Outage Update March 1, 2023

[DS-VisibleMgr]

We’re aware of an outage impacting voice calls, text messages and data. We are working to resolve it immediately. If you are experiencing issues with service please power cycle your phone, as this resolves most issues.

update from Visible March 2, 2023

Hi there. Our service has been restored. If you’re still experiencing any issues, please try power cycling your device. Still not working? Reach out to us via chat at http://visible.com.

[Solutions]

Network refresh to fix. I am eSIM

[Umalum]

Which Facebook page did you message? Visible telecommunications company?  I don’t see a page for visible support.

[UCONNCASS]

Yep sent them a message and said fix or I will move carriers.  My answer was "we respect and understand your decision.   Eniko 

[UCONNCASS]

I have been on hold for chat for over 2 hours then it went off line.  I am done with these assholes.  

[Solutions]

I used FB Messenger my wait was about 5 mins.  Chatted and they resolved it for me

[Umalum]

Whi did you Facebook message?  Visible telecommunications company?  I don’t see a Visible support Facebook page

[Solutions]

When you go the Visible App. Click on the Question mark. At the bottom of the page it says Reach Out with an icon for Facebook and one for twitter. When you click on the one for Facebook it takes your straight to messenger where you can directly message them vs waiting for the chat. 

[Solutions]

You can also from the Messenger app click on their profile and be directed right to the page. This will ask for your name and email address. If you can receive text they will send you and account request. If not they will send it to you email you gave that matches what’s on your account. Profile. Once verified they can assist you. Hope this help you in getting through a little faster. 

[Talk0]

I waited for FB chat for about 10 mins with no reply, but then my 2 hour wait finally got me to the front of the line on the website Chat and an agent got with me there. (Where a reprovision fixed things like for others.)

[UCONNCASS]

Same here but for 3 hours

[zstinchcomb5]

Not happy

[D_happy23]

I tried the suggestion about powering off taking out visible’s sim and put a different one in the power on ect. I put the visible sim back in and it didn’t change anything 

[Valcrest25]

PHONE FIXED!

Finally got through to Chat support and they will ask you to check that your phone’s software is up to date. So do that first. Then they’ll ask if you powered it off and on, turned off roaming and if you have a physical SIM card. If you are on the device you are chatting about, 

let them know that as well. In the end, after I told her I had done all of those things prior to getting on chat she said “then all that’s left to do is for you to text the word TRANSACT to 67777. Then she took about 3 minutes to do something on her end and then told me that alls that was left was for me to power my phone down for 30 seconds and that when I powered it back on it would work. She gave me a ticket # to use in case it didn’t work, so that the next chat support person could pick up where she and I left off. It worked and I even asked her if everyone ends to get into chat to fix their issues and she said yes. So get in line and stay in there until you get through. Pay attention to your phone. It doesn’t tell you how far you’re in the queue until you get to 49 or less person ahead of you. 

[lizschaff]

Just waited like 3 hours for chat and boom all of a sudden my window refreshed and I'm not in line anymore.  This is horrible!

[not_optimistic]

Just did the airplane mode on/off thing and received my first text in days from a non-visible account.

[zennn]

Is that all you did? Or were you working with a customer support person and they did something on the Visible system side? Thanks.

[not_optimistic]

I wasn't working with anyone.  I've done airplane, power, chicken dance...all the things... for the past couple of days so it seems they, or verizon, is getting things back to normal.

[zennn]

Me too! I just got a 2FA code while trying to login somewhere that is configured for it. I'm stunned. I have not worked with a customer support person at all but I just toggled airplane mode on and off a few minutes ago after my signal appeared to be out. Thought it was due to where I am atm.

[Jenx]

My issues was finally resolved after many useless hours dealing with the chat system. I received an email where they told me they tried to call me on my nonfunctional phone and I didn't answer (good one visible!)

Later I guess they realized that was not going to work and they sent me an email that told me to remove the sim with the phone powered on, then turn the phone off. Turn the phone back on with the sim removed. Then insert the sim with the phone powered on. This did not work on first attempt and in fact gave a message that the sim is unreadable. However I did it about four times. On the fourth attempt it worked and my phone worked again.

I absolutely would not send a message to the 67777 short code listed above. That is sketchy at best as short codes are usually used for advertising purposes.

Remove the sim with the phone powered on. Turn phone off. Turn it on. Insert sim. I repeat: I had to do it several times before it worked.

Finally, shame on VERIZON who purchased visible for creating this mess and failing to provide adequate customer support to fix it!

[Solutions]

The 67777 number is just to get the link chat with them. The rep had me do I just check to see if I would get a reply an it worked. The number is valid. 

[hanistor]

Airplane mode on/off worked for me, too! Thanks so much!!!!

[VisiDB]

i had to wait for about 2 hours, but Brian in support fixed the issue with my 3 phones in about 10 minutes. All networks have occasional issues. Patience is a good thing. If it keeps happening, that's a problem. Right now, just a hiccup. Deal with it, work with them. Worked for me.

[lanhub]

Issue just got resolved…by switching to Xfinity mobile. Now I can get back to work after taking a half day off to switch carriers this since I need 2FA to get into my work apps. 

 
I understand outages happen but a multi-day outage with minimal comms is unacceptable. Visible was great for me when it worked and I recommended the service to friends, but like any brand relationship, how they treat their customers during the down times is  telling. I no longer have any loyalty to this brand and will dissuade others from using it. 

[Talk0]

Heck ya!! I’ll be moving service as soon as I can as well. Unfortunately I can’t port out for awhile because I just signed up two weeks ago. 

[Jenx]

We all need to remember that Visible was purchased by Verizon. Verizon is a mega corporation and there is no excuse for what is happening to us right now. Verizon could fix this and they aren't.

[Talk0]

Finally had success after my 2 hour wait with Chat today. Same as everyone else, the reprovision or reset they did worked. 

I asked if this would have been fixed on its own if I hadn’t have contacted Chat and she told me “We are working on an automatic solution for all our members, however this is being solved manually once the members chat until now.”

I then told her that Visible needs to let their customers know that somewhere and let us know an update. I told her the lack of communication is as frustrating as the actual technical problem at hand. She said she agrees and would pass it to the communication team…. Ya like they aren’t aware they’ve not said anything. 

[Talk0]

Is it just me or did they remove the “Kudos” button for replies in this thread?

[Dingtastic]

I found a short-term solution! My wife's phone has had this same problem receiving texts (calls in/out, sending texts, and data worked still), so after lots of reading and desperation, I tried upgrading her plan to the Visible+ tier ($45/mo), and rebooted her phone and everything is working again after a few minutes. Previous reboots and re-seating the SIM didn't work either. My phone, meanwhile, is on the older party-pay plan, and has had no issues, so it seems like this might be just affecting the newer $30/mo plan somehow.

Obviously, this is not an acceptable "solution" long-term, but it may help Visible figure out where the problem is. Also, if you're feeling *frustrated* as we were, this may at least make your phone work again until they get the real problem fixed. It cost me about $10 to upgrade mid-cycle, so it's not a terribly expensive fix in the interim at least, and I'm hoping we can drop back to the $30 plan soon since we aren't in a big city where we can take advantage of 5GUW.

[zennn]

Thanks for sharing. Very interesting. I thought a new SIM is required for that upgrade. Did you have to get or update an eSIM? Just curious. 

[Njgmom5]

No. It all just came back up! Can receive texts now. I hope the fix sticks 

[Dingtastic]

Instant upgrade online, same SIM, just required a reboot and it was upgraded a few minutes later.

[Njgmom5]

Doesn't work. Tried numerous times. Can't get into my banking without text capability! This is a major issue for a lot of people! 

[VisibleAnyone]

If you have to use the Chat feature for support. Try to do it on a PC rather than the App. The queue's can be hours long and the App will drop you and back to the end of the line you go. 
When you're within 50 people ahead of you you'll start to see where you are in the queue. That doesn't happen until the blue line has gone almost all the way across the screen. Then when you're within 5 people of being helped, you'll get a window that pops up and asks if you're still there. If you don't respond to that within about 30 seconds, you'll be dropped from the queue and you won't be helped. Click the Yes, I'm still here and then you'll be helped. It took about 10 minutes with the live person for them to reset my SMS communications after providing my IMEI numbers to them. I have NOT received any SMS messages that were sent during this outage. They said I would, but I have my doubts.

Lets face it, you're using Visible because it's cheap. The fact you can't talk to anyone sucks and their help queue's are horrendously long. We get what we pay for.

[MacchewJax]

Same thing happened to me. I was told I would get all the missing text messages but it's been over 6 hours and I have not seen any old test messages.

[inVisibleUser]

These steps worked on our phones to my amazement!

• Turned off phone
• Removed SIM card
• Placed old SIM card from a different carrier into phone
• Powered on
• Timed once fully booted for 10 minutes
• Powered off
• Placed Visible SIM card into phone
• Powered on

After a couple of minutes by SMS messages came through from that point. 

It is important to note that the queued/previous SMS messages did not come through.

[Mr518]

What the Frig?  Where are the updates?  Lack of texting is a deal breaker.  Looks like we get what we pay for.  

[Mr518]

How about an update?  No texting is not acceptable.   Looks like we're getting exactly what we paid for - cheap lousy service.. 

[sbatson24]

Does anyone have an update??? I haven't heard from Visible. SILENCE. I have tweeted at them and sent them a Facebook message. NOTHING!

[mikeberg70]

After a 3 hour chat wait, they fixed it. She had to do stuff with my account settings and then had me do a couple "Airplane Mode" toggles, and finally restart my phone, so doing that without their help is useless, I know, I tried it all. You can't use your phone to chat with them, it will never get to a live agent. You can't verify your account on a PC online either, because you can't verify your account without a text verification code. You have to go through the generic chat on Visible's website, type in "I need a real, live person" to get past the robot. All the texts sent to you over the last 2 days are gone forever and anyone that texted you during the outage now thinks you ignored them. All the texts you tried to send never went though, and will not. That was my experience, hope some of this info helps.

[mikeberg70]

One other thing, I noticed a lot of people could fix this with a SIM card pull. Well, my Pixel6 does not have a sim card, exclusively uses eSIMs. I tried disabling my eSIM and re-enabling it, to no avail. I did not, however, reboot between, so maybe that would have worked. Food for thought while you wait 3 hours on chat hold. BTW, keep the chat window on top, open and an eye on it, once you hit 50th place in line, it gives you 30 seconds to verify you still want help or (I assume) it will kick you off. It did beep at me, luckily I had my computer's sound on.