Can't activate Visual Voicemail or text Shortcode numbers. Linked?

[Grinlord]

Hi All,

I have read about others with similar problems as me and been trying all the suggestions for weeks but still not solving it. Looking for new ideas to try please.

Firstly this all worked fine until early February where I was tempted away from o2 to Sky Mobile, but within 3 days I realised I would have to pay extra for call waiting, and they didn't support Visual Voicemail, so I switched back. My phone is a fully updated Sony Xperia 5 ii.

Firstly I can not activate Visual Voicemail. I was getting an automated response of "Sorry your number doesn't support visual voicemail" but these have stopped arriving. My Visual Voicemail page on the Phone app just says "Can't update visual voicemail".

I have reset my messaging and phone apps, restored default versions, re-updated, rebooted, disabled and reenabled voicemail, and spoken to customer services who several times I have assured me that they have magically enabled a feature that the previous rep didn't, which never helps.

Having read that there is a shortcode SMS number of 9011 you can send the word "state" to I found that this doesn't work either, nor does reporting spam to 7726. Both respond with "phone number formatted incorrectly". I have checked that my own number is set correctly within the messages app.

I can send normal SMS messages ok, and I can dial 901 to use voicemail, but VVM is so handy, and it did work, so I would like it back!

Hope someone has some more ideas for me please. I have meanwhile sent a message to O2 via their Facebook Page as I have seen this suggested on the forum. Customer Services are so slow and ultimately unhelpful. I have called Tech Support but they couldn't fix it either and the wait time is dreadful.

Thanks. Alex.

[Paddiewack]

From what I can gather, you need to add the bolt on (either Android or as in my case iPhone)so the bolt on is called I data,if yours is an Android it may be called something different. This can be arranged through your My O2 app. Once that’s on your account you can activate Visual Voicemail through your phones settings menu.

[MI5]

iData is only for iPhones and VVM is only currently supported on some Samsung devices as far as I am aware.

[Grinlord]

I appreciate that my phone is not on the official support list for VVM, but I would love to know why it worked for most of last year!

[MI5]

One of those questions that we may never know the answer to @Grinlord