Hi - I have an urgent issue that I'm trying to get to Vapi support with - and I can't seem to post in that support channel.
Voicemail Detection Override — Calls Ending Before Voicemail Tool Can Fire
Assistant ID: 3b28bf5e-04f8-412d-84bb-faac27d87047
Org ID: 5940c407-7a4a-426c-b589-9b73072111a5
Phone Number ID: 08e4b8a3-0a07-4975-8337-601837472d93
Problem
Outbound calls that hit voicemail are being terminated with endedReason: voicemail before our voicemail tool has a chance to fire and leave a message. This happens even with voicemailDetection completely removed from the assistant configuration.
What We've Tried (in order)
Twilio AMD (voicemailDetection.provider: twilio, machineDetectionTimeout: 5) — Gloria spoke her firstMessage over the VM greeting every time. 3/4 calls ended as silence-timed-out, not even classified as voicemail.
Vapi detection (voicemailDetection.provider: vapi) — Tried multiple times, same results.
Voicemail tool (type: voicemail, beepDetectionEnabled: true) — Added to assistant with strong prompt instructions to detect VM greetings and trigger the tool. Tool works correctly when it gets the chance (see passing calls below).
Removed hardcoded firstMessage — Set firstMessage: "" and firstMessageMode: assistant-speaks-first-with-model-generated-message to give detection time before Gloria speaks.
Disabled voicemailDetection entirely — Set enabled: false, then fully removed the voicemailDetection object from the assistant.
Cleared voicemailMessage — Removed the static TTS message to prevent it from competing with the voicemail tool.