The strangest SMS Problem + Proof , Please help, Not even Telecom knows why it's happening.

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › The strangest SMS Problem + Proof , Please help, Not even Telecom knows why it's happening.

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uglyb0b

335 posts

Ultimate Geek

#805001 24-Apr-2013 15:14

I have had this before as well. Not on Telecom though, one Vodafone account and one Vodafone prepay. Happens to both numbers when sending to each other.

It happens so rarely that I haven't bothered doing anything about it and assumed it was a bug in the handcent SMS app that both android phones were using. Now that I see others are having the same issue, and its not carrier or message app specific I'm starting to wonder what's going on.

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ubergeeknz

3344 posts

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Vocus

#805027 24-Apr-2013 15:36

I get a feeling this relates to how SMS messages are identified. Keep in mind one SMS message can only carry 160 chars, so phones use some "smarts" to get around this limitation by sending multiple messages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concatenated_SMS

If you search on the 'net you will see people have this issue across many phone types, carriers and operating systems - so I think it may be simply a limitation of SMS concatenation itself.

The best solution so far seems to be "delete old messages" :)

wiidsmkr91

25 posts

Geek

#805030 24-Apr-2013 15:40

ubergeeknz: I get a feeling this relates to how SMS messages are identified. Keep in mind one SMS message can only carry 160 chars, so phones use some "smarts" to get around this limitation by sending multiple messages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concatenated_SMS

If you search on the 'net you will see people have this issue across many phone types, carriers and operating systems - so I think it may be simply a limitation of SMS concatenation itself.

The best solution so far seems to be "delete old messages" :)

This looks promising... I will get her to keep her messages to under 160 characters and see if that fixes it.

Strange that it only does it on her phone(s) though.

Also - Im curious what you google'd when you searched for it. All the search terms and words I used led me to nothing.

Thanks for your help though, this makes complete sense.

ubergeeknz

3344 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Vocus

#805032 24-Apr-2013 15:45

Try googling

long sms messages mixed up

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#805072 24-Apr-2013 17:15

I know there have been various issues with sms for numbers that have been ported from one carrier to another. Is either your mum or her friends number a port from a different carrier or have they always had the same 027 number kept on telecom?

plambrechtsen

1948 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#805133 24-Apr-2013 20:42

If you email me pl at telecom.co.nz with your phone numbers of the sender & receiver and I can forward it onto the SMS team. But I suspect many folks are planning to take off Friday so you may not find out anything until Monday. But it's an interesting one :)

eXDee

4032 posts

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Trusted

#805160 24-Apr-2013 21:41

plambrechtsen: If you email me pl at telecom.co.nz with your phone numbers of the sender & receiver and I can forward it onto the SMS team. But I suspect many folks are planning to take off Friday so you may not find out anything until Monday. But it's an interesting one :)

I've emailed you a list of every text that's been delayed and their timestamps with my reference number.

sbiddle

30853 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

#805287 25-Apr-2013 05:54

When XT launched their SMSC wasn't configured to support 8 bit binary SMS which causes lots of issues and prevented multi-part SMS from working. My pick is there are still issues surrounding this.

wiidsmkr91

25 posts

Geek

#805718 26-Apr-2013 08:52

Thanks for all of your help , I feel the issue has been solved, and keeping the SMS length to its "proper" length should do the trick.

:-)

eXDee

4032 posts

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Trusted

#806372 27-Apr-2013 15:02

As for my issue, the network team has come back saying they can't see any issues with the SMSC or gateway, but they _can_ see the delays happening as they send to my phone.

They won't continue with the issue however unless i'm using a telecom supplied handset. Which presents an issue for me in that i have nothing except a basic samsung flip phone which i don't think i can manage to use while i wait for this to happen. Also that i'm far less likely to see the issue, as frequent texting from a device like that proves difficult due to lack of conversation views. Often i only see the issue occur because someone happens to be sending me several messages on a particular day.

But this makes sense, since they are fully within their rights to say that a non supplied device can't be guaranteed support. Just unfortunate i don't have anything up to the task. It does feel a little.... almost ironic that the google nexus 4 would be incompatible or have an issue being a stock android device. But i understand the policy is necessary. Trying another factory reset for the moment anyway.

Meanwhile i got the same issue again yesterday, though they confirmed that further logs of this aren't going to help. The thing that confuses me though i can get several messages from someone on time, but one they sent even in the same minute can get caught in the net and not be delivered hours/days later.

I'd love to be the one selected for TelecomTech right now

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