How To: Fix Visual Voicemail After AT&T Tethering Hack
9:45 am, July 20th, 2009, Leander Kahney
Over the weekend, writer MG Siegler of TechCrunch opened a can of online worms with a furious rant entitled AT&T Is A Big, Steaming Heap Of Failure.
Complaining he hasn’t received Visual Voicemail on his iPhone for weeks, Siegler joins a growing chorus of pundits dissatisfied with AT&T, including Gizmodo, Wired and GigaOm.
But as some Techcrunch commenters point out, Visual Voicemail is bolloxed by a popular tethering hack, which allows the iPhone to share its internet connection with a tethered computer.
“I enabled the tethering hack weeks ago when it came out,” says one commenter. “It broke visual voicemail, so I reverted it. One heck of a coincidence if everyone’s voicemail spontaneously broke the same week that a tethering hack came out that breaks visual voicemail.”
Siegler didn’t respond to a query asking if he had tried the tethering hack, and he makes no mention of it in the comments to his post, where he engages in some back and forth with TC readers.
Either way, here’s a very simple fix to get Visual Voicemail back, while still enabling the tethering hack.
The popular AT&T tethering hack is easily enabled by visiting sites like BenM.at using mobile Safari. Trouble is, it changes the iPhone’s .ipcc carrier settings file and frequently disables Visual Voicemail, but not always.
To check if you’ve been affected, call your own number to access your voicemail box. If you have messages waiting, Visual Voicemail is bolloxed.
But it’s easily fixed. On the iPhone, go to: Settings > General > Reset and hit the Reset Network Settings button.
When the iPhone reboots, VVM is working again and the tethering hack still works.
Posted by Leander Kahney in How-To, News, iPhone | Comment on this article
Thanks for that information. That resolved my problem. =)
Tristan Pipo, on July 20th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
It could be very well true that Mr. Siegler hacked his phone to enable tethering.
But, he couldn’t buy tethering from at&t!
Which, i am sure he would have at a reasonable price. So, either way, it is still at&t failing to meet the needs of the customers, with no reasonable explanation.
I think his article is more an indictment of the communication carriers and their oligopolistic and subtle collusive practices, with at&t (and Verizon) being some of the most egregious of carriers.
The wireless and cable carriers main and only focus should be to have usable fast, reliable networks. NOT phones, Ring Tones, Music Stores, Movies, Shows or any other content. They seem to do nothing well and everything they offer is below average or worse!
Maybe if they just concentrate on one item (THE NETWORK) they can get that right!
Neuromancer 61, on July 20th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
P.S.
Thanks for the fix
Neuromancer 61, on July 20th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
WRONG! That “simple” fix does not fix voice mail! Sorry try again!
Skeeter, on July 20th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
It worked for me,
Skeeter sucks.
Actually Ive been jacking with my phone for 2 days now.
I found out that its not just Tethering, this morning I restored my iPhone, got the Benm.at Hack and tethering was working with visual voicemail when using USB.
It was actually setting up bluetooth tethering which broke visual voicemail.
Either way
General> Network> Reset> Reset Network Settings
Did the trick!!
Thanks for the fix. I spent hours on the phone with att and apple before I started googling the changes which I did over the last month.
Lesson: ALWAYS start with google!
Sean Reynolds, on July 21st, 2009 at 9:59 am
I tried a number of different methods in an attempt to enable both tethering and VVM, including this one, a few weeks ago. None of it worked. If this works for you, great, but it probably won’t work for everybody.
cl
Chris, on July 21st, 2009 at 11:37 am
Quick google search found this and voila, it worked. Had to reboot twice though as I got Searching… in top left where ATT bars usually is. Thanks.
Tony, on July 21st, 2009 at 3:26 pm
The fix worked perfect. You did in minutes what too afternoon to the bleeding hours of night. Either way I git $50.00 credit from AT&T deducted immediately from bill. This is what should be done by all that have been effected. Call and state that it was part of our plan.
Please spend only a short time on phone ask for a fix and then a credit. You don’t even have to cry though I had my kid step up. I pay for her drama class. Paid back.
punkrockmillionaire, on July 21st, 2009 at 8:22 pm
This didn’t work for me. tried it twice. Anyone found another solution?
Tim, on July 22nd, 2009 at 5:27 pm
Boo hiss. Doesn’t work.
piedra_de_locura, on July 24th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Thank you, you are the man!
Ken, on July 24th, 2009 at 11:51 am
The fix that restored my VVM: On your iPhone, go to Settings > General > Network > Cellular Data Network. Under “Visual Voicemail,†there’s a field called APN. Enter this text in that field: acds.voicemail
Good luck
DC, on July 25th, 2009 at 10:33 am
DC’c fix worked for me.
Thanks.
MH, on July 29th, 2009 at 7:35 am
Worked for me but I had to do it twice. Will up if it stops working again. I wonder what will happen if I try to create a tethering connection again.
AJ, on July 29th, 2009 at 9:31 am
It didnt to the trick on my phone, i’ve rest about five straight and still nothing.. and since it updated the carrier file i dont have the option of “Settings > General > Network > Cellular Data Network..” Some one pls help!!!
LS, on July 29th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
Yeah, My Iphone 3g with the 3.0 software update and the installed benm.at tethering option doesn’t have the “Settings > General > Network > Cellular Data Network..†either!!! I’ve tried restoring the whole phone, resetting network settings and everything else and nothing seems to work!
I Just want the whole option OFF of the phone!!! I dont care about tethering anymore after this voicemail headache!
TH, on July 30th, 2009 at 10:50 pm
To remove the IPCC profile go to Settings/General and you’ll see Profiles: AT&T, select that and you can then remove the profile. Your phone will start working again and Tethering will dissappear if you ‘click’ it. Your voicemail will all come pouring in.
I do not believe there is a working file for VVM and Tethering for not jailbroken phones. I also have never seen this elusive edit carrier settings from my phone (non jailbroken). AT&T 3gs
TeQ, on July 31st, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Here is the TRUE FIX for AT&T, Visual Voicemail and Tethering without jailbreaking. I finally tried it enough times and it works in this scenario:
Install the “pre-configured” AT&T Profile from the Ben.M site using mobile safari from your iphone.
MOST IMPORTANT PART!
DO NOT REBOOT YOUR PHONE UNTIL YOU MANUAL RESET NETWORK SETTINGS – SETTINGS -> GENERAL -> RESET -> RESET NETWORK SETTINGS.
If you reboot the phone before doing this, it seems to permanently save the wrong VMM settings. If you reset the network settings before rebooting, it reverts back to the old APN config but leaves the Tethering app installed.
I’ve tested this 10 times now and it seems to be the right steps. It did not work for me until I followed these steps exactly.
Good luck!
TeQ, on August 1st, 2009 at 5:46 am
Link to the Fix Explanation:
http://blog.teqlab.com/2009/08/at-iphone-tethering-visual-voicemail-no.html
TeQ, on August 1st, 2009 at 5:50 am
DC’s fix worked for me. Showed all the voicemails that I haven’t been able to receive and also was able to use tethering for my laptop. Thank you DC!
I have the iPhone 3G with 3.0 OS.
Chris B, on August 3rd, 2009 at 3:44 am
This worked very well for me and fixed VVM.
Buckshot, on September 12th, 2009 at 8:52 am
Remove the tethering hack then try resetting network settings.
Dave, on September 14th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Updating to 3.1 takes away the VMM APN setting and doing the Network reset doesn’t work either. Even full restore doesn’t work for everyone.
Anyone have any other ideas for turning VMM back on under 3.1?
Btw, I used the hack that mounts as a disc image, not the BenM hack for tethering.
AnthonyB, on September 15th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
The reset worked for me, I did one of those hacks to enable MMS early and didn’t even realize my VM was disabled until someone mentioned it. When I reset my settings I had 14 new messages waiting.
THANKS
JD, on September 27th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
I have the latest Iphone with 3.1 installed. I suppose the only option I have to get VVM back is to do a complete restore. However before i do that i wanted to see what will happen if i remove that US ATT- BenM.at profile? Will i lose any info?
ATT itself told me the only way is a complete restore. Dont really do that just yet
thanks
sascha
SD, on October 12th, 2009 at 2:16 am
Sascha,
Just remove the profile. This is the only way to get this off your phone. No restore needed…tested on 2 different phones. After no profile and no problems.
GM, on October 15th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
I had the same issues above – v3.1.x, no menu for “Settings > General > Network > Cellular Data Network..”, and the RESET NETWORK SETTINGS did not work either.
However, once I removed the profile it immediately fixed VVM.
Greg, on November 11th, 2009 at 4:56 am
actually the unsigned profile that is loaded as a hack to enable tethering is the problem. Long talk with a good friend of mine at AT&T support name not displayed told me that any unsigned profile will cause visual vitrual voicemail to stop working…. the key would be to figure out how to sign the new profile so everything will work. I removed the profile and hard reset my phone today home plus the power button and VVM returned upon rebooting. reinstalled the profile for tethering and VVM stopped the profiles must be signed that is the key to success here.
HRO, on November 19th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
and Oh how to remove the profile is settings, general, profile,
If the profile is signed it will not appear if it is unsigned it appears here just below the International submenu.
HRO, on November 19th, 2009 at 10:19 pm