voicemail error message: you don't have an active long distance add-on

[rosstermon]

hi,

i live in montreal, quebec.

i reset my voicemail (vm) password using the button in my account.

then I went to set up my vm, and when I dial into my vm, to try to set up my vm, I get an error message saying I don't have an active long distance add on and the call hangs up.

so i don't get the chance to set up my vm. 

does someone know about this?

let me know

thanks

ross

[computergeek541]

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@rosstermon wrote:

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yeah, sorry, I didn't realize, the 647 number was for when I pressed *611 early this morning. and yes, since my $10 plan has canada wide mins, yes it did go through. I guess the *611 Public number is based out of Ontario.

so early this morning, I made 4 calls,

one that shows to me RM and is my phone number.

one to the 438 vm.

one to the 647 number.

and one to the number that gave me the error message. but that number doesn't appear to show up in my call log.

so I think my account is ok. my long distance did work and I am now able to call into vm using the 1 key.

---

Ok, so it sounds like all this was caused by the *86 number not being recognized as a valid Canadian phone number.  Good to hear!

[computergeek541]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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That horse is looking awful by now 🙂

I don't get what you mean linking 611 with this mystery 647 number. Dialing 611 should just show as 611. Nor does it count as minutes. Nor does it show up in the usage details.

So what are you trying to say here? What does 611 have to do with your 647 number?

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That 647 area code phone number has something to do with the way the sim card is programmed.  Dialing the 647 area code phone number would probably work as well.  Chatr sim cards do this too, and when you dial *611, the programming of the sim card has it redirected to a different phone number to reach customer service.  The phone number gets coded in the billing system as a no-charge/no-usage number.

[Anonymous]

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@rosstermon wrote:

yeah, sorry, I didn't realize, the 647 number was for when I pressed *611 early this morning. and yes, since my $10 plan has canada wide mins, yes it did go through. I guess the *611 Public number is based out of Ontario.

so early this morning, I made 4 calls,

one that shows to me RM and is my phone number.

one to the 438 vm.

one to the 647 number.

and one to the number that gave me the error message. but that number doesn't appear to show up in my call log.

so I think my account is ok. my long distance did work and I am now able to call into vm using the 1 key.

---

That horse is looking awful by now 🙂

I don't get what you mean linking 611 with this mystery 647 number. Dialing 611 should just show as 611. Nor does it count as minutes. Nor does it show up in the usage details.

So what are you trying to say here? What does 611 have to do with your 647 number?

[rosstermon]

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@computergeek541 wrote:

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@rosstermon wrote:

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I am assuming that you don't know what that 647 number is.  It's not a friend's phone number is it? What I can tell you is that it's not a Public Mobile voicemail retrieval number, but that it is a Toronto-based phone number issued from within the Telus group.

Either way, there is something wrong with your account.  As z10user4 was mentioning, you should not be hearing a long distance error message when calling that number.  647 area code numbers are all  from Toronto, Ontario.  This should not happen because you have Canada-wide calling.

So, we appear back to square-one, but at least your voicemail works now.

I still believe that there is an account provisioning issue.   Short of trying the lost/stolen procecure to reset the connection between between your phone and network, I believe it's time to contact the moderators.

This is based on the fact that your sim card appears to not have had the correct voicemail retrieval number saved on it, and also based on the fact that you cannot call some Canadian phone numbers even though you have Canada-wide calling.  The moderators will probably issue something that they like to call a "network refresh", which would likely have fixed your voicemail dialing issue by pushing the correct number through the network to be written and saved to your sim card.  This also might take care of you not being able to dial some Canadian phone numbers.

---

hi  computergeek541,

yeah, sorry, I didn't realize, the 647 number was for when I pressed *611 early this morning. and yes, since my $10 plan has canada wide mins, yes it did go through. I guess the *611 Public number is based out of Ontario.

so early this morning, I made 4 calls,

one that shows to me RM and is my phone number.

one to the 438 vm.

one to the 647 number.

and one to the number that gave me the error message. but that number doesn't appear to show up in my call log.

so I think my account is ok. my long distance did work and I am now able to call into vm using the 1 key.

[rosstermon]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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hi  computergeek541,

>>Samsung phones don't show it while dialing, but if you look in call log, it shows as Voicemail and then the number underneath>>

OK, i looked at my call log and I have three numbers.

One says my name RM and it has my actual tel number.

Two says Voicemail and the 14335804001 number.

Three says Ontario 1 647 788 8261, maybe this was the one that was giving the error message ""you don't have an active long distance add on" 

if you have long distance on your plan, do you want to try to call the Ontario number and see what happens?

let me know

---

Your plan is Canada-wide. Try manually calling it yourself and see what you get. Of course you'll use some minutes. I suspect the error message is spurious and misdirecting attention elsewhere.

---

hi  computergeek541,

wowwww, OK, I thought I only had 50 mins a month local calling. I have 50 mins Canada-wide, sweettttttttttttttttttt!! 

Oh OK, my bad again. the 1 647 788 8261 is when i press *611 and it dials the top level Public Mobile number. I guess the number is in Ontario. And I guess since I have Canada-wide calling, that is not an issue.

well, I am learning a lot today.

thanks

[Anonymous]

 @rosstermon

New theory based on the possiblity that your phone is used from someone else. Maybe they set that *86 to that 647 number. I agree that really these things should be automatically set up by the carrier but.. one never knows, do one.

[Dankaroo]

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@computergeek541 wrote:

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@rosstermon wrote:

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---

hi  computergeek541,

>>Samsung phones don't show it while dialing, but if you look in call log, it shows as Voicemail and then the number underneath>>

OK, i looked at my call log and I have three numbers.

One says my name RM and it has my actual tel number.

Two says Voicemail and the 14335804001 number.

Three says Ontario 1 647 788 8261, maybe this was the one that was giving the error message ""you don't have an active long distance add on" 

if you have long distance on your plan, do you want to try to call the Ontario number and see what happens?

let me know

---

I am assuming that you don't know what that 647 number is.  It's not a friend's phone number is it? What I can tell you is that it's not a Public Mobile voicemail retrieval number, but that it is a Toronto-based phone number issued from within the Telus group.

Either way, there is something wrong with your account.  As z10user4 was mentioning, you should not be hearing a long distance error message when calling that number.  647 area code numbers are all  from Toronto, Ontario.  This should not happen because you have Canada-wide calling.

So, we appear back to square-one, but at least your voicemail works now.

I still believe that there is an account provisioning issue.   Short of trying the lost/stolen procecure to reset the connection between between your phone and network, I believe it's time to contact the moderators.

This is based on the fact that your sim card appears to not have had the correct voicemail retrieval number saved on it, and also based on the fact that you cannot call some Canadian phone numbers even though you have Canada-wide calling.  The moderators will probably issue something that they like to call a "network refresh", which would likely have fixed your voicemail dialing issue by pushing the correct number through the network to be written and saved to your sim card.  This also might take care of you not being able to dial some Canadian phone numbers.

---

My set VM is a 647 number. Either PM has it or it got ported idk what it was before joining.

[Dankaroo]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@rosstermon wrote:

hi z10user4,

>>4 hours ago on (default) page 2 you replied to the *#61# question saying it wasn't set.>>

the *61* 30# was not working. the other 3 worked just fine.

---

The first code we did was to see if the call forwarding was set. It wasn't. The second that didn't want to work was to set the call forwarding. And then you figured out to not include the 30 seconds later on.

 @Dankaroo: I would disagree. I don't think *86 works here. So if it were to get reset somewhere along the way then *86 wouldn't work again...here. We had another vm thread earlier in the day and *86 didn't work for them either. It doesn't work for me. Maybe we all need to get reset. 🙂

---

Is *86 a typical default? My android device does not use it and instead automatically changes to the actual VM number. Either that or my old VM number got ported into PM along with my mainstay number.

[computergeek541]

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@rosstermon wrote:

---

---

hi  computergeek541,

>>Samsung phones don't show it while dialing, but if you look in call log, it shows as Voicemail and then the number underneath>>

OK, i looked at my call log and I have three numbers.

One says my name RM and it has my actual tel number.

Two says Voicemail and the 14335804001 number.

Three says Ontario 1 647 788 8261, maybe this was the one that was giving the error message ""you don't have an active long distance add on" 

if you have long distance on your plan, do you want to try to call the Ontario number and see what happens?

let me know

---

I am assuming that you don't know what that 647 number is.  It's not a friend's phone number is it? What I can tell you is that it's not a Public Mobile voicemail retrieval number, but that it is a Toronto-based phone number issued from within the Telus group.

Either way, there is something wrong with your account.  As z10user4 was mentioning, you should not be hearing a long distance error message when calling that number.  647 area code numbers are all  from Toronto, Ontario.  This should not happen because you have Canada-wide calling.

So, we appear back to square-one, but at least your voicemail works now.

I still believe that there is an account provisioning issue.   Short of trying the lost/stolen procecure to reset the connection between between your phone and network, I believe it's time to contact the moderators.

This is based on the fact that your sim card appears to not have had the correct voicemail retrieval number saved on it, and also based on the fact that you cannot call some Canadian phone numbers even though you have Canada-wide calling.  The moderators will probably issue something that they like to call a "network refresh", which would likely have fixed your voicemail dialing issue by pushing the correct number through the network to be written and saved to your sim card.  This also might take care of you not being able to dial some Canadian phone numbers.

[Anonymous]

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@rosstermon wrote:

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@computergeek541 wrote:

---

@rosstermon wrote:

hi  computergeek541,

>>This was asked of you in the very first reply of the thread, but was never answered.>>

what was asked of me? I am not being facetious, I don't remember some one asking me if I was dialing *86?

---

I asked you in the first reply what number you were dialing. Samsung phones don't show it while dialing, but if you look in call log, it shows as Voicemail and then the number underneath.  What I didn't know was the fact that it was the *86 that was giving you the long distance error mesagge.

It's hard to follow such a long thread.  I still do suspect that there still is a provisioning issue on your account though.  The voicemail number is supposed to be saved on your sim card and it is pushed there by the network.  As "My Carrier", a proper number should have been there.  The other possiblility is a software bug in your phone which causes it not to read the setting on the sim card properly.

---

hi  computergeek541,

>>Samsung phones don't show it while dialing, but if you look in call log, it shows as Voicemail and then the number underneath>>

OK, i looked at my call log and I have three numbers.

One says my name RM and it has my actual tel number.

Two says Voicemail and the 14335804001 number.

Three says Ontario 1 647 788 8261, maybe this was the one that was giving the error message ""you don't have an active long distance add on" 

if you have long distance on your plan, do you want to try to call the Ontario number and see what happens?

let me know

---

Your plan is Canada-wide. Try manually calling it yourself and see what you get. Of course you'll use some minutes. I suspect the error message is spurious and misdirecting attention elsewhere.

[rosstermon]

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@computergeek541 wrote:

---

@rosstermon wrote:

hi  computergeek541,

>>This was asked of you in the very first reply of the thread, but was never answered.>>

what was asked of me? I am not being facetious, I don't remember some one asking me if I was dialing *86?

---

I asked you in the first reply what number you were dialing. Samsung phones don't show it while dialing, but if you look in call log, it shows as Voicemail and then the number underneath.  What I didn't know was the fact that it was the *86 that was giving you the long distance error mesagge.

It's hard to follow such a long thread.  I still do suspect that there still is a provisioning issue on your account though.  The voicemail number is supposed to be saved on your sim card and it is pushed there by the network.  As "My Carrier", a proper number should have been there.  The other possiblility is a software bug in your phone which causes it not to read the setting on the sim card properly.

---

hi  computergeek541,

>>Samsung phones don't show it while dialing, but if you look in call log, it shows as Voicemail and then the number underneath>>

OK, i looked at my call log and I have three numbers.

One says my name RM and it has my actual tel number.

Two says Voicemail and the 14335804001 number.

Three says Ontario 1 647 788 8261, maybe this was the one that was giving the error message ""you don't have an active long distance add on" 

if you have long distance on your plan, do you want to try to call the Ontario number and see what happens?

let me know

[rosstermon]

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@Dankaroo wrote:

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@rosstermon wrote:

hi z10user4,

@z10user4

so, to recap, I just manualy dialed *86, and I got the infamous error message "you don't have an active long distance add-on".

so what was happening was my settings were:

Phone settings > Voice Mail settings > *86

and when I was trying to retrieve my vm, the phone would dial *86 (whatever this number is)

and it may have been long distance, so the call would not go through.

so I changed my settings to:

Phone settings > Voice Mail settings > 1 438 580 4001.

so is there some place we can record this problem so it may help people that are having a similar issue?

let me know how it works. maybe there is a database or something.

thanks

---

I am not familiar with *86 nor the cellular service back end workings aside for my education in transmissions. VM as far as I know is supposed to be automatically set in the back end. Moderators could have sorted this out eventually. What me and @Anonymous were trying to do was get you to tweak your phone for a temporary solution. This solution is unique to you in the sense that if you ever switch providers or mods ever address this instance you should be switching back to *86 or whatever was default 

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hi Dankaroo,

>>VM as far as I know is supposed to be automatically set in the back end.>>

yes, I would agree. this is my 3rd android phone and my 4th cell company, and I have never had to set the phone to call into my vm, it was done, as you say, automatically.

>>if you ever switch providers you should be switching back to *86 or whatever was default >>

is *86 used by public to call into vm?

if so, is this *86 just for quebec?

is *86 working for other quebec public users?

curious

[rosstermon]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@rosstermon wrote:

hi z10user4,

>>4 hours ago on (default) page 2 you replied to the *#61# question saying it wasn't set.>>

the *61* 30# was not working. the other 3 worked just fine.

---

The first code we did was to see if the call forwarding was set. It wasn't. The second that didn't want to work was to set the call forwarding. And then you figured out to not include the 30 seconds later on.

---

hi z10user4,

oh right, now I remember. the one that was like *#61*#.

yes, you are right, that failed and then we strated trying *61* , *62* , *67* codes.

thanks.

have a good day.

[Anonymous]

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@rosstermon wrote:

hi z10user4,

>>4 hours ago on (default) page 2 you replied to the *#61# question saying it wasn't set.>>

the *61* 30# was not working. the other 3 worked just fine.

---

The first code we did was to see if the call forwarding was set. It wasn't. The second that didn't want to work was to set the call forwarding. And then you figured out to not include the 30 seconds later on.

 @Dankaroo: I would disagree. I don't think *86 works here. So if it were to get reset somewhere along the way then *86 wouldn't work again...here. We had another vm thread earlier in the day and *86 didn't work for them either. It doesn't work for me. Maybe we all need to get reset. 🙂

[Dankaroo]

---

@rosstermon wrote:

hi z10user4,

@z10user4

so, to recap, I just manualy dialed *86, and I got the infamous error message "you don't have an active long distance add-on".

so what was happening was my settings were:

Phone settings > Voice Mail settings > *86

and when I was trying to retrieve my vm, the phone would dial *86 (whatever this number is)

and it may have been long distance, so the call would not go through.

so I changed my settings to:

Phone settings > Voice Mail settings > 1 438 580 4001.

so is there some place we can record this problem so it may help people that are having a similar issue?

let me know how it works. maybe there is a database or something.

thanks

---

I am not familiar with *86 nor the cellular service back end workings aside for my education in transmissions. VM as far as I know is supposed to be automatically set in the back end. Moderators could have sorted this out eventually. What me and @Anonymous were trying to do was get you to tweak your phone for a temporary solution. This solution is unique to you in the sense that if you ever switch providers or mods ever address this instance you should be switching back to *86 or whatever was default 

[computergeek541]

---

@rosstermon wrote:

hi  computergeek541,

>>This was asked of you in the very first reply of the thread, but was never answered.>>

what was asked of me? I am not being facetious, I don't remember some one asking me if I was dialing *86?

---

I asked you in the first reply what number you were dialing. Samsung phones don't show it while dialing, but if you look in call log, it shows as Voicemail and then the number underneath.  What I didn't know was the fact that it was the *86 that was giving you the long distance error mesagge.

It's hard to follow such a long thread.  I still do suspect that there still is a provisioning issue on your account though.  The voicemail number is supposed to be saved on your sim card and it is pushed there by the network.  As "My Carrier", a proper number should have been there.  The other possiblility is a software bug in your phone which causes it not to read the setting on the sim card properly.

[rosstermon]

hi z10user4,

>>4 hours ago on (default) page 2 you replied to the *#61# question saying it wasn't set.>>

the *61* 30# was not working. the other 3 worked just fine.

if at the beginning some one said,

"it sounds like you are dialing into a non valid number. what number are you dialing?"

me: I don't know.

"ok, we have to find out what number is mapped to the key 1. "

me: *86

"ok, change that to 1 438 580 4001"

me: ok, it works, I am into my vm box. thanks.

and when I checked my messages I had 4 messages that I listened to.

i wouldn't have needed to use the *61* code.

that's what I am thinking.  🙂

[Anonymous]

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@rosstermon wrote:

hi z10user4,

we don't know if the call forwarding options were correct or not.

i was getting voice mails!

I just wasn't able to access my vm box to listen to them.

when I entered the codes, *61*, etc, they didn't say "this option was already set, but we will set it again" it just said, "set successfully".

when i posted my original message, if the first thing that was replied was, try dialing 1 438 580 4001, i would have gotten into my vm box and I would have been done, I may not have had to enter the codes, *61*. we will never know because I entered the codes before we figured out that i wasn't dialing the correct vm number.

---

4 hours ago on (default) page 2 you replied to the *#61# question saying it wasn't set. That code is a status code to find out whether a setting is set. It wasn't.

Off we went.

It seems to turn out that maybe your dialer does not have very useful settings for setting these options so the codes seemed to have been the right direction to go.

Edit: how you were able to get voicemails anyway I don't know.

[rosstermon]

hi  computergeek541,

some one did ask me what number and I said that when I pressed the key 1, it didn't show a phone number.

[rosstermon]

hi  computergeek541,

>>This was asked of you in the very first reply of the thread, but was never answered.>>

what was asked of me? I am not being facetious, I don't remember some one asking me if I was dialing *86?

[rosstermon]

hi z10user4,

we don't know if the call forwarding options were correct or not.

i was getting voice mails!

I just wasn't able to access my vm box to listen to them.

when I entered the codes, *61*, etc, they didn't say "this option was already set, but we will set it again" it just said, "set successfully".

when i posted my original message, if the first thing that was replied was, try dialing 1 438 580 4001, i would have gotten into my vm box and I would have been done, I may not have had to enter the codes, *61*. we will never know because I entered the codes before we figured out that i wasn't dialing the correct vm number.

[computergeek541]

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@rosstermon wrote:

hi  computergeek541,

>>I think that this ended up being more complicated than it had to be. >>

if someone would have told me to check what number was being dialed in my vm settings, in my case *86, and change it to the correct number, I would have been done.

thanks

---

This was asked of you in the very first reply of the thread, but was never answered. You wouldn't even have had to go into the voicemail settings to find that as it would have been in your call history.  But, I guess it's easy to say that in hindsight.  At least your voicemail works now, so that's what counts.

[Anonymous]

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@rosstermon wrote:

hi z10user4,

right, what I meant was, you are using either a

xxx-xxx-xxxx

or

1 xxx-xxx-xxxx  number to dial in, not some *61, *61*, #61# type of code number.

---

The *61 etc codes that we went through are to SET the call forwarding options to go somewhere. Right off the top of this adventure we discovered that one of them was not set. So you weren't forwarding to voicemail to begin with let alone the long press 1 or whatever *86 is to access it.

The voicemail access number is used as that forwarded number.

[rosstermon]

hi z10user4,

right, what I meant was, you are using either a

xxx-xxx-xxxx

or

1 xxx-xxx-xxxx  number to dial in, not some *61, *61*, #61# type of code number.

[Anonymous]

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@rosstermon wrote:

hi z10user4,

ok, so your phone is dialing out a xxx-xxx-xxxx also.

---

No. My phone settings show +1 etc but the usage details show just the 10 digits.

It being Canada-wide...it being a "local" call...I guess it ignores/truncates the +1.

[rosstermon]

hi  computergeek541,

>>I think that this ended up being more complicated than it had to be. >>

if someone would have told me to check what number was being dialed in my vm settings, in my case *86, and change it to the correct number, I would have been done.

thanks

[rosstermon]

hi z10user4,

ok, so your phone is dialing out a xxx-xxx-xxxx also.

[computergeek541]

@rosstermon, I did not realize that your phone was dialing *86, and this appears to be what was preventing you from calling your voicemail box. That's why we were all wondering earlier which number your phone was actually dialing when you were holding the 1 key down.

I think that this ended up being more complicated than it had to be.  And I know it was being hinted at earlier that there would be an easier way to set the voicemail number without needing to use * codes.  I know that on most Android phones, you can even set the vociemail retrieval number through an Android secret menu.

To be honest, although this is not the proper way to check voicemail, in most cases it would have worked to just dial your own number. 

[Anonymous]

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@rosstermon wrote:

hi z10user4,

you see a 1-xxx-xxx-xxxx number as the destination?

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Actually it's just the 10 digits even though the call forwarding has the 1.

[rosstermon]

hi z10user4,

you see a 1-xxx-xxx-xxxx number as the destination?