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Swathes of AT&T customers in the U.S. are said to be experiencing problems accessing voicemail, based on reports on social media and the network's support forums.

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The issues have apparently been going on for several weeks, but while AT&T says it's aware of the problem, the company hasn't yet provided a detailed explanation or given an indication of when it might be fixed.

Late on Wednesday, The Verge highlighted a 40-page thread in AT&T's support forums that's full of users relating their experiences trying to access voicemail, to no avail. Android users are being met with error messages, while iPhone users are unable to view the Visual Voicemail feature to manage their recordings. People have also reported problems on Google Pixel phones and Motorola phones.

The first reports date back to October 1, and customers are said to be affected in several states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Nevada, and North Carolina. AT&T representatives responding to the complaints have claimed that the issues are due to a "vendor server problem," but it's still unclear which manufacturer is being referred to, while a statement given to The Verge similarly lacks detail:
"A recent software update to some devices may be affecting our customers' voicemail. We are working with the device manufacturer to issue a patch to resolve this and apologize for any inconvenience this has caused."
The current AT&T advice for affected customers who need immediate access to voicemail is to create a new mailbox by calling customer service. However, customers who go down this route are being warned that they will lose all saved and unheard messages. The only alternative, it seems, is to simply wait it out and hope AT&T resolves the issue sooner rather than later. We'll update this article if we learn of any developments.

Article Link: Widespread AT&T Voicemail Outage Affecting iPhone Users in the US
 
Realized that I haven’t seen a voice mail on my iPhone in a month or more. As most are spam, wasn’t worrying me a lot, but seemed strange. Just called my voice mail the old fashioned way and there were 13 unheard messages.

After I hung up the call, everything suddenly showed up in visual voice mail log.

May have been related to the iOS upgrade rather that AT&T’s current problems??
 
Finally, something iOS and Android users can agree on. :)

I haven’t received a VM since Sunday, though most are from spammers who get sent to VM because I have Silence Unknown Callers turned on.
 
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May have been related to the iOS upgrade rather that AT&T’s current problems??
According to the article, Android users are also affected.

My troubles might have started when I got a carrier settings update (38.1) a few days ago, but maybe it was just coincidental.

I still get notification badges, but I have to call in to retrieve my messages. This is all I see:


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I didn’t know there were widespread problems; I did some troubleshooting including resetting network settings, but nothing I tried helped.
 
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The only people who call me are spammers so no voice mail doesn’t matter. 🤷‍♂️

I think you hit the nail on the head. Too many spammers have ruined voice mail. Most of the people that call me either don't leave a message or let it go to voice mail, but don't leave a message. Either way, I know to call them back if they are in my address book, or delete if not.
 
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This started for me this week (I’m in Texas and I have the iPhone 11 XS Max). I’ve forwarded everything to my Google Voice account for the time being - I have voicemail again and receive transcriptions via email of the messages. Decent workaround: https://support.google.com/voice/answer/165656?co=GENIE.Platform=Android&hl=en
Having the issue in NY the last few weeks. Strangely its on my work phone and not my personal phone. Noticed VMs showing up a day or two later. Not good for client management. There was a carrier update to my personal phone but not my work phone last week.
 
I noticed voicemails showing up hours later recently. My wife complained of problems the other day as well. I also realized my customer greeting had disappeared. When that happened who knows. I didn’t know who to blame Apple with iOS 13 or AT&T. But I definitely blame AT&T for the annoying number of spam calls I get that have made me want to just drop my cell service altogether.
 
Ah, so THAT's what happened to my voicemail yesterday! I thought something specific happened to my phone.

p.s. I did agree to a "carrier update" when I was sitting at my desk yesterday...then the problem arose. I don't think that was a coincidence.
 
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