Unnaceptable Text Messaging Issue

[David Edgewater]

This used to happen about twice a month, now it is happening about twice a week.

My phone will randomly not send or receive text messages. And it gives me zero notice that this is happening.

I'll go a couple days without receiving a text message. Usually that doesn't happen. I'll talk to a friend and they will ask why I never responded to their text messages. Um, what? So I'll restart my phone. And then I'll receive like 10 messages from different people that were sent through the last couple of days. So dumb.

Or I'll be sending out text messages, wondering why I'm not getting an responses. I'll call a friend and say hey, I texted you about this or that and ask why they didn't respond. They will say that they never received any such messages. I'll restart my phone. And then they all send.

This happens to me on my Lumia 635 on ATT in Fresno, CA. The same thing happens to one of my friends who also has a Lumia 635, but on T-Mobile's network.

The problem is so ridiculous that my friend and I have started time-stamping our own messages. When I woke up this morning, I saw that I got 3 messages from him last night at 1:30am and another 4 at 2:30am, which I thought was pretty weird because he never stays up that late on weeknights. Then I noticed that he had time-stamped his messages at 9:30pm, 9:40pm, 10:30pm, etc. So no, my friend didn't stay up late, he had sent all those messages the previous day.

I'm so fed up with the 635 at this point. If I can't get this problem fixed, and without a flagship in sight, I'm ready to give the iPhone a shot.

Is this a well known problem? Is their a solution? Sure, my friend and I can time-stamp our texts, but there is no way to verify that they even receive them. The only way we can be sure that we are not missing texts from each other is if we take a screenshot each time we message each other.

 

[Laura Knotek]

How is your coverage on AT&T? Are you in an area with poor signal strength?

Have you tried replacing your SIM?

Is AT&T doing any service on towers in your area?

Do any of the above apply to your friend with T-Mobile? Bad coverage, bad SIM, towers being serviced?

SMS failure is almost always related to carrier signal, not a particular device.

 

[barber76]

SMS failure is almost always related to carrier signal, not a particular device.

Second that. Can't imagine SMS failures being a hardware or WP OS issue. Must be something on service provider side.

 

[David Edgewater]

I hadn't considered the carrier signal theory, but I don't think that's it. All of the above also apply to my buddy on T-Mobile.

Prior to this, I had the Lumia 900, and prior to that, an old Sony, and I never had this problem on any of those. Similarly for my friend, before this he had a Motorola android phone and never had the problem. My buddy who has had an S2 since it was released and who just got an S6 is also on ATT, and has never had this issue.

Fresno is a pretty big metro area. With over half a million people, we are the 5th largest city in California. If it was a carrier issue, I figure there would be others experiencing the same issue, and between everyone I know, myself and my buddy are the only 2 people who seem to be experiencing this issue. My mom has a Lumia 830 and another friend has a 1020, both on ATT, and they've never experienced this problem.

 

[Ten Four]

This has been a "feature" of every AT&T MVNO I have been on including GoPhone, which is owned by AT&T. Just today I was unable to send MMS messages from my Lumia 635 for awhile, but it appears to have now resumed working. It usually occurs for me when I am out and about and moving between various cell towers. Often I'll get home and be surprised I have no messages. Just turn off the phone, wait ten seconds, turn it on and voila a bunch of messages and emails come in. I have experienced this with various phones and on various AT&T MVNOs--never had AT&T prepaid service.