Issues with MMS on Verizon HTC 8x

[derTorbs]

So here is my story. So I was excited as hell when GDR2 came out for the HTC 8X on verizon because it finally meant that I could use group messaging on my phone, a feature I had been sorely missing. I was thrilled, for a while. After a good month or so I started noticing that I would only get about 2/3 group messages and only maybe 1/3 group picture messages. I double checked with verizon and they assured me that group messaging was alive and well on their network. So I turned to HTC to see if they could help me troubleshoot what was going on with what seemed to be a phone related issue. What followed was over a month of back and forth with some of the most unprofessional, ill-informed, and generally un-helpful people I have ever had the misfortune to deal with. At first, it seems like everything was progressing as per the usual with information on my phone, information on what types of messages were dropping, and exercises involving multiple shut downs of my phone, turning off then turning on features, etc. You know, the normal troubleshooting procedure. Anyway, a week went by with no reply to my issue other than "we are investigating the issue" and I sent in an inquiry to see what the status was of my ticket. The response I got back was absolutely baffling:

"Thank you for getting back to me, derTorbs. I apologize, for any inconvenience that you may have experienced. After reviewing the information it is our understanding that you have an HTC 8X from Verizon wireless. Let me assure you that we do apologize for any confusion and inconvenience that this may have caused. At this moment this feature is not available in the HTC 8X due Verizon?s decision. I know that is very important to have this feature available. You can contact Verizon if they have any update available in regards to group text messages. Thanks for your continuous support of our products and services. Should you require further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us through Contact Us or call us at +1-866-449-8358 from 8AM to 1AM ET, 7 days a week"

Obviously this guy just completely ignored all of the information previously worked on and defaulted back to some pre-baked answer before GDR2 hit. I was a bit flabbergasted. I attempted to inform them that we had already verified that the feature was included after the update and that was what we were trying to troubleshoot in the first place. Here is the most recent response:

"derTorbs, first of all I would like to introduce myself, my name is Alejandro and I will be helping you since today is Andre?s day off.

I would like to let you know I have taken a look at all the information and troubleshooting you have been given. At this point what I would like to advice you is the following. To contact Verizon Wireless, and verify with them about the feature for the Group Messaging (MMS) has been remove. Also if you wish we can proceed to troubleshoot the issue you are having sending and receiving MMS, which I also recommend to contact the carrier make sure thi feature is working and there are no outages on their end.

Remember you are the most important part of HTC and I want to thank you for your continuous support of our products and services. Should you require further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us through Contact Us or call us at +1-866-449-8358 from (8 Am ? 1 Am) ET, 7 days a week.

Thank you for being a member of our HTC community and I wish you a good day!"

Riddled with spelling and punctuation errors, this lazy answer has just convinced me that HTC cares absolutely ZERO for its customers. I run a service center myself, and I can tell you that this sort of lazy, uninformed response would not be tolerated by any company doing even a halfhearted attempt at doing QA. This leads me to believe that the company gives not a single f*** and is therefore not worth my time.

/rant finished

Long story short, I just couldn't believe how far one of my favorite companies has fallen. This time next year, I will be a loyal Nokia/MSoft fan.

-derTorbs

 

[moegumby]

Don't knock the 8x, Nokia hardware replacement is far worse according to Verizon replacement dept. Its a GDR2 problem. Along with wi-fi issues too. My 8x fuctioned fine until the update. Just have to wait for GDR3.

 

[Microsoftjunkie]

I put blame on Verizon. Its usually only Verizon customers complaining of that group messaging featuring. Others bought that world version 8x off contract and they work fine on other carriers. Couldn't you get it unlocked, or isn't it unlocked, and go to another carrier? Contract?

 

[markk132]

i had this issue (unable to receive mms reliably) for the past 5 months and i finally found the fix for it. it's actually somewhere on the boards, but i'll just explain how to fix it. i had a Verizon 8x and they moved me to a Lumia 928 and it still didn't help. It's actually a Windows Phone issue and the way it handles the backing up of your text messages/mms messages. Sign into your outlook email on your computer, click on messaging history on the left pane, and then go up to the address bar URL of your browser and just delete the last character of the URL (for me, its the letter b) and then hit enter. You should now see every single text message you have ever sent or received ever since you've had text message backup enabled on your windows phone. anyway, you have to clear out that WHOLE folder. click on select all and clear out every single item in that folder, every single message. once you do that, (it takes awhile depending on how many messages are in there, i had upwards of 50,000 messages across about a year) you should receive all MMS's normally. try it and let me know if you have any questions, but it should work. It worked for me, and i had this issue since like March.

 

[markk132]

Keep in mind though you might lose your emails in clearing out that folder. I lost all my inbox and most of my sent items. So back some of that stuff up if you need it.

 

[getalex]

this is what i'd hate to do to "resolve" the issue.. but it seems may be the problem. i just dont want to delete this and STILL have issues. pointless dataloss then. Wish there was an official response from Microsoft regarding this bug/issue/defect.

 

[markk132]

I created a new folder and moved everything out of the messaging history folder and into that new folder, just so I don't lose it. That should still solve your problem. The idea is clearing the messaging history folder.

 

[etphoto]

I've never understand the group message debate. Al least on my HTC8x I've been sending group messages out since I bought it back in January. I'm on Verizon as well.