upside down question mark appearing where a return/enter would be in some texts

Tdjohnson7700

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I am using samsung note 9 on Verizon

I have just recently found out that when I send texts to some users with iPhone 6+ (one is on AT&T the other is on Consumer Cellular) they see an upside down question mark where I pressed return. I do not know currently if other phones are affected-they are the only ones I have heard from.

I have tried Messages+ and the native Messages app.

I do not type in Spanish

Does anyone have a fix for this? Thank you in advance!
 

Rukbat

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SMS doesn't have <return> or <enter> as part of the protocol, so every phone handles it differently. What they might be seeing is a placeholder - that says "I don't have a character for 0x10". Just hit the send button to send. (Sending 2 lines is going to come out as one line at the other end in phones that can handle it - SMS just throws the newline character away.)
 

pizza_pablo

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You should see what sms look like when crossing into or out of Canadia.
All kinds of strange characters are added.
Adds to the mystery.
 
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Tdjohnson7700

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I just sent text messages to a Samsung Note 9 user on AT&T. (I am on Verizon) I used the native messages app and also the messages+ app. I had the same issue with the recipient receiving the message with upside down question Mark's where the returns were.

Has anyone else experienced this problem? If so, can you please share a solution?

thank you!
 

pizza_pablo

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I just sent text messages to a Samsung Note 9 user on AT&T. (I am on Verizon) I used the native messages app and also the messages+ app. I had the same issue with the recipient receiving the message with upside down question Mark's where the returns were.

Has anyone else experienced this problem? If so, can you please share a solution?

thank you!
Which keyboard are you using?
 

tpallot

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I am using a Note 8 on Verizon with SwiftKey keyboard. My son has a Note 10 on AT&T. My text place upside down question marks where I hit return to start a new line. He said my texts have been doing it for a while. You are not alone. Anyone have any ideas /theories?
 

gfunkbigdaddy

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Same issue here, Samsung Galaxy S6 on AT&T. So far two contacts using other providers display the inverted upside down question mark when a new line was intended. Hoping we see a fix soon, must have been pushed out in a recent update, didn't see this until a few days ago.
 

Tdjohnson7700

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Which keyboard are you using?

Thank you for responding. I am using the Samsung keyboard.

A little more information. It seems like it happens more when you type a sentence that "wraps", then press return twice.

If a short line is typed and then press return twice, it doesn't seem to happen as often.

If anyone else is experiencing this, please post. Also-please contact your carrier. Until more people report this, it won't get the attention it needs.

I have reported it twice to Verizon. They say they are working on it. As of yesterday, it was still happening.

You won't know if it affects you until someone tells you that your texts have the upside down question marks in them.
 

pizza_pablo

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Thank you for responding. I am using the Samsung keyboard.

A little more information. It seems like it happens more when you type a sentence that "wraps", then press return twice.

If a short line is typed and then press return twice, it doesn't seem to happen as often.

If anyone else is experiencing this, please post. Also-please contact your carrier. Until more people report this, it won't get the attention it needs.

I have reported it twice to Verizon. They say they are working on it. As of yesterday, it was still happening.

You won't know if it affects you until someone tells you that your texts have the upside down question marks in them.
Are these iPhone 6 users, that you're concerned about having to endure your upside down question marks, work clients / colleagues?
I don't know why your texts are doing that. I'm on Verizon, using the Samsung Messages app and SwiftKey keyboard and I've never had anyone report such.
If they're friends, they'll be ok.
After all, they are super brilliant iPhone users! That can handle the task.
 
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an_other_droid

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Hey there, I unfortunately don't have a fix, but I came here from Google because I was texting a friend just now and we had the same problem! We were experimenting with it to see what triggered it.

I am using a Samsung Galaxy J3 Orbit with Walmart's Straight Talk, and my friend is using an iPhone 6s with Cricket Wireless (which is AT&T I suppose), and I'm using the default Samsung keyboard and Messages app. My friend and I found that if the text is long enough that it has to be split into multiple parts (with "#characters/#parts" to the side), the upside down question marks appear. Shorter texts are fine with enter presses. I guess that's not really helpful and you already know that, though. My friend sent me a very long 4-part text (of course the parts are received as a single long text) with newlines and it was fine on my end but when I copied it and sent it back it was full of the question marks. I'll admit I have no idea if my apps/phone are up to date since I messed with the auto update settings.

Kind of reminds me when my old phone started mangling multipart texts it received in summer 2018. "Enhanced message not translated" was its cry. Though that likely had to do with the phone being a particularly crummy one from 2013 and the world moving on without me. :D
 

pizza_pablo

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Until you find a fix, what if you used a dash instead of return?
I just thought that you likely use a hard return, when sending an address, which is likely often, so the dash may not be a solution.
If only someone could figure out the cause.
Have you tried a different keyboard, line GBoard or SwiftKey?
Have you tried other SMS apps, like Google's or Textra? There are many.

How long has it been, since you cleared your phones cache partician?

How long has it been since you've performed a factory reset? Did you perform a FR after your phone updates to Pie / Android 9?

Did you ever encounter this issue before the recent complaints?
 
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pizza_pablo

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Screenshot of what i sent from samsung to iphone
You should probably blackout your phone number, really quickly.
The whole world can look at it, right now.
You can remove this pic. Edit the pic, with your S-Pen and then post it back.
It's easier to accomplish in a browser, as opposed to the app.
 

Rukbat

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The line ending in Android is different than the line ending in Apple - an iPhone can't handle it, so it shows it as a question mark.