Inactive Feature Our office had a power outage and now our phones are not working properly. We are able to make and receive calls but we can't check our voicemail. When we do check our voicemail it says that it is an inactive feature. Also when we receive calls all the phones ring when only one phone is suppose to ring. When we try calling the other extensions on intercom it rings but the voicemail doesn't work. Please HELP.

F983 and F985 are voice mail access feature codes. Try rebooting your voice mail system to see if the unit recovers. There is no switch so you will need to unplug the power to the VMS to reboot.

Dear customer..here is the solution

Sometimes when you put a new (or alternate) voicemail system on a Norstar switch, The feature codes that accessed the old system stay in the KSU memory. If this is the case all of your feature codes will appear inactive even if the voicemail system is operating correctly.
To fix this issue you need to run an External Feature test (XFtest) to identify and remove the leftover codes from your KSU memory. You must have a programming set to access this menu (M7310, M7324, T7316).
Power down the Voicemail unit. Remove connection to voicemail ports from KSU.
1. Press [Feature] **938378 (XFtest). The password will be 266344 (Config).
2. Your display will read Feat code: and you will have options First and Exit.
3. Press First. The first stored feature code will appear, and you will have options Test, Back, and Next.
4. Press Test. Your options will read Remove and OK. Press Remove.
5. Once the feature code is removed, press Next to go to the next code.
6. Do this with all codes until your display reads None Registered
7. Release
Restore connections to the voicemail ports from the KSU. Power the system back up.
The feature codes will be restored to the correct defaults with the completion of the voicemail power-up cycle.

thank u

Hi. Inactive feature often means that there's a problem with your connection to the call pilot. Do you have lights on your call pilot? Did you assign a mailbox to the extension you're working on? Did you remember to connect the call pilot to a station port?

If you are getting inactive feature when entering feature 983 the phone system and voice mail unit are not communicating. This usually requires a power reset to clear. Or the voice mail unit is in trouble and a vendor needs to be called.

Sounds like the voicemail either is disconnected from the phone system or has lost power to the voicemail.Open the cover to the voicemail and see if there are any lights on in the system.If so then disconnect the power tho the voicemail for about 30 seconds. the voicemail could take up to 10 minutes to fully reboot.

Cycle the power on the voicemail system and that should solve the problem. If you still get the "Feature inactive" message, you may have to replace the voicemail power supply or get the voicemail system repaired.
Good Luck!

Try powering off the voicemail system and and then power it on again. I've had it happen many times that after a power failure they just don't boot up correctly.

It sounds like the phone lost its programming of feature buttons. To reprogram them, press "Feature (star) 3" press the button to be programmed, and enter the feature code for the feature to be programmed:
Transfer -- Feature 70
Call Fwd (to mailbox) -- Feature 984
Call Fwd (to another ext.) -- Feature 4
Transfer caller to mailbox -- Feature 986
Page (general) -- Feature 60

Hope this helps!

Is the phone system working but the voicemail did not come back up ? Can you tell me what kind of voicemail you have, ist should be marked on the voicemail system ?

If the feature codes show as inactive, the phone system is not seeing the voicemail. Hopefully this has been fixed by now, but you may need to call in a Vendor.