Group Messaging-- Individual vs. Group Messaging "Threads?"

[yozdemir]

Two of my friends both have the Galaxy S3 for VERIZON. I have the Galaxy S4 for AT&T.

My problem is when I try group messaging them, the group messages come to me as "MMS" messages, and they come seperately (two different messages threads from two different friends.)

However, when I looked at my friends phones, they group message without a problem because their Verizon Galaxy S3 phones seperate individual messages and group messages even though it might be one message thread.

Does anyone know what I am talking about and if so, can you please help? I'm pretty sure I have all the right settings on, I just want to be able to have Group messages and individual messages seperated together under one contacts message.


Please help, thanks in advance!

 

[Sizzers]

Although I can?t answer your thread as I don?t own an S4 (which is totally pointless my posting!), but reading this prompted me to reply regarding my first time ?experience? of ?Group? messaging earlier today.

I?m trialling a new network and activated my new SIM this morning, and as this is just a trial I?ve not ported my ?normal? number over yet. There were around a dozen people who I had to forward my new number over to as a matter of urgency and whose contacts I duly entered in to the recipients box in messaging (my phone is an XT890, by the way).

Now I?ve never had any reason to send multiple messages before and there was a strange blue box which appeared which said ?Individual Conversation?. So I clicked on this and there was another option to select: ?Group conversation (everyone can reply to all). Being thick I thought this was the option I needed which I duly selected then hit ?Send?. What I didn?t know at the time was that these were sent as MMS and not SMS, and as MMS is not included in my allowance I got rather stung financially! As I now know, ?Individual conversation? simply sends simple single texts?DOH!

Anyway, apologies for the waffle and going off-topic so I?ll leave you in peace!

 

[yozdemir]

That's what I'm missing and need!

The option to reply to a group conversation or individual. What carrier do you have, Verizon? Because I was looking at both my friends phones yesterday who both have Verizon and was so amazed at how they had the option as I just discussed and I didn't. What a shame.

 

[Sizzers]

I live in the UK so obviously I can?t compare the network.

As I said, this was the first time I had tried sending messages to multiple people and rather than leaving it on it?s default of ?Individual conversation? I fiddled around and selected ?Group? instead, hence my getting stung by sending a dozen MMS!

I have no idea if this is a feature of my particular messaging app or if it?s a carrier dependent one. Perhaps try putting multiple recipients in to a message and see if there is an option to switch it to ?Group? somewhere. As mentioned a blue box appeared on my XT890 giving me these options, or perhaps try speaking to your carrier.

 

[yozdemir]

Bump- need help somebody!

 

[bybees]

I have the same problem! Did you find out anything?

 

[GadgetMomma]

I'm having the same problem. Here's what's happening and what I know so far.

I had an iPhone 5 on AT&T. Switched to a Galaxy s4 in August.
I group text with my two best friends on a daily basis. Friend one has an iPhone 5 on AT&T. Friend 2 has a galaxy s3 on Verizon. She's had her s3 since about April. We haven't had one bit of trouble group texting since she got her phone. The trouble started when I got my phone, which makes no sense to me.

When we send the group text (it doesn't matter which of the three of us starts it), it is in a group thread on both of their phones, but not on mine. My att friend with the iPhone and my verizon s3 friend. When I send the message it is in a group window to all three of us. When my att iPhone friend replies, it comes through in the group window on all three phones. When my verizon s3 friend replies, it is in group on their phones, but it comes in as an individual mms message on mine. AND, if I reply back to my verizon friend in that window, it just keeps an individual chat going.

I can't figure this out, but I do think it is in someway related to verizons group messaging. Because like the OP, I don't have the tabs at the bottom of my chat window to switch between group and individual messages. Someone that I talked to is pretty certain that it's a messaging tweak that verizon added to the messaging software. While that great for how cool it is for verizon people, it seems to cause a conflict with other carriers. And I'm not knocking verizon, the only reason I think that's an issue with verizon (specifically, with the galaxy line on verizon) is because I don't have this problem with anyone else. I have a relatively small contact list, and just from knowing my friends and family the way I do, my verizon friend is the only friend I have on verizon with a galaxy phone. The majority of my regularly contacted contacts have ATT, and the ones on verizon have either an iPhone or another android phone. and I can group text with ALL of them. I still don't have the tabs at the bottom, but all I have to do is put the contacts in at the top and start the conversation, and every reply comes back in that thread.

Having said all that, my recommendation is for you to try the textra app. I've tried other third party apps hat people swear work (hand cent, chomp, go), and none of them work, but for some reason textra does. As soon as I downloaded that, my verizon friends messages started coming through in the group thread immediately.

I hope this helps. This has been extremely frustrating for me because the majority if the posts I see are about not being able to send/receive messages with iPhones because of iMessage. Trying to find a solution to the galaxy to galaxy messaging problem has been irritating! Hopefully we can figure out something soon. I hope this helps!