Google Pixel, Take a Message

[Anonymous]

Has anyone with a Google Pixel managed to get the audio to play in Take a Message? For me the transcript is fine, but the play tab for the audio is greyed out, so I can read the messages but not hear them.

[N8te]

Finally got this sorted out. 

My voicemail was set to a 20 seconds delay. After calling customer service last week they said that the default is 30 seconds and there is no way to change this, even though mine was clearly set to a lower value. Anyway there was nothing they could do to try and alter this. 

So today I had them disable voicemail completely and re-enable it to see if it would fall back to the default 30 seconds, and it did. So now there is enough time for the Google service to answer the call before the Three voicemail kicks in. 

[jr0]

glad someone (you) were able to think outside of the box! well done.

If I remember well, I have an idea that the default timers of voice mail can be overriden by setting call forwarding. I remember seeing a post here and then found similar info on wikipedia (i.e what are the codes that one needs to dial)

[N8te]

Unfortunately none of the codes seem to work any more. One of the customer service agents had me enter one but it kept returning an error message. It would be a lot easier if we could just self manage these settings like most other networks. Even disabling it involves a call to Three.

[N8te]

I've just done a bit more messing around with this. 

On my second line/phone (P8P - Giffgaff) I turned off the carrier voicemail and Take a message works now with no user interaction. The issue seems to be that Take a message answers after the phone rings 9 times (on the callers side), which is longer than the carrier voicemail takes to answer (7 times). From my testing Three's voicemail also answers the call after the same 7 rings (I'm guessing this is a 15 seconds delay). Obviously this is no good if Take a message is waiting for 9 rings as Three's voicemail will always cut in first. 

Does anyone know if it's possible to increase the delay in which the Three voicemail answers? 20 seconds should probably be enough so that it is after the time it takes for Take a message to answer. 

I'd be interested if anyone else can test ringing their phone and see how long it takes for Take a message to answer, or if in fact Three's voicemail answers first. 

[Anonymous]

Just tried it. Take a Message answered first. Three voicemail didn't even get a look-in.

(Living life in the fast lane here on a Saturday night 🤣)

[N8te]

Thanks for testing it.

I wonder if there is a learning period where it automatically sets the delay. That's the only thing I can think of in this situation (with all else being equal).

I guess I will just have to wait and see at this point. I don't want to disable Three's voicemail just for this as obviously that works when my phone is off or has no signal. 

Thanks again. 

[N8te]

I have the transcription and audio working now, but I have a different issue. 

When testing this from another phone/line, the Three voicemail seems to pick up the call before Take a message (around 15 seconds/ 10 rings). If I manually press the decline button before then, Take a message works as expected.

Has anyone else experienced this issue? There doesn't seem to be any way to extend Threes voicemail delay or reduce the time it takes for Take a message to answer.

[Anonymous]

Hmmm, that's strange. I haven't experienced what you're describing, and hope you manage to get it sorted.

[N8te]

Yes it's strange.

So far I've tried it on two different phones (P10PXL and P8P) with Three and Giffgaff and both forward to the carrier voicemail after around 10 rings.