Voice Mail on L5

Has anybody had success in getting Visual Voicemail to work on the L5 with Awesim?

I have setup voicemail, but the visual voicemail app cant retrieve the messages. Alternatively if there was just a UI indicator in the status bar - a little mailbox type sign or bell than a user would know they need to call their voicemail box (really it should be a native L5 pureos based notification).

  1. VVM App doesnt activate the service, its runs on the phone but cant activate with the AT&T network to clarify,
  2. it doesnt save the password in config file (Chris helpfully pointed out to stop the vvm service prior to editing)

From Matrix Conversation:
@kop316 thanks for the tip but unfortunately does not work or save password
[Modem Manager]
VVMEnabled=false
VVMType=AT&TUSAProprietary
VVMDestinationNumber=94183567
CarrierPrefix=##########
DefaultModemNumber=NULL
ProvisionStatus=2
IMSI=#####

[Settings]
MailboxHostname=GET
MailboxPort=143
MailboxUsername=##########"
MailboxPassword=password_invalid
MailboxActive=false
MailboxURI=mailboxURI.invalid
MailboxAuth=AUTH=invalid
UseMailboxInterface=false

Also:

but these are the sms messages it sends when i try to activate not sure what that meams “GET?AD=“vvm.mobile.att.net:5400?v=1010&S=U&s=5433&m=##########”” also notice the " after my phone number hope that doesnt cause the issue in config, so my password i am not adding the " after the password.

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As of now, AweSIM doesn’t support Visual Voicemail. @Kyle_Rankin is looking into what needs to be done to support it, then I can ensure vvmd supports the AweSIM carrier.

vvmd/vvmplayer currently supports T-Mobile USA (and related MVNOs) and Verizon USA (and MVNOs).

At one point it supported AT&T…but I think they changed around how they do VVM authentication so I don’t know if it works anymore. I have been tempted to fix it, but I’m not in the mood to spend 40$ to fix it.

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I can understand and it seems a good Purism type activity to drive instead of me or you 8)!

I implemented the desktop shortcut solution- in my case for voicemail. Is there a way- maybe Calls does not support that yet- to add pauses in so extensions (e.g. voicemail passwords) can be entered programatically:

MyNumber(+countrydigit+10digits)+8sec wait(minus the parentheses amd quotes)+my AT&T Voicemail Password Pin(7digits).

I have tried commas and # symbol but calls just ignores these, or maybe the desktop file doesnt feed all the values.

Ok maybe the calls app doesnt support pauses after trying to enter my number manually with # and extension which doesnt work, also , symbol is not accepted at all.

Another possibility is that the Librem 5 throws the # character at the modem and the modem is just dialing it!

DTMF supports 16 code points, namely 0-9 # * and 4 other codes that are conventionally A-D (but I don’t think I’ve ever seen A-D on a keypad). Dialling probably isn’t DTMF anymore anyway but old standards die hard.

So for a pause it has to be a character that is not dialled and that character either is implemented on the host (if possible) or passed to the modem and recognised and implemented on the modem.

I believe that “comma” is the de facto standard for a dialling pause. It should wait a number of seconds equal to the value of the modem register S8 (default 2). Obviously that relies on the comma being passed through by the Librem 5 to the modem.

The problem is that dialling just works completely differently these days.

Let us know how you get on.

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This topic reminds me of something that a few of my colleagues at work built. They started with an old traditional rotary dial telephone as a base. They removed the cord and most of the inside components, leaving behind the old ringer bell. They installed a new circuit board with a SIM card installed, along with a lot of other board mounted components, and a battery. When you picked up the handset, you got a traditional dial tone and could call out using the rotary dialer. When the phone rang, you could answer it by picking up the handset and holding it up to your ear. But there were no hard phone lines nor power cords attached. The dial-tone was added for the affect. But the phone was completely autonomous and cellular. The Applications Engineers wanted to show-off their new circuit-board-mounted cellular modem.

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Sometimes two steps backward will help you move one step forward! Sounds like we need to ask your collegues for that bit of modem code magic.

So entering my number # and pin results in an automated answer “your call cannot be completed as dialed. please check your number and dial again. US 01 LV” ill peruse the interweb to see what that means.

I’m curious about this configuration, too. That config file has the “MailboxActive” setting and so does the Visual Voicemail app. They both are false on mine, but I can find no documentation on what this means or how to activate the mailbox. Does anyone have any leads?

Also, I get those visual voicemail texts from AT&T, as well. Are those messages supposed to be intercepted and interpreted by vvmd?

The message seems to be delimited by ampersands (’&’). I get a few variables in my messages. Anyone know what they mean? I see variables:

  • ‘f’
  • ‘v’ - version?
  • ‘m’ - phone number
  • ‘p’, ‘P’ - often blank, maybe a unique ID?
  • ‘S’ - single letter, usually “I” for me and “U” in the previous post
  • ‘i’ - some ratio. It is usually the same among all messages for me
  • ‘t’ - Extra text, delimited by colons between fields

An example of a received text is below, with all numbers replaced with ‘#’, letters substituted with ‘@’ and text strings replaced with strings encapsulated in brackets ‘<>’, eg ‘<description>’. I mainly did that to protect me, as I don’t know what info is personal to me.

vvm.mobile.att.net:5400?f=#&v=####&m=##########&p=<mixed case, no space, often empty>&P=<same as 'p'>&S=@&s=####&i=###/###&t=#:<same as 'm'>
:@:CMSGROUP#####:ms##:<client/WEB/IMAP4>:#####

I see on vvmd gitlab page that there is a branch called ‘wip/att_fix’. So, that is where I’ll begin to look.

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Did you get anywhere with this?

All of the parsing stuff is here: https://gitlab.com/kop316/vvmd/-/blob/main/src/vvmutil.c#L469

I don’t have an AT&T SIM anymore, and I don’t really want to spend $50 to get the AT&T to work again.

If you need help too, feel free to hop on #opensourcemms:matrix.org (or OFTC if you like IRC)

Checking in, did you try vvmd with this? At one point it worked with AT&T.

If not, I am happy to work with you to fix it. I am on matrix in the #opensourcemms:matrix.org channel

I never got very far with it. I merged the main branch into the att_fix branch, checked the diff, and was promptly pulled off to something else in my personal life.

I might be losing AT&T today, though. If the port of my number is unsuccessful, then I’ll have AT&T a bit longer. I could then try and hop on for an hour or two of work this evening.

As an aside, I should also get on Matrix. It seems cool.

No worries, it happens!

As an FYI, I took all of the code from the att_fix branch and merged it into the main branch: https://gitlab.com/kop316/vvmd/-/merge_requests/34

I am pretty certain the only issue is that AT&T changed how it obfuscates it’s password code: https://gitlab.com/kop316/vvmd/-/issues/8

Assuming that is the case, and you have an Android Phone handy, we should be able to fix that.

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On my L5 (in Preferences for VVM), there’s a check mark next to VVMD Running, but an x next to Mailbox Active, which is presumably why it’s not working for me. Any idea how to make it work? Settings? I have Tello/T-Mobile and regular voicemail (calling 123) works.

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According to apt search both the player app and the daemon are out dated in the the PureOS repository.
vmd/byzantium 0.12-1pureos1 amd64
Visual Voicemail Daemon

vvmplayer/byzantium 1.5-1~pureos1 amd64
Visual Voicemail Player

Current Version updated in the GitLab page was updated a month ago.


I have not looked through it as of yet to see what has been changed but clearly the if you are getting the app from the app store it will not be up to date as with a lot of apps there. It seems to me that is you want the current version you will have to follow the README and build it yourself.

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Refreshing this thread - does anyone have vvm working with AweSIM these days? If so, what did you need to do to get there?

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Just wondering if anyone has succeeded with getting vvm running with the new AweSIM?
I have tried but not yet succeeded.

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I gave up trying to get this to work and I work for a telco that provides cell service, and I have access to the voicemail system that houses the cellular voicemail we use and could not get it to work. It seems like they want you to use an app instead so that means Apple or Android.

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I think someone will have to program something to dial your carrier voicemail, then use dual-tone generator to play new voicemail to a silent sink whilst simultaneously recording and indexing the messages against time and source phone numbers.

The first part has to be easy – I did it as a young punk on my C=64 using BASIC and AT commands.

The second part will be a challenge. My carrier, T-Mobile MVNO Mint Mobile, doesn’t even read the voicemail timestamp when it is played! I suppose that you could parse the info from the VMM SMS notifications for incoming voicemail.

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The message envelope is an option, but usually it gives you at least a timestamp I think. Not sure I only know about our voicemail system. All I wanted was just a notification of a voicemail, but that appears to be not doable at least when I tried to get it to work last year when I was messing with it (on both ends, the phone and the vmail system).

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