Problem Downloading Group Text Messages in Group Thread

[Akadia Kachaochana]

Hello all,

I have had a Samsung Galaxy S4 for 7 months now. I used to be able to participate in group text messaging, in which a person would send a message to multiple people (including iPhone and other Samsung Galaxy S4 users) and I would be able to read everyone's replies and I would be able to send a text to the thread which would be seen by everyone. However, today, I have been receiving the group text messages as individual MMS which I have to download, and when I click to download the text, my phone alerts me that the messages cannot be downloaded. Once I am able to download it (after repeated tries and turning off my WiFi), it gets received as a blank text message from an "Unknown Address". It is very frustrating, because up to this morning, this wasn't happening. I was just wondering if anyone has had a similar problem, and if so, how to fix it? I've tried restarting my phone and turning it on/off many times.

Thank you!
S4 User

 

[Rirruto]

I was having the same problem on Sunday out of nowhere. It went back to normal yesterday. Perhaps it had something to do with the fire at a Samsung data center over the weekend. Samsung data center fire causes outage, errors on smart TVs and phones (update: fixed)

 

[DudeThatsErin]

I doubt it. If you are still having the issue what messaging application are you using?

If you are using the default one do you have "Group Messaging" on in "MMS Settings"? How about auto retrieve and roaming auto retrieve? T-Mobile doesn't have roaming charges anymore so I am not sure why this is still included on their phones. Haven't since before the S4. Anyway, as long as both of those are on, do you have your data on? MMS is sync'd/downloaded via mobile data so WiFi doesn't have anything to do with it. (one thing I don't like but nothing I can do)

If everything is a yes above then I am not sure what to tell you other than dialing 611 and talking to T-Mobile. Sometimes if they reset your data network or do something like that it may help. If you don't want to call them you could try clearing your cache and doing a factory reset.

If all else fails you could try to get everyone to download "Group Me" and use that application instead. Is available on iOS and Android. Works really well, too. You can edit members of the group and have multiple groups as well. A LOT better than iOS' & Android's group messaging feature. I'd think it over.