Unlocked a Verizon Glaxy S4 so I could use it on AT&T. Encountering lots of problems now.

[evanjed]

The charging port on my AT&T Samsung Galaxy S3 died. A friend had a Galaxy S4 that he wasn't using, so he offered it to me. The only thing was that it was verizon, and I'm on AT&T. So he looked up how to switch it over, and took care of it for me. For the most part, it did the trick, but I've been encountering a handful of weird issues ever since.

1. If I reply to a group message, I receive my own reply as if it were from another person (the sender number on that duplicate reply is my own number, but displayed on the left side of the conversation window).

2. If anyone sends me a picture or video, that goes into a different, separate thread. Even if they include text, the text stays in the original thread, and the picture goes to a new one.

3. I simply cannot send picture messages anymore. Whenever I try, they just hang there "sending..." forever, until they finally say that they failed.

4. When I get a voicemail, and tap on that notification it calls my own number but with an extra "1" at the beginning. So instead of dialing "1-xxx-xxx-xxxx" it dials "1-1-xxx-xxx-xxxx", and then I get an automated "this number cannot be completed as dialed..." message. If I just dial my own number, I can still check my voicemails, but I have to enter it digit by digit each time.

I've tried finding solutions to these problems, but am having a tough time. Hopefully someone out there can help!

 

[SophiaPetrillo]

I believe you can just dial "1" for voicemail, without having to put in your number. Are you using the original messaging app? You might want to try other apps, such as Google Hangouts, and see if those work.

 

[Rukbat]

1. According to the specs, the CDMA and GSM phones are totally different (see this for the Verizon version and this for an AT&T compatible version. (Pay attention to the frequencies - they're different.)

2. Did you or he change the APN to AT&T's APN? If won't work properly, even if the technology and frequencies are correct, if the APN is wrong.

@Sophia, "1" is the speed dial number for your voicemail number.

 

[Sgooter]

Several months ago I tested my Verizon S4's compatibility on the Cricket (AT&T) network by inserting a borrowed active Cricket SIM and entering the APN settings for Cricket. For me, everything worked fine: voice calls send/receive; text send/receive; MMS send/receive; voicemail send/retrieve; email send/receive; wifi, internet, etc. I already knew the Verizon S4 would not pickup AT&T's 4G LTE band, but it did receive 2G and 3G HSPA+, which is pretty good. One detail point to keep in mind: AT&T plans to shutdown its 2G network by the end of 2016, which could leave you with only 3G HSPA+ reception on your Verizon GS4. Since you already have the phone, I would continue using it until you become dissatisfied with its performance/reception.
In the meantime, I think Rukbat has the right idea about checking that you're using the APN settings for AT&T. Give us some feedback later on.

 

[evanjed]

1. I'm not sure what it is you're telling me to do here. I don't really know about any of this stuff.

2. I double checked, and the APN stuff was all as it should be "Other than the first two options not being set to "NXTGENPHONE".

There was one thing in there that those guides didn't mention though. Just below "APN protocol" (which is set to IPv4) there is "APN roaming protocol" (which is also set to IPv4).

 

[evanjed]

I haven't had any problems calling any other numbers. It's just when I click on the New Voicemail notification that I run into this extra 1 problem.