Loosing incoming SMS messages

[azjerry]

I'm having serious issues with receiving SMS and MMS messages from my girlfriend on Sprint (I'm on Verizon). Very often one or more messages from her never show up on my Droid. As you can imagine she doesn't appreciate when I don't respond.

She currently has a new LG something Android phone but the problem also happened with her previous Samsung feature phone. Rebooting her phone frequently resolves the problem for awhile as does receiving a message from me. But since we had problems with her old phone I don't believe it's a problem with her phone.

We're both using the stock Froyo messaging app and have cleared the data and cache for it with no improvement. Any ideas on what the problem could be? Something on my phone? On my and/or her line of service? Or is SMS/MMS really that unreliable?

 

[mar#CB]

I don't use the stock messaging app, Handcent always works for me.

 

[azjerry]

Ages ago I used Handcent for awhile, then moved on to Go SMS when Handcent developed some problems for me. I dropped Go SMS after these problems started happening.

Question: Do Handcent, Go SMS and others work independently of the stock Messaging app. I was under the impression that all messaging apps worked off the same core reception and message storage.

 

[mar#CB]

My stock messaging does have all my texts in it, but I never open it. I solely use handcent, I have my stock messaging set to not auto retrieve and not notify.

 

[Moscow Desire]

The stock sms app should be ok, but if you decide to use an external app, like , go sms, I would disable the notification setting;

ie; open stock program, goto menu, settings, and disable auto-retrieve.

This way you don't get duplicate sms.

 

[azjerry]

Before I go to another messaging app I need to find a fix for the real problem which could exist in one of three areas:
- Something with her phone (Unlikely as the problem has happened with both her phones)

- Something in the whole Sprint/VZW universe (Possible but unlikely as performance this bad would have most users up in arms)

- Something with my Droid (Possible but I don't know where it might be. I met girlfriend while using Go SMS which is when the problem first cropped up. Dropping Go didn't help.)

 

[Moscow Desire]

ok, well, the question is, do you miss any sms from anybody else? From any network?

If the answer to the above question is no, we can narrow it to your gf.

I do sms from not only cross platforms, but networks, and international as well.

So unless you are running some really strange apps, or your gf (like spyware or filter software), Well....

Seems like she says she sends you, but you never recieve.........or she says you never answer...
*********************************
if it looks like a skunk, and smells like a skunk, well, it probably is..
*********************************

 

[Moscow Desire]

also, there is a setting in your sms...menu/settings, it will say something similar to "receive/delivery notification". basically when it is delivered to the target phone, you get a notification. Keep in mind, you usually have to look at the display for several seconds after you send.

Also, if you look at the details of your sent sms, you can see when it was delivered.

 

[azjerry]

The vast majority of my texts are with gf so I probably wouldn't know if I missed any others.

I have a lot of apps, most never used, nothing strange, ~50 MB free memory. I've rebooted numerous times to no effect.

She has a new phone with only a couple of apps so far. Since we also had the problem with her previous non-Android phone I doubt the phone is the problem. She rebooted again today and it's currently working again. She called Sprint once and they did something to her line/account which got it working for a day or two. But there have been other times where's it's worked flawlessly for a day or two so I'm not sure what Sprint "did" actually helped.

She sends (verified by Sent on display), I don't receive. I know better than to not respond, especially given the current problems. We haven't looked at the Sent details though so that might be worth a look. We have put the phones side by side and compared message threads. I see messages in her list that say sent but no corresponding received messages in my list.

 

[azjerry]

And... at least one message this afternoon did not make it to my phone

 

[azjerry]

I re-installed Go SMS to see if that would help. While sending myself several text messages I saw the problem that caused me to remove Go SMS: Occasional incoming messages display a notification but when I go to the app the message is missing. Other occasional messages display no notification and no message in the app.

I assumed Go SMS was occasionally trashing the messages. I wonder, now, if Go SMS was able to see the message and display the notification before something in the basic internal messaging software trashed the message. Go SMS may simply be able to present a different symptom to the same core problem.

May be time for a factory reset when I have the time.