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I was all set to finally take the plunge and sign a contract with Sprint for the new Hero - just waiting for my prepaid cellphone account to run out of money. Now more and more reports have started coming in about the Sprint Hero and its issues with losing SMS, and possible MMS too. Some sauces:
Engadget's questioning > and the scary responses: http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/26/htc-hero-having-intermittent-text-messaging-problems/
Sprint Community's ongoing thead: http://community.sprint.com/baw/thread/22913?tstart=0
SprintUser.com's ongoing thead (there are many): http://www.sprintusers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=195769
Slightly older but still the same problem from here from XDA: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=572134
A few observations (feel free to add your own):
-UK/GSM Hero users are experiencing this, though to a much lesser extent
-A common, but not completely sweeping assessment is that affected users are using task killer programs or did at one time, even before a hard reset
-Soft resets tend to help the problem, though only temporarily (for some)
-People are getting the same issues on brand new phones that they exchanged for old ones.
Any thoughts? Do you have any personal experiences with this? I'm hoping to hold out till HTC/Sprint releases a patch or some sort of announcement about this problem but in the meantime, what has your experience, as a CDMA/Sprint Hero user, been like in regards to losing/delayed SMS and MMS messages?
From my experiance running Hero on the G1 lost text messages were due to the messeges app failing due to many things running and causing it to crash.
I can't speak for the sprint Hero, though I have not experienced any lost text messages I am aware of.
Maybe its a network issue?
I actually experienced it once. From what it appears, I downloaded a task manager and selected to kill all running apps. After I rebooted my phone though I have yet to experience any text message loses. Originally I was blaming it on a 3rd party messaging service, however now I really think it was as a result of killing the messaging app. This happened about a week and a half ago and so far *knocks on wood* have not experienced any other issues. Aside from that, I still love my hero. I honestly think that it is the best phone I have ever owned.
My biggest issue with SMS messages is that I've had up to a 3-4 minute delay between the timestamp on the message and when i get the notification. But AFAIK, I haven't lost any messages.
I think its a great phone so far. If Android keeps picking up as it appears to be, I think it can trump apple and iphone.
I have not lost any texts. I tested with texts to and from different carriers and area codes. I have not run any task killers. For what it's worth, I have not had any of the battery problems that people have run into either.
i had lost all of my SMS messages on my Sprint Hero after i installed Handcent SMS and used it for a couple days ( which so happened to be exactly a week after i bought the phone the messages were gone)
your sms's are still there, but they are in your messenger app, handcent doesn't access stuff that's already there, just the new stuff comming in. I don't belive it's possible to import the sms's that are already there, or at least there's not a known procedure on how to do so.
you can access them if you pull up your original messenger app, just no way to import/export. Sorry, probably not the answer you were looking for, but it is the correct one.
I had this problem when I first got my Hero, no text messages were being received, third party SMS app or not. My Hero said 'with Google' on the back. I exchanged it for one that just says 'htc', haven't had the problem since.
im worried
ive had the phone for 2 weeks.three days later i got the dreaded calls from friends and girlfriend that i havent been answering back to text. ive installed handcent sms and smstomailbox. from then on the problem has stopped.although i have sent myself some text and im yet to receive them no one has told me they cannot contact me. i just moved to sprint because i recently got a job as an assistant. my boss contacts me strictly through text. (you can imagine the magnitude of this issue) after all the forums ive read, i dont know what to do regarding this. my 30 days is almost up. i cant imagine a patch is not already on the works, but ive read this has been a known problem for some time. with Htc pumping out phones by the dozen and 1.6. / 2.0 updates taking the spotlight, i wonder if i should return my phone. the phone is real nice and i dont want a flimsy pre. seems too much stress for a device you pay good money for.i have the sprint hero with the "with google" in the back. seems like a bad time to get a phone with sprint since theres no news on wether this phone will be upgradeable or patched and the other phones are going to get upgraded soon. (HD2)
!!!
on another thread someone posted that the problem had been acknowledged . the post pointed to a flaw in the sms app that did not send a "memory full" notification back to the sms database server. so it seems theres a limit to the sms app capacity and it kinda locks down or something along those lines. lol (sorry ill post the link when i find it again) in other news 2.0 is coming to the hero. so i guess ill deal with the issues till then.
I purchased a Hero on launch day [early run device, without 'with Google' branding, only 'HTC' on the back cover] and quickly encountered the intermittent text message delivery debacle.
Bottom line, there were extended periods of time in which text messages being sent to me were simply not appearing on my phone. [Side note, this includes individuals both on and off the Sprint Network.] Turning the phone off and on usually alleviated the non-delivery / appearance problem but any messages sent during that time were gone. There was no flood of messages post restart.
I should note that on two occasions I did notice that I had received a text in the top notification bar but when I opened the Messaging App, the text was no where to be found.
It appears that the messages may indeed have been delievered... but the app is 'eating' them, so to speak. This *could* explain why on Sprint's end, everything looks fine on the network... or so I was told, which I believe.
My temp solution, as advised by forum / discussion posts by other Hero users was to install an alt Messaging App [I used Handcent SMS] and use this rather than the stock Messaging app. Additionally, I added 'SMS To Mail Lite' which forwarded a copy of my incoming texts to an email address. I experienced no intermittent outages / delivery failures / abductions at all. Both Handcent and the email inbox matched. While this 'worked' I was unable to replicate the bug but since I was using Handcent this might have been why.
Later, after spending some time on the phone w/Sprint Advanced Tech Support, they determined it was not a network issue and was due to the phone itself [as their system showed all my messages being delivered]. They set up a trouble ticket and I was able to swap my Hero for a new one at my local store. Caveat, I was still under the 30 day trial which made things much easier when I got to the store.
I was told by Advanced Tech Support that HTC has recognized this intermittent text delivery issue and they are working on a solution. I only mention 'Advanced' b/c the first individual I spoke with from regular Text Messaging Support had zero knowledge of this issue and was quick to deny any problems whatsoever. No one at the store knew anything about it either, but I wasn't expecting it. So if you speak with anyone at Sprint, expect that they might not know yet and be nice. You might even get a replacement phone.
Currently, I'm still using Handcent and really like it. Tried ChompSMS but just prefer the other. They're on par w/one another so be sure to check them both out if you prefer to go this route. Also, I used the 'My Backup Pro' app to restore my new phone to the original configuration. Certainly worth the $5.
Hope this helps.
I have an interesting questionn - at least it is to me. Working with my daughter and facebook I've found that I have not control at all (technically speaking) over facebook messages to her phone. I am a t-mobile customer, I use family allowances but nothing set in family allowances will block the fb sms from coming in or going out. -this is interesting!
fb comes in as a bulk type sms, it isn't a 10 digit number that can be blocked.
fb messages are not logged as sms messages on the t-mobile site.
Even disabling the phone in family allowances doesn't stop the fb message from coming in.
Thoughts?
Yes, I realize there is more to working with my daughter and facebook from a parenting standpoint, I'm not here to talk about that My thread here is about the technical side of this. What if it weren't facebook? It seems there are sms type messages that can't be blocked from the phone.
isnt that an option from within the facebook website itself? i.e. 'send me a text when i get updates' or something like that?
samsamuel said:
isnt that an option from within the facebook website itself? i.e. 'send me a text when i get updates' or something like that?
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Yes it is. But I, like I'm sure many other parents, thought that I could completely control this from family allowances. Since it's supposed to be an sms message and I can stop messaging in many different ways, I assumed that I could enforce our time schedule with the family allowances tool. But - I was wrong
So, yeah I can login to fb and turn that off, I really don't want to go that far with monitoring her though. I could turn the whole messaging service off on her phone, I'm guessing thta would do it - but I don't want to do that and I can go in and physically take the phone from her also - that's all a different subject
I thought it interesting for us phone geeks that a message comes in, isn't logged, can't be tracked, monitored, blocked or controlled.
gotcha.
............
I don't have a solution really, but I do suspect that it has to do with how the messages don't have a regular number...I'm guessing that when the fb texts come in, they're tagged with short-form number like "22622" etc, yes? I'm just assuming that based on the behavior of other bulk-source texts, from services like yahoo messenger, and banks, for example. (I have my account setup so I get texts with any account activity).
I would get on the phone with tech support (and not regular customer service, if you can help it) and demand to know why you can't block bulk texts like that...they may have another way than just your regular acct mgmt settings, but I don't know. That's where I would start if it were me
You can only stop the messages one of two ways:
Login to facebook and turn off the "SMS Notification" option.
Send the word "STOP" to the number that the notifications are coming from. This message has to come from her phone.
Both of those options seem to violate the strictures you have placed upon yourself. I guess the next move is yours.
I might also mention that accessing your child's facebook account without her permission is considered hacking and you could get arrested if she contacts the authorities. This is not a joke, there is a case going now along similar lines where a mother did this to a son.
You certainly can't control the time that these messages arrive. These are so-called "opt-in" services and do not count as regular SMS/MMS.
Slightly-Off-Topic
As a parent, I believe I understand your concerns: The messages come at times where your child should be in school, studying or sleeping.
If this is the case, you might consider creating a "charging area" in the family area (kitchen, living room, downstairs bath, etc). Everyone should leave their chargers here and then drop their phones off in the evening for charging.
Unless your child uses their phone as an alarm clock, this is not an unreasonable request.
This also gives your child the opportunity to build trust with you, as the phone will be left in a semi-public place, where anyone could check the phone for inappropriate content.
Has anyone cracked the code on when Google chat on the phone ignores desktop chat and when it doesn't? I have seen that sometimes when I chat with my friends on my desktop, sometimes my phone beeps for every line entered by the other party and sometimes it doesn't. I think in a perfect world, the phone should beep for the "first" line of text, and if I answer on the desktop, it should ignore the rest (but still record them for posterity). And if I answer on the phone, perhaps it should just haptic vibrate for each line of text received after the "first". I say "first" in quotes because I imagine that would be difficult to manage pragmatically. When is it the first chat of a new "session", and when is it just a delay in between chat lines of the same session? Maybe a customizable interval, like say five minutes. If no text is received within five minutes then it is a new session, so beep on the first line?
Lat night I was chatting with a friend (I was on the desktop) and every time he sent something, my phone would beep. Not the best solution in my opinion.
From what I can tell, your phone will receive the message when you do not have the gchat window active on your desktop.
If you click in on the area like you were going to type a message and leave your cursor there, when your friends send messages they don't seem to get sent to the phone. On the other hand, even if you have gchat open on your desktop and you say use a different program or are on a different tab in your browser, then your phone will receive the messages.
At least this is my experience. I think this is the correct behavior as you don't need to get messages in two places when you are actively chatting.
From my experience I use Gchat on my pc everyday when i am at work and I have my phone on my desk near by. When a friend of mine messages me it hits both for the first message, but if i answer on my desktop, it does not hit my phone ever until I sign off of gchat on my pc. Even if it is not focused on the gchat window. I am however using Trillian for my gchat, not sure what you all are using.
DLarva said:
From what I can tell, your phone will receive the message when you do not have the gchat window active on your desktop.
If you click in on the area like you were going to type a message and leave your cursor there, when your friends send messages they don't seem to get sent to the phone. On the other hand, even if you have gchat open on your desktop and you say use a different program or are on a different tab in your browser, then your phone will receive the messages.
At least this is my experience. I think this is the correct behavior as you don't need to get messages in two places when you are actively chatting.
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This is what happens for me as well. Messages go to my phone on the first IM or if I don't have that window active on my desktop.
I am using the built-into-gmail-dot-com google chat. This has definitely happened to me several times before. Last night it happened again. The entire conversation I had with my friend, every time I received a message on my desktop, my phone also beeped. Other times it worked like it was supposed to (beeped the first time and that was it.)
I will see if I can get my wife to help me troubleshoot tonight.
perhaps a topic for a different thread...
I found the chat behavior to be exactly the way DLarva stated:
DLarva said:
From what I can tell, your phone will receive the message when you do not have the gchat window active on your desktop....
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My question (perhaps a dumb one ) is how/where to turn off the notification that you got a chat all together?
I don't want any notification of a chat receipt while I am on the phone.
Any help?
Maybe:
Try (within setting of google talk) turn off notification bar, no vibrate, and set ringtone to silent.
That might approximate no notification.
etaChase said:
I found the chat behavior to be exactly the way DLarva stated:
My question (perhaps a dumb one ) is how/where to turn off the notification that you got a chat all together?
I don't want any notification of a chat receipt while I am on the phone.
Any help?
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thanks for that - have tried to "approximate" no notification, and that's all well and good. . . but not the same as turning it off.
I have looked around in my mobile settings in the google account but can't find it (thought it might be similar to turning on/off notification of appointments in the calendar)...
might just be missing it, but this seems like fairly simple feature. I am nearing feeling ready to root my phone and thought maybe this would be a feature that was only available after doing that. It would have been the final encouragement I need to take that (admittedly not very big) plunge!
I have a rooted Nexus One (CM6 with KOR) and that is as close as I can get to turning them off (that I can find anyway).
This was happening to me, too (when I used Gtalk on the PC, the phone sitting on my desk would sound the alert, with every chat message I rec'd) -- so I just manually signed out of Gtalk on the phone, and it stopped happening. I mostly use Gtalk on desktop anyway. (Though when I check "running processes" on the Vibrant, I see Gtalk always seems to be running -- must start up automatically -- even though I'm signed out...)
exactly Pevvy -
but signing out of Gmail kinda defeats the purpose of having the phone constantly synched. Guess the same argument could be made as to why you want chats saved/synched... anyhoo - I just don't want chat on my vibrant, period. I don't want them saved (so transcription is turned off in gChat on the desktop) and I would never chat from the phone. OK, never say never, but I would rather have to enable that, rather than always having it running using resources.
When I root that would a fun thing to explore to see if it can be deactivated through some custom start-up (so it doesn't show as a running service - I see the same thing) and only starts if I manually start it.
That said, if it is server side associated with the google account (its a hosted domain and that may further change things...) it may not be able to adjust even with root. Interest how this shows the blending/blurring between the net and the synch to the phone - and should data and synch be more push or pull.
Oh, I didn't sign out of Gmail on my phone -- just Gtalk (the chat service)... seems it was keeping me signed in automatically before, and I had to go into the app, and manually sign out.
I've been reading about this bug for awhile now and it finally hit me. What happens is if contact A sends you a txt message and you respond. The message thread will show that your response went to contact A, but the reality is that A may not have received the response, however C,D,E,F, Z,Y and X did! It seems to be totally random, will happen regardless of the SMS app or ROM you use and can be quite dangerous. This bug renders my N1 virtually useless. Anyone else experience this or has an update on the fix for this dangerous bug?
I recommend anyone with an Android phone to be use extreme caution when sending txts or mms messages as you never know who may actually get it
Have read about it, but it's never happened to me.
Can you reproduce the bug reliably?
Can you dump the logs (/proc/kmsg and logcat, or bugreport) immediately after it happens?
Any pattern connecting recipient A and the rest?
Nightmare!
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
How come that not even one person from those reporting having "this bug", wants to help find out, what it is? Very interesting.
I have found that using handcent resolves this problem for me.
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
My wife have experienced the problem twice with Galaxy S, I haven't have similar troubles with my N1, although every now and then it takes time for some messages to go through. That is probably due the carrier, not the device.
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
The only trouble with messaging i have is that sometimes when i select to open the thread at the top of the list, the one at the very bottom of the screen opens. Frustrating!!!
cymru said:
The only trouble with messaging i have is that sometimes when i select to open the thread at the top of the list, the one at the very bottom of the screen opens. Frustrating!!!
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I have this too in a pre 6.1 nightly...
But it's not the first time i hear the bug that SMS are sent to everyone, so it definitely exist
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
I saw the "reports" on the net popping up once in a huge while, but I never saw anyone that would report this bug and actually try to solve it, or assist anyone in solving it. Doesn't look like a normal bug report to me, and doesn't look like there is a bug. I know over 15 people with all kinds of Android, at least 6 with Nexus, and it never happened to anyone. The "bug" looks very fishy.
Jack_R1 said:
I saw the "reports" on the net popping up once in a huge while, but I never saw anyone that would report this bug and actually try to solve it, or assist anyone in solving it. Doesn't look like a normal bug report to me, and doesn't look like there is a bug. I know over 15 people with all kinds of Android, at least 6 with Nexus, and it never happened to anyone. The "bug" looks very fishy.
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I can assure it is a bug and a major one. It is well documented if you google it. It appears to be across many different hardware platforms and therefore is most likely a source code issue written incorrectly in the android OS. And just because the 15 people you know aren't having the issue does not mean the rest of the world isn't. This is my 3rd android phone and this is the only one that does it and from I've been reading there are many others who are also having this random issue...I assure you, this isn't something that someone can do by mistake or accident...
In that case, if it's so well documented, how come that nobody has ever assisted anyone else in debugging it, yourself included?
It's happened to me.
I receive certain friend's facebook updates as sms. One time I got the facebook sms. I closed it then replied to another friend's sms. Guess what happened.... what I sent to my friend got sent as a comment to my friend's facebook status.
Looking back at the sms log, I definately wrote my reply to my friend, not the facebook sms, but somehow it was replied to the facebook sms.
This bug has been around since Android existed.
There's really no way to debug this I don't think, unless you only have a few contacts that will text u if you write something weird... cuz having a phone full if phone numbers, your text can be sent to any number, even non mobile phones, you wont know since you thought u texted the right person.
Sent from my Nexus One
There's a ton of ways to debug everything, including even specifically modified SMS app for dumping debug data - it's an open OS, yes? If I got some beta application versions for debugging from app devs to test things, I'm sure Google wouldn't do less to debug it.
For starters, the next SMS I'll check the records in kernel log and see if there's any useful data to start from there.
Jack_R1 said:
In that case, if it's so well documented, how come that nobody has ever assisted anyone else in debugging it, yourself included?
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Well I think you bring up two entirely non-related issues... First, if you google it, you will find a vast amount of people all having that same issue, which in my mind establishes the "well documented" part of my statement. Secondly, as far as me or anyone else participating in debugging, I would love to, but it's a little out of my sphere of knowledge. If you could give me a little insight into what needs to be done, I would be more than happy to do what I can to help solve the problem. This $500 phone is totally useless to me if I can't be certain who will be receiving my txt messages. Mainly, I've been waiting and watching in the hopes that google would get involved and resolve this issue without my having to get involved. It would appear that this goes back a considerable amount of time.
Can you list out a step by step process to go about this so that all who are having this issue can also participate? What should be my next step
To even try to start with debug, you have to have a rooted phone.
The useful place to look at would be /proc/kmsg. The question is - how much data it contains after sending sms. I didn't try to dump it after SMSing yet, didn't have time for it. I'll try to find time over the weekend.
If it won't contain enough data, modification in SMS application is needed, to dump the data there to help with debug. This is much harder for me, because I'm not an app dev, and I'll have a hard time trying to find and understand the relevant data structures to dump there. Basically, when you hit "reply", some kind of indicator of current SMS thread needs to be dumped, and everything else that might result in wrong number being selected - all the chain that determines the number that the SMS goes to. Then, once the SMS was sent to wrong recipient, the info needs to be dumped and checked.
The later part is "slightly" beyond my skills. It requires knowledge of SMS application and its data structures.
It obviously happens only to those that have their Facebook contacts integrated, so the mechanisms that take care of joined contacts might be something to look at.
It never happened to me, and I've sent 12000 sms from my Nexus. Try using Handcent until this is officially fixed. Handcent is free and many people say it's not affected by the bug.
Jack_R1 said:
To even try to start with debug, you have to have a rooted phone.
The useful place to look at would be /proc/kmsg. The question is - how much data it contains after sending sms. I didn't try to dump it after SMSing yet, didn't have time for it. I'll try to find time over the weekend.
If it won't contain enough data, modification in SMS application is needed, to dump the data there to help with debug. This is much harder for me, because I'm not an app dev, and I'll have a hard time trying to find and understand the relevant data structures to dump there. Basically, when you hit "reply", some kind of indicator of current SMS thread needs to be dumped, and everything else that might result in wrong number being selected - all the chain that determines the number that the SMS goes to. Then, once the SMS was sent to wrong recipient, the info needs to be dumped and checked.
The later part is "slightly" beyond my skills. It requires knowledge of SMS application and its data structures.
It obviously happens only to those that have their Facebook contacts integrated, so the mechanisms that take care of joined contacts might be something to look at.
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This is why I haven't, as you say, participate in resolving the issue...the level of of debugging required to get to the source of the problem is deeper than a non-developer like myself can go. And for the record, this is NOT related to the facebook app in anyway as I do not even have that app installed. This is 100% an Android code issue...
Are all your contacts Gmail-synced contacts?
Does it happen frequently enough to try to debug?
This is what happens with my N1:
I get a new text message, alerted in my notification bar
Rather than open it from the notification bar, I open the messaging app and tap the first message (just a habit, I guess)
The ninth message opens instead of the first one
I'm not sure if this happens every single time, but it does happen frequently.
I'm wondering if it might be a bug in CyanogenMod instead, I've only started noticing it recently.
PS: I do not have a Facebook account nor any accounts synced with it. The only contacts I sync are my Google contacts.
Hi all - new to this forum so apologies if the question has been posed already. I couldn't find a similar thread.
I've been having consistent trouble since getting my VZW Droid 2 in September with the phone not delivering important things like emails, text messages, Google chat messages and WhatsApp messages after long periods of screen inactivity (ie. an hour).
I'll turn on the screen and unlock it, then it goes and fetches those important messages like "I'm on fire - please come put me out now!". Suddenly I'll go from zero notifications to 10 of each.
I am using K9 mail, WhatsApp, Handcent SMS, Gmail, Twitter and all seem to be affected by this.
I checked all my settings, and it's not set up to sync only on wifi or anything, and each application is set up so that it should be sync'ing in the background.
I thought 2.3.20 was supposed to fix this issue, so I made sure to update the phone. However, I'm still having issues. I know I did some things to optimize the paltry battery life when I first got the phone, but can't find anything that should be causing this - and can't remember everything I did.
VZW's answer was to do a full factory reset, but I'd like to avoid that if at all possible because I'm too lazy to put everything back the way I have it.
Advice?
Thanks
Try:
Settings > Battery Manager > Battery Settings and making sure its not set to anything other than performance mode as anything else will do exactly as you are describing.
I know custom ROMs may also cause issues.