How does Sprint sync your real voicemail box with Visual Voicemail?

[NxNW]

Happily running CM7 with one issue:

If I dial my own number (or longpress "1" in the dialer) to access my real voicemail box, I have many "new" messages.

But I have been receiving, listening to, and deleting these same messages using the Sprint Visual Voicemail program installed as per the usual method (see http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=12219741&postcount=2 under "visual voicemail" for the one-sentence version).

Why are the two voicemail "boxes" not in sync?

I'm pretty convinced this is a bug-not-a-feature because it gives two different versions of the "truth" to anyone who uses both methods to check VM (because, say, your bluetooth headset doesn't allow you to hear locally-stored VVM audio files.. but that's another topic..). I'm not even sure what happens when this goes on for a month or two- do callers hear some kind of "mailbox full" announcement? Do the oldest messages just go away once they reach a certain age?

I have returned to a sense-based ROM and tried to "update my profile" and PRL, I have sent a VVM to [email protected], and I have gotten the little "toast" that says I have been provisioned successfully. But no sync. I have rebooted. I have waited overnight. I have turned off wi-fi to force 3G communication with Sprint. I have scoured the internet for these and other recommendations. Still no sync. The only thing I haven't done is called Sprint and asked them to get involved (which of course is a bit of a last resort considering we are talking about a rooted phone here).

So I'm asking for help from a) anyone who has experienced this and solved it and/or b) anyone who can shed some light on how Sprint VVM synchronization works.

Thanks in advance...

PS- I already know I can always "solve" my Sprint VVM issues by switching to Google Voice: I'm sure GV is great, but my question is not about GV. I'm just looking for basic information on the signalling method Sprint uses to synchronize your VVM with the cloud. Thanks!

 

[iamnotbrian]

I've been wondering and experiencing the same exact stuff that you mentioned, any input is appreciated here too!

 

[ausch30]

Happily running CM7 with one issue:

If I dial my own number (or longpress "1" in the dialer) to access my real voicemail box, I have many "new" messages.

After reading your post I pressed 1 to go into my voicemail and it said I had 12 messages. Never noticed this issue before (I never actually call for my messages, I just use the app), very strange. Unfortunately I don't know the answer.

 

[NxNW]

Thanks ausch- I should have cited your FAQ as another excellent one-sentence summary of the basic method for getting Sprint VVM to run on CM7. And then of course there's this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=982966 which spells it out a little more explicitly and, after getting a bunch of blog mentions at some point, had quite a bit of traffic for awhile. I originally reported this issue there but got no response after a few days so I just started up a new thread to get some more visibility.

 

[aimbdd]

I think you need another apk installed for that part to work.

This one. I think it is what updates your visual voicemail and deletes messages, not positive though.

 

[ausch30]

I think you need another apk installed for that part to work.

This one. I think it is what updates your visual voicemail and deletes messages, not positive though.

I just installed that through ES File Explorer, we'll see if it works.

I should have cited your FAQ as another excellent one-sentence summary of the basic method for getting Sprint VVM to run on CM7.

Lol, yeah when I was typing all that **** up I got lazy and just wrote it up real quick. Probably should have gone a little more in depth.

 

[NxNW]

I installed it too (thank you for the suggestion aimbdd) but it force closes a lot and generally does not seem to fix my issue.

I'm getting plenty of notifications (my VVM "widget" shows the right number of unheard messages and the stock android VM notification up in the status bar shows the right number as well), the version is 5.1.0.34, and everything seems to function pretty well with this one exception.

I see references to Sprint_App_Updater.apk in lots of places (here's an example: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=7246771&postcount=35 ) but it's not clear to me if the app is actually essential to the VM sync issue I'm talking about.

And one last thing, just a random quote (from http://www.evo4gforum.net/htc-evo-4g-how-to/visual-voicemail-9708/ ) from a person who had the exact *opposite* issue: he prefers using phone-call-based voicemail and wanted his visual voicemails to go away: "I did talk with Sprint and ... I asked them why are the messages that I delete on Sprint VM (#1) still going to VVM and not being deleted. No real answer except for that's the way the VVM app works. He assured me that if I delete a VVM that it will also delete it on Sprint's (#1), but for whatever reason it doesn't work the opposite way. "

This last sentence tells me there is supposed to be at least one-way sync.

I accept that the VVM app holds previously-downloaded audio files and it may not be desired (or even feasible) for Sprint to reach into your phone and delete a static audio file just just because you called into your voicemail and manually erased the original voicemail that spawned it. So maybe we will never have two-way sync.

But that quote above clearly promises that when things are functioning normally the mailboxes *do* sync in the direction I care about: if you delete a message from your phone, a signal goes back to the cloud so that the original is deleted there also.

 

[ausch30]

I think you need another apk installed for that part to work.

This one. I think it is what updates your visual voicemail and deletes messages, not positive though.

I just got a voicemail and it was still in Sprint's system after deleting it from the app so I don't think this fixes the problem. Thanks for the suggestion though.

 

[NxNW]

Today's PRL update did not change the behavior.

I might start casting about for answers outside the EVO 4G forum. Seems like it would be a generic Sprint issue that would apply to more than just EVO users..

 

[NxNW]

Well just to close this out, I did find a solution after posting in various other threads until someone came up with the simple suggestion of uninstalling and reinstalling.

So the issue that prompted my question is resolved and my voicemail boxes *do* sync.

But I still never did find out *how* they sync.

Seems strange the underlying sync mechanism isn't more widely understood. Guess I'll let it drop for now. Thanks to everyone who chimed in.

 

[KaliS-Pugilist]

Well just to close this out, I did find a solution after posting in various other threads until someone came up with the simple suggestion of uninstalling and reinstalling.

So the issue that prompted my question is resolved and my voicemail boxes *do* sync.

But I still never did find out *how* they sync.

Seems strange the underlying sync mechanism isn't more widely understood. Guess I'll let it drop for now. Thanks to everyone who chimed in.

question, how did you uninstall and reinstall this...was it from titanium backup or something similar?

 

[KaliS-Pugilist]

Nevermind, I found the fix/culprit (go sms) and now I'm all good.