Need help with iPhone voicemail indicator

[mdowns]

Hi,

My wife and I both have iPhone 6 phones on public mobile, but the voicemail seems to be functioning differently between the two phones.  Both phones are on the latest iOS and Public Mobile v35.  We can both access our voicemail, but how we access it differs between the phones.

Here's the situation:

My phone - When I have a message waiting, the red indicator appears on the voicemail shortcut at the bottom of the home screen.  On the voicemail screen, there is a button in the middle of the screen that says "Call Voicemail".  I tap this button to access my voicemail messages.  

My wife's phone - When she has a message waiting, the red indicator does not appear on the voicemail icon at the bottom of the home screen.  On the voicemail screen, there is no button in the middle of the screen to call voicemail, but there is a link at the top left of the screen called "Greeting". To access her messages, she holds down "1" and can retrieve them.

Does anyone know why these two phones are behaving differently?  The issue that we need to resolve is to somehow get the red voicemail waiting indicator to function on my wife's phone.  Currently, she has no way of knowing if there is a message waiting for her, other than calling in to check the voicemail throughout the day.

Thanks

[RoamyD]

This is to assist anyone with the same issue. First off, a huge thanks to Paul at Telus who called and texted over multiple days to try and work through the problem. My issue is that my iPhone 15 Pro max thought I had visual voicemail (note that phone never did have Visual Voicemail - so maybe something got transferred from my old phone). If I turned off data, the voicemail screen would show that Visual Voicemail was not available (this is not the same as Live Voicemail) - this was my clue that Visual Voicemail may be the culprit. Paul and I tried numerous things, like resetting network settings (many times), swapping an old Telus SIM, etc. I had other eSIMs on the phone (for traveling), which I deleted, and nothing worked. The apparent ONLY fix was to completely wipe the iPhone and start from scratch - not from a backup. This isn't really a feasible option for many of us. 

Here's my fix. When I moved from Telus to Public, I went on an eSIM. However, I like a physical SIM, so that if my phone is damaged during travel, I can simply grab another phone, stick the physical SIM into the phone and I'm up and running. So, I bought a Public Mobile physical SIM on Amazon. I used the Public app to swap SIM numbers (very easy), did a restart of the iPhone, and my badges were there. Also, the "greeting" change option on my voicemail screen (related to Visual Voicemail) was gone. Things worked normally with old fashioned voicemail - and I could also use Live Voicemail (but then callers get the generic greeting - not my personal greeting). Then I made an error - I reset network settings (General, Transfer or Reset iPhone, Reset, Reset Network Settings) and also "Reset Settings" in the Cellular, Cellular Data option that shows the APN, Username, Password for the Personal Hotspot. Doing that reverted my iPhone back to the missing badges/notifications issue. Frustrating. This was all done prior to Paul assisting me from Telus. So, after all of the troubleshooting we did, I just bought another physical SIM and swapped SIM numbers again, but this time I did not reset anything. So far, everything's working properly. So, if you have this issue, just spend the $10 on a physical SIM and save yourself hours of frustration. Or, just turn on Live Voicemail and use that (although you won't get those if your out of service - traveling - so need to remember to call your old-fashioned voicemail when you land since you won't have any badges...). Cheers!

[Jedi1]

This message is old but thanks for posting as it helped my process I had to do to get mine working.  It did not work for me as the carrier voicemail option disappeared as soon as I switched back to PM.  I have an eSIM so perhaps that made a difference in my process.   What did end up working was instead of reset network settings, I had to reset all settings.  Just thought I would update in case it helps someone else.  

[John-Q-Public]

I finally fixed it! (n.b. this fixed MY problem; other suggestions may work for others). My problem, to be clear (because, reading through this thread, I see there is some confusion in this regard) is that I get no notification (badge, sound, etc) when I have voicemail. Also, there is no "Call Voicemail" inside of the Voicemail area of the phone app.

Note that I was previously with Bell, and had "Visual Voicemail", i.e. voicemails are downloaded to the phone itself, and one can listen, re-listen, and keep indefinitely (I had messages dating back to 2013!). My wife, on the other hand, was on a prepaid Telus plan, and did not have visual voicemail. After we ported her over to PM, everything remained the same, i.e. she does get notifications, and she does have the "Call Voicemail" button.

Before I reveal my solution, I want to say that I tried almost everything described previously in this thread, except a FULL reset. F that. I have too many apps, settings, etc., to go through all that! I verified my notification settings, did a Network Reset, and much more... AND spent a crazy amount of time with PM "Support", first in a futile text-based back-and-forth with Tier 1 (in whatever they call their ticketing system), then on the phone with Tier 2 (who even had access to "primes"). Everyone was very polite, but ultimately no one could help me.

FINALLY: What worked for me: Today I was swapping other SIM cards in and out - I had cards from prevous Bell accounts, all of which had had Visual VM - and none of them worked, BUT, then it occured to me to use my wife's old (deactivated) Telus card, the one which did not have Visual VM. Worked like a charm! So, here is the procedure I used:

1) Power off the phone, or go to Airplaine mode.

2) Swap the problematic PM card out, and insert a card for an account that did NOT have Visual VM (the card I used was deactivated; not sure what would happen if you use an activated card, but my guess would be the same).

3) Turn the phone back on, or turn off airplane mode.

4) Reset Network Settings (In iOS 15x: Settings>General>Transfer or Reset iPhone (scroll all the way to the bottom of General to see this)>Reset>Reset Network Settings (be careful! there are many potentially destructive options here); you'll have to enter your phone's password; accept. The phone will reset and restart).

5) This should do it. Check in Phone>Voicemail, and you should see the "Call Voicemail" button.

6) Now, repeat the procedure above, but now swap your PM card back in.

Good luck!

[CountyDownIeUk]

@mdowns 

Just thought I would mention.....as sort of related. 

I have an iPhone XR and voicemail is same as yours. 

Wife has an 8Plus and works the same.....except......no red button to disconnect after dealing with voicemails. She gets ticked off and lets it keep talking and puts back in her purse. I googled the issue and apparently a double click on home button will make it reappear. Will try that next time. 

iPhones even both the same can be quirkily different. 

[DonDizzle]

Resetting carrier settings worked for me. Thanks

[iphonebah]

"Method 2: Reset the carrier settings"

The only problem with this is that it deletes all your wifi passwords ... also, it didn't work for me.

Here's what did work:

1) Call your own phone number and leave a voicemail

2) Listen to your voicemail, and delete it

3) The red dot disappears

[ezne · Accepted solution]

@Luddite Thank you for linking us to the other thread.  It is indeed the very same problem, and the solution there is well summarized.  Can we mark this thread as a duplicate of the other?

I independently came to the same conclusion after testing various scenarios out this weekend, though the key here is that you must not Restore from Backup after you Erase All Content and Settings.  If you Restore from Backup, then the problem will persist.  If you do not Restore from Backup, then the voicemail indicator works, the "Call Voicemail" button reappears, and life is good...

...except that the solution itself a huge amount of work for some of us.  There are some of us (e.g. my better half) who have a bazillion apps, and would need to painstakingly re-download, re-login, re-customize, re-populate, etc, every single last one of them!  We just don't have that kind of time at this point of our lives.

I want to point out two additional alternatives, which my wife and I are considering, for those also in this predicament:  (a) use Call Forward along with a third-party voicemail solution, such as Fongo, or (b) turn off voicemail with an Extended Access Greeting, and leave people a message telling them to text you instead.

[tsparkle21]

Check Settings - Notification - Phone to make sure notifications and badges is turned on.

[Luddite]

Carriers that support iPhone visual voicemail: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204039

As noted PM does not.

[Luddite]

@Maggie2019 @mdowns  Factory reset seems your only hope: https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Phones-Hardware/iPHone-Visual-Voicemail/m-p/431567/hi...

[Maggie2019]

I have the same issue and hoping that there is a solution.

[DanielleMarie]

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@ezne wrote:

I am not giving up on Public Mobile yet, but I need to get my voicemail indicator working on our iPhones relatively soon.  I have a few ideas left, but I am grasping at straws...

---

I personally would do a factory reset on the phone before considering switching carriers.

[ezne]

@GinYVR Yes.

@geopublic There is no such option on iOS, unfortunately.

I have the distinct feeling @mdowns left Public Mobile due to this problem.  How can one not receive voicemail notifications or see a voicemail indicator and seriously continue with their phone service?  My wife and I did not think it was a big deal until we missed 2 appointment cancellations this past week, due to voicemail being left on our phones and our iPhones not being aware of them.

I tried updating from iOS 12 to iOS 13, without any SIM inserted.  No luck.

I tried scouring the Interweb to find similar complaints.  I found at least two cases, with the same scernario of someone moving from a big carrier to a budget carrier, having had Visual Voicemail with the big carrier, but now having busted regular voicemail with the budget carrier.  I guess not a lot of people make that transition!  The perplexing part is that neither case had found any solution.  (There was one workaround where the carrier could send the user an SMS on new voicemail, which sounds neat, but Public Mobile does not support that.)

As yet another experiment, I put my Public Mobile SIM into an older iPhone, and voila, my voicemail indicator started working again!  I am not ready to downgrade, nor upgrade, my iPhone anytime soon, but I would posit that using a different iPhone from the one you ported, especially if it never had Visual Voicemail, would solve the problem.

I am not giving up on Public Mobile yet, but I need to get my voicemail indicator working on our iPhones relatively soon.  I have a few ideas left, but I am grasping at straws...

[geopublic]

@ezne  

To turn off or disable Visual Voicemail, follow these steps:

1. From any Home screen, tap the Menu key.
2. Tap Settings.
3. Tap Apps.
4. Swipe left to the ALL screen.
5. Swipe up and tap Visual Voicemail.
6. Tap Disable and then tap OK.

[GinYVR]

@ezneHave you tried just erase Network Settings instead of Erase All?

[ezne]

A moderator was unable to resolve my issue.

One additional data point.  Upon reading an interesting suggestion elsewhere, I substituted another, inactive non-Public Mobile SIM in my iPhone.  The "Call Voicemail" button magically appeared in the Voicemail section of the Phone app (as one would expect with Public Mobile).  I then reinserted my Public Mobile SIM... but I was not as lucky as others have been with this trick, as the "Call Voicemail" button disappeared once again.

It seems to me my iPhone is convinced that Public Mobile has Visual Voicemail, simply because I ported from a carrier / an account that had that feature... and I cannot snap it out of that belief.

I am tempted to Erase All Content and Settings on my iPhone and restore from a backup, but I don't have time for it at the moment.  (Does someone else want to try?)  I will also try to see if iOS 13 is any help.

[ezne]

@mdowns  Was a moderator able to resolve the issue?  Have you otherwise found a solution to this problem?

I have the exact same problem on my iPhone.  I also ported from Rogers, and also had Visual Voicemail with Rogers.  My wife, who also ported, could still see her Visual Voicemail from Rogers, even after we were up and running with Public Mobile (including setting up a voicemail password and leaving a test message).  I waited a week, to make sure the porting process had enough time to wrap up on the Rogers end, but it made no difference.  I also tried the various solutions proposed here (including Reset Network Settings, Shut Down, etc), to no avail.

[geopublic]

Maybe this will work.

Edit: Nevermind, I don't think that will work. But maybe try:

• From the phone's keypad. Enter #404 and tap "Call" to disable your voicemail function. Thereafter, you will need to call your voice mailbox to check for any messages that have been left for you.
• Reactivate your voicemail by entering *004# and pressing "Call."

[mdowns]

I should add that in my haste, I forgot to leave a voicemail to see if the indicator would show up or not.  Might have to double check that.

[mdowns]

@Pizzaeh I put my wife's SIM card in my phone and the voicemail screen looked same as when my SIM card was in.

I assume this means that there is a setting somewhere on my wife's phone that needs to be changed. 

Maybe I need to go visit an apple store, unless anyone here knows how to revert back to regular voicemail from visual voicemail on an iPhone.

[Pizzaeh]

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@mdowns wrote:

Everything I am finding online suggests that this issue can only be resolved by the carrier.

How do I contact a mod to get some help with this?

---

@mdowns have you tried inserting your SIM card in your wife's phone, and vice versa?  Does the same behaviour occur?  That will rule out whether it's the Public Mobile account, or the phone.  Doesn't hurt to try this while you're waiting....

To contact the moderators, click the envelope icon at the top right of your screen.  In the Send To field, start typing Moderator_Team.  You can also click here (does the same thing).  Response time is between several hours up to 48 hours.  

[mdowns]

Everything I am finding online suggests that this issue can only be resolved by the carrier.

How do I contact a mod to get some help with this?

[Alex888]

@mdowns Have you contacted Apple and asked them?

[mdowns]

@geopublic , I tried changing the option to not require the passcode to access voicemail, and it didn't fix it.

@Alex888 , I tried turning airplane mode on, then off - no fix.  Tried resetting the network settings (yet again), and it still is not working.

I'm wondering if it is possible that there is some sort of carry over from when my wife's phone was with Rogers and she had visual voicemail.  My phone, which was also with Rogers originally, did not have visual voicemail.  Could this explain the issues on my wife's phone, and the fact that our two phones have different looking voicemail screens?

Really getting frustrated with this.

[Alex888]

@mdowns There's a couple things you can try.
1. Turn on Airplane mode, wait 30 seconds, turn it off again
2. Reset your network settings, go to Settings → General → Reset → Reset Network Settings and confirm.

[geopublic]

---

@mdowns wrote:

@Alex888 I tried both your methods, and it still isn't working.

@geopublic I tried your first method  - no luck.  When I tried your second method (resetting the voicemail), I was unable to change the voicemail password.  The phone gave a pop up message that said "Voicemail unavailable. Try again later"

So, my wife's phone will still not display a red dot with a number on the phone icon to indicate any waiting voicemail messages.

Any other suggestions?  I still find it exceedingly strange that my phone and my wife's phone have very different voicemail screens.

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What happens when you login into your account and reset the password via selfserve. Dial and hold down the 1 until the VM setup comes up and pick do not require password when dialing from your phone option?

[mdowns]

@Alex888 I tried both your methods, and it still isn't working.

@geopublic I tried your first method  - no luck.  When I tried your second method (resetting the voicemail), I was unable to change the voicemail password.  The phone gave a pop up message that said "Voicemail unavailable. Try again later"

So, my wife's phone will still not display a red dot with a number on the phone icon to indicate any waiting voicemail messages.

Any other suggestions?  I still find it exceedingly strange that my phone and my wife's phone have very different voicemail screens.

[geopublic]

---

@mdowns wrote:

Hi,

My wife and I both have iPhone 6 phones on public mobile, but the voicemail seems to be functioning differently between the two phones.  Both phones are on the latest iOS and Public Mobile v35.  We can both access our voicemail, but how we access it differs between the phones.

Here's the situation:

My phone - When I have a message waiting, the red indicator appears on the voicemail shortcut at the bottom of the home screen.  On the voicemail screen, there is a button in the middle of the screen that says "Call Voicemail".  I tap this button to access my voicemail messages.  

My wife's phone - When she has a message waiting, the red indicator does not appear on the voicemail icon at the bottom of the home screen.  On the voicemail screen, there is no button in the middle of the screen to call voicemail, but there is a link at the top left of the screen called "Greeting". To access her messages, she holds down "1" and can retrieve them.

Does anyone know why these two phones are behaving differently?  The issue that we need to resolve is to somehow get the red voicemail waiting indicator to function on my wife's phone.  Currently, she has no way of knowing if there is a message waiting for her, other than calling in to check the voicemail throughout the day.

Thanks

---

When you get a red dot on your voicemail icon, it means that you have a new voicemail, but it cannot be retrieved. This is very common after you change SIM cards, or reset the iPhone back to factory settings. Here is how you can get rid of this red dot.

Method 1: Reset your login information
This red dot may be due to a wrong password or certain login details being changed, especially if you change SIM cards.
Step 1: Access your voicemail settings. Go to the “Settings” application and then go to the “Phone” section.
Step 2: Confirm your password. Scroll down the page and then go to “Change Voicemail Password”. You will get a voicemail login popup alert, which will allow you to enter the correct password for your voicemail messages.
Step 3: Confirm that all is well. After you have corrected the password, the red blank dot should change into your regular one, which will show you how many new voicemail messages you have.

Method 2: Reset your carrier settings
Step 1: Launch Settings. Go to the settings app and access the main window.
Step 2: Reset the carrier settings. Select General, then Reset, and finally Reset Network Settings. General > Reset > Reset Network Settings.
Step 3: Reboot your iPhone. Once the settings have been reset, the device will reboot and the red dot will have disappeared.

[TheOldVR]

In as this is of interest for me.

I had the exact same issue as your wife's phone but on Koodo.

Did the phone reset and vmail reset with no luck. In the end I now pay for visual voicemail to get the indicator to work.

Which kinda sucks... cause visual voicemail is useless....

[Alex888]

@mdownsFirst try updating and restarting the phone, then try:

Method 1: Reset the Voicemail on your iPhone

Step 1: Access your voicemail. Start the phone application and then go to the dial pad. Using the traditional method, press and hold the number 1 key so you can access to your voicemail. You may have to enter your password if you had already set one.

Step 2: Listen to your voicemail messages. Listen to all the messages that are new on your device. Once you are through, you should end the call.

Step 3: Leave a voicemail message from another phone. After ending the call, use another phone to call your iPhone and then leave a voicemail message. This time, you should be able to get a voicemail notification without any delays.

Method 2: Reset the carrier settings

Step 1: Launch Settings. Go to the settings app and access the main window.

Step 2: Reset the carrier settings. Select General, then Reset, and finally Reset Network Settings. General>Reset>Reset Network Settings.

Step 3: Reboot your iPhone. Once the settings have been reset, the device will reboot to engage the new settings.