Third party SMS apps stopped working after Android pie update

[Meghana R]

Hey all,

I've been using third party SMS apps for years (Chomp then Textra, both by Delicious) on different Samsung phones, but after the Android Pie update, I've been having serious issues. MMS used to stop working as it pleased and now SMS is doing the same thing. I have no indications of whether messages sent or not because even the sent confirmations were lying to me because people weren't getting my texts but Textra said it sent.

I downloaded Pulse and Mood messenger and had the same issues. The Samsung messenger is working just fine, but I've never liked it as much as other SMS apps.

I have a Samsung Galaxy S9 running android pie. If it matters, my carrier is AT&T.
I've already tried restarting my phone every time this issue comes up and it usually doesn't resolve it. I'll keep getting notifications that things failed to send or download (in the case of MMS messages received). I've tried clearing the cache, clearing data, and uninstalling then reinstalling. Nothing works.

Thanks all!

 

[Hadron]

Not intrinsic to android 9 - I've been using it since last summer with the first 2 apps you named.

Unfortunately I don't have an ATT S9 so can't say whether this is normal on that phone and carrier.

 

[tube517]

Is your mobile data on?

All of this happened on my wife's S8+ after the pie update.

When I checked her data, it was off. Pie update had defaulted to off for mobile data. (She doesn't touch any settings. I usually do the updates and troubleshooting on her phone and tablet)

 

[Hadron]

SMS doesn't require mobile data (MMS is different, but SMS is part of the GSM standard that's been around since before data connectivity was even available).

Sent confirmations but no messages being sent is curious though. Because an SMS app is just a front-end to a system service, so that could suggest either a communications problem between app and service, a problem with the service itself, or a network problem. But with the latter 2 I'd not expect the built-in app to work either - on the other hand it would be very strange for a communication bug to affect all third party apps, especially since the developers will have been working with Android 9 for a year, and are undoubtedly testing with 10 by now. So it is a puzzle.

 

[tube517]

SMS doesn't require mobile data (MMS is different, but SMS is part of the GSM standard that's been around since before data connectivity was even available).

Sent confirmations but no messages being sent is curious though. Because an SMS app is just a front-end to a system service, so that could suggest either a communications problem between app and service, a problem with the service itself, or a network problem. But with the latter 2 I'd not expect the built-in app to work either - on the other hand it would be very strange for a communication bug to affect all third party apps, especially since the developers will have been working with Android 9 for a year, and are undoubtedly testing with 10 by now. So it is a puzzle.

Yeah the MMS issue was what I was mainly focusing on.

For Chomp/Textra, they have the Legacy vs System settings which you have to kind of play around with to see which works if no sms or mms is being received. After a major update or switching to either of those apps, that setting is the first thing I check as I've used both.