Visual Voicemail is not an option for some voicemails

[carle]

Hello,

I have two Republic Wireless phones, a Moto X 1st gen and a Moto X 2nd gen. I’ve never had any problems with the Moto X 2nd gen in terms of voicemails. Both phones are running Android 5.1 and Republic Wireless app 2.1.3.2269.

From now on, I will be talking about the Moto X 1st gen phone. In the default phone app, when a voicemail arrives, it is represented as a Visual Voicemail (with an associated phone number) or it will be shown as “Voicemail” (with no associated phone number). Clicking on a Visual Voicemail plays the message immediately. Clicking on a “Voicemail” calls Republic Wireless to check the voicemail (and requires a password). My question is, why do some voicemails arrive as Visual Voicemails while others require calling RW voicemail?

I tried a few things listed here:

Visual voicemail not working

and here:

Visual Voicemail Failed

As far as I can tell, those actions achieved nothing.

Is there any logic to when Republic Wireless will create a Visual Voicemail versus when it forces you to call the RW voicemail?

Thanks for reading,

Carl

[c1tobor]

Hi @carle

There has been a recent change for voicemail that was sudden. The relevant information is available below.

Change to Dial-in Access to Voicemail

[carle]

Hi @c1tobor

Thanks for your quick response. I am aware of the recent change for voicemail. However, that doesn’t really address the “problem” I am experiencing. I have received voicemails that are labelled as “Voicemail” and can only be heard by calling into RW Voicemail (so they are not Visual Voicemails) since June 2015. So this is not a new issue, and the problem did not coincide with the change to dial-in access to voicemail.

My question is, why are some voicemails arriving as Visual Voicemails and some are not? I.e., is there a known reason why a voicemail would not be shown as a Visual Voicemail?

Thanks again,

Carl

[carle]

Below is a screenshot (with numbers and locations removed) to show you what I am seeing. The first voicemail is labelled “Voicemail” and I can only access it by RW dial-in access. The second voicemail (the one with the number and the voicemail icon to the right of the green person icon) is a Visual Voicemail and can be listened to immediately without dial-in access. My question is, why is the second one a Visual Voicemail and the first one is not? Does it have something to do with anonymous numbers? Any other ideas?

Thanks,

Carl

[billg]

Just to find out if this has something to do with anonymous numbers try removing the phone number from which you are placing test calls from your contact list. This is an interesting problem. It strikes me that visual voicemail should work for any number.

[carle]

The number that has a Visual Voicemail is not in my contact list. Actually, all the numbers listed in that image happen to be from numbers not in my contact list.

[carle]

Just wanted to finalize this thread because it was brought to my attention by RW support that I had a fundamental misunderstanding of what was actually going on. The history is showing that the phone called (dialed into) RW Voicemail (note the arrows pointing towards Voicemail) - it is just another entry in the history of phone calls. So the user of this phone dialed in to RW Voicemail at some point in time and that was recorded into the phone history. I have never dialed in to RW Voicemail before and so I had never encountered this type of Voicemail entry on my own phone.

Note that if you touch these Voicemail entries, it again dials into RW Voicemail and then asks you for your password. So my belief that this was an actual voicemail (when it was not) was the real problem. And now I feel silly.

Thanks for all the responses!