topic Re: Why is O2 spamming me with SMS whenever I restart my phone? in Discussions & Feedback

Why is O2 spamming me with SMS whenever I restart my phone?

PaddyL — Tue, 03 Sep 2024 16:04:24 GMT

Since I've been with O2 (I was moved over from Virgin Mobile over a year ago), voicemail has worked perfectly. I have no problems with it.

For the past few weeks, however, whenever I restart my phone (I do this every morning), O2 spams me with the following SMS several times:

Thanks for activating Visual Voicemail. Note: if you have data turned off, or can't get data coverage, you'll need to dial 901 to check for messages.

The attached screencast shows this morning's messages, ten of them received between 7:01 and 7:13. Sometimes, they're all on the trot like this morning, but sometimes they come in gradually over a period of about an hour.

It's rather irritating — Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! … So, I have to turn on my phone's Do Not Disturb until O2 has finished spamming me.

Why is O2 doing this, and more important, how can I get it to stop doing this?

Phone: Pixel 2XL

OS: Android 11

Thank you

Re: Why is O2 spamming me with SMS whenever I restart my phone?

Enlli — Tue, 03 Sep 2024 16:07:39 GMT

Turn Visual Voicemail off in your Vocmail settings found in the phone dialer.

That will sort it

It's hardly spam

Re: Why is O2 spamming me with SMS whenever I restart my phone?

MI5 — Tue, 03 Sep 2024 16:07:43 GMT

@PaddyL

Open the phone app.

Go to settings >voicemail and turn off visual voicemail.

Re: Why is O2 spamming me with SMS whenever I restart my phone?

PaddyL — Sun, 08 Sep 2024 15:02:14 GMT

@Enlli and @MI5

(Sorry for the late response. The forum didn't email me, even though I ticked, "Email me when someone replies".)

Thank you for the advice. I don't want to turn off visual voicemail; I like its functionality. I just don't understand why, in the past few weeks, it has started this bizarre behaviour of sending me multiple text messages whenever I restart my phone! It didn't used to do that before.

The record so far (at least, when I've bothered to count) is 14 duplicate text messages in under half an hour.

I suppose that I should contact O2 Customer Support to ask if they have a solution to this.

Re: Why is O2 spamming me with SMS whenever I restart my phone?

MI5 — Sun, 08 Sep 2024 15:19:42 GMT

Must be another of O2's "improvements" @PaddyL 😉

Re: Why is O2 spamming me with SMS whenever I restart my phone?

madasaf1sh — Sun, 08 Sep 2024 17:21:12 GMT

It's a bug with how android reconnects to the VVM service on some of the Pixel Devices, as don't get it on my Xperia 1V but used to have it on my Pixel Fold..

And to be fair your 2XL is 7 years old and won't pick up any of the software updates to fix stuff like this as you can only go to Android 11

I would have a look on the Pixel Community as sure I have read this happening on other networks.. @PaddyL

Re: Why is O2 spamming me with SMS whenever I restart my phone?

PaddyL — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 13:45:04 GMT

Thank you, @madasaf1sh . Yes, the phone is getting on a bit, although it's still a good phone! I suppose that I'll have to start looking at a new one soon.