verizon forever. I'm just so mad!!!!! All these verizon customer service people offering to help me and not one has followed through!!! UGH!!!! What can I do to get this fixed?????? I have: Had a new sim card, spent and hour and a half in the store on the phone with tech support who was SUPPOSED to open a trouble ticket, which apparently never happened, reset my network settings, reset my phone and restored from backup, reset my phone as a new phone, spent 30 minutes on the phone with "technical support" today....and still my voicemail doesn't work. What can I do, besides, junking verizon for someone else, even though everyone else has bad service and I love my verizon phones???????

lzzchic14

OK so.....I went to the Verizon store at lunch, which of course had an extreme wait today with the new iPhones coming out, so the guy there was like, I understand this is frustrating, blah blah, what you need to do is reset your phone through iTunes (not sure what THAT would do that I haven't done already)....so I was totally frustrated and basically said you guys stink and just left. Then I googled Verizon technical support, found the number for tech #2, called there - got a VERY helpful girl named Chelsea. She listened to my whole hour long drama of the voicemail, and was very helpful - filled out the trouble ticket that the other person never filled out, reset my provisions, and also did something like take off the visual voicemail and put it back on (she said she couldn't actually do that, but this was LIKE that). I was on the phone, so I couldn't try it while I was talking to her....got back to my desk, turned off the phone, turned it back on -- and FINALLY my visual voicemail is working!!! Chelsea at tech #2 is my new best friend, LOL!!! YAY. So if anyone else has this problem, call 866-221-4096, that's who finally helped me. And I didn't even have to wait on hold!!

Verizon_Support

aljoseph, I know this issue is frustrating and I would also be upset if I went through all the steps needed to fix this problem and it persist. We appreciate all the trouble-shooting you have performed with us and Apple. I'm sorry you continuing to deal with this and haven't received a resolution. I was unable to locate this as a known issue for us and if other customers are able to utilize this feature, so should you. The last step I didn't show you mentioned is a trouble-ticket from us. Have we completed a ticket to have our engineers/technicians review the problem in more detail? If so, what was the outcome? If not, we need to do this immediately and we would like to have you send a private message with your name and mobile number. I look forward to hearing from you.

KinquanaH_VZW

Follow us on Twitter @vzwsupport

T4lifeaz

Since iOS7 update a couple weeks ago, voice mails repeatedly will not delete, then they finally delete and come back, then after much round and around they stay deleted. I can call into my Verizon account and delete voice mail first time. This is insanely time consuming.

Here is ALL the things I've tried;

Reset all contacts and settings (multiple times).

Reset Network settings (multiple times).

Changing voice mail password (from verizon and through phone)

Changing greeting (through verizon and through phone).

Leaving a voice mail while phone is resetting

Closing phone app

Restarting phone

Asking Verizon to eliminate visual voice mail (they can't).

Replacing iphone 5

Upgrading from iPhone 5 to 5s (yesterday)

Despite all this effort, time and money, I just got a voice mail that took several attempts (by sliding delete, deleting in the message and edit to delete) it then deleted and came back. A couple more attempts and it deleted and stayed deleted.

I run my tech business with this phone and manage 30+ calls per day. I can't and won't continue this foolishness.

I realize it happened with the iOS7 release, but I feel it's a Verizon issue since my AT&T friends aren't experiencing these issues and there are so many with Verizon's visual voice mail.

I'm looking here for help, I'm backing up my phone through Itunes instead of cloud, then doing a factory reset to see if that makes a difference. Will try voice mail before restoring also.

Any other ideas before I'm forced to trade in my 5s for a Droid?

T4lifeaz

UPDATE- iOS7 & Verizon visual voice mail - I factory reset (reset content and settings) then did not restore a backup.

Setup iPhone 5s without apple id, just let it attach to Verizon visual voice mail (forced it by saving the password (settings, phone, change password) then left 5 voice mails (calling from another phone) and all worked perfectly (deleted first time, even in the middle of playing) which I have not been able to do since the original iOS 7 update.

I restored from a backup stored on iTunes made prior to reset (had restored from iCloud previously on iOS 7.2 & 7.4 with no luck), let it sync completely afterwards. Unplugged and left 5voice mails (calling from another phone). Same problem immediately. Multiple attempts to delete voice mails, with them returning, hanging etc until finally it deletes. Repeat until voice mail is deleted.

Factory reset the phone again (5s 32mb), went through setup without restoring, without putting in Apple ID. Forced it to connect to visual voice mail by saving the password (settings, phone, change password). Left 5 voicemails by calling from another phone. All deleted perfectly the first time.

Rebooted the phone, left 5 more long voice mails. All deleted perfectly, first time.

Added my exchange account and synced contacts, calendar and email. Left 5 more voice mails. All deleted perfectly.

At this point I have not restored or even put in my Apple account information anywhere in my iPhone 5s. I Have a working phone, contacts, calender and email. As a business phone this is most of what I need. I'll run with this tomorrow and see if voice mail continues to function successfully all day. If so, I'll start rebuilding manually without restoring to hopefully end up with a working iPhone on iOS7 and Verizon Visual voice mail.

It appears to me now that this is fully an Apple iOS7 issue as it appears to work fine as long as I don't restore from iCloud or iTunes.

I'll update after a full day of working on it tomorrow.

T4lifeaz

FINAL UPDATE

After setting up iPhone without apple id and having verizon visual voice mail work perfectly. I have continued manually rebuilding my phone today and voice mail has deleted and operated perfectly.

I have everything back on my phone I would have had if I had restored from my iCloud or iTunes backups. Just done it manually and visual voice mail continues to operate. So it was not any kind of app, or configuration problem.

Apples absolute is that these problems only occur with Verizon. Verizons absolute is that they never occured until iOS7. Both companies stopped helping early on.

In the end, restoring from my backups appears to be the problem. Note that i purposely deleted all my voice mails before backing up on my attempts to repair this problem (to avoid carrying a damaged voice mail or something over) to no avail.

The iOS7 update did do a restore after it updated the phone. That is when my voice mail woes started. So, it seems to me that Apple had a bug in restoring the visual voice mail database that caused my original problem. I've evidently carried the problem along in my backups ever since.

Aside from the hours of time chasing deleted voice mail that returns and deleting again over and over and over (aarg!). I can't even count the hours wasted working with Apple, Verizon, my hardware and software trying to fix this. Then, in the end, the time it has taken to manually rebuild my phone automation to accomplish success.

I wouldn't wish this on anyone. I hope sharing my experience saves someone some time and frustration.

leefur

Add me to the list. I switched from ATT to Verizon when I got my 5S, and I haven't seen my iOS visual voicemail since. I've restarted the phone, reset network settings, cancelled call forwarding (by dialing *73), set up a voicemail password on My Verizon. Not sure what's going on here. Seems like it might be a problem between Verizon and Apple; I never had an issue with ATT across all the previous iPhones.

Anyways… help?!

Verizon_Support

Hello leffur,

My apologies for the aggravation surrounding the missing voicemail indicator on your device. The good news is, we know exactly how to fix this. Please complete a full reset on your device. Once this is completed please reconfigure your device without signing in to with your currently used Apple ID. Once this is completed the indicator will be available for use. Please keep us posted, thanks!

MatthewS_VZW

VZW Support

Follow us on Twitter @VZWSUPPORT

samarsh

I am having the same problem. I did not change my phone number. I just upgraded to Iphone 5S. It says "Visual Voicemail is currently unavailable" so I have to call the Voicemail and enter my password to see if I have messages. I have reported this before but have gotten no answer. It sounds to me from the solution being proposed that if we don't back up to Verizon's cloud utility we will not be able to restore everything on our phones. That is not a good solution. I need the information that is backed up in the ICloud on my new phone. So, until Verizon decides to work with Apple on a fix, it appears that I have no solution at all.

Verizon_Support

I regret to learn of the issues that you are having, samarsh! Have you tried to hard reset the device? If so, that would be your best option at this point. Here is how: http://support.verizonwireless.com/support/devices/knowledge_base.html/64522/

Let us know how it works for you.

Thank you,

LenaA_VZW

Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport

leefur

Yikes, that's the nuclear option. I have to wipe my entire phone and hope that the backup works completely (they never do) and spend hours getting my phone set up, after spending hours getting it reset? Is there really no way to reset something more targeted than everything?

Thanks for the help!

cferriss

Just want to express my appreciation to everyone. One of my users had this visual voicemail issue when we swapped his 5s with the battery drain issue for a new 5s. Resetting the provisions worked. I hope Verizon puts this as #1 in their troubleshooting docs.

FrodotheBaggins

I was having the same issue with my iphone 5 (on ios7). I just recently updated my phone number since I moved to a new state and visual voice mail stopped working. I saw another thread thinking this may be related to ios 7 update and so I reset network settings and device settings on my iphone (via Settings). That did nothing.

Per this thread, I called a tech from Verizon and told him to "reset provision." That did not work by itself. Before you follow this, you first need to listen to you VM (which you dial into) because it will all be deleted.

This is what DID work:

- The tech called another phone so my iphone 5 was free to be shut down

- I powered off my iphone 5

- Tech Reset Provision (from Verizon side)

- Tech Removed the VM completely (from Verizon side) THIS WILL DELETE ALL OF YOUR VM!!!

- Tech Added the VM back (from Verizon side)

- I booted up iphone. Waited a few minutes while the tech remained on the line. Then when I selected visual voicmail it asked me to set it up - I chose a password, confirmed it, and it now works!

Hope this helps!

By the way, my wife also got a new number due to the move and is using an iphone 4s and is on ios 6 and had the same visual voicemail issue. The tech went through the above steps and visual voice mail now works.

justbakes12

The same exact situation just happened to me also. I have been through every step, but nothing has worked. Is there a resolution to this problem???

hairballz

Yes, eventually I got Verizon on the phone and got them to "reprovision" my

email - basically totally delete it and re-do it. That fixed it. Tech

said something about it being a common issue with iPhones. Fix took about

15 minutes.

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