Help Group Chat keeps failing to send/receive MMS in Messages

[LoudDroidSound]

Anyone else experiencing the following issue?

I keep ended up with a lot of messages stuck in sending or "downloading" in a separate window from the person that is sending it. For example, I'll get a notification that Person A has a new MMS message that needs to be downloaded. When I tap to download the message, it gets stuck for sometimes up to 15 minutes. During that period, I can't send and receive messages in any of the other chats, which sometimes leads to even further messages stuck in download. When it finally does get through, the message appears in the groupchat that Person A is in. Oftentimes, however, the message is listed as expired and can't be retrieved.

This has been going on for a while and seems to happen when I'm group-chatting with iPhone users. I've started linking to "Messages for web" and that seemed to help for a bit but today it's returned to the usual level of madness. Makes it really hard to coordinate weekend plans.

I'm on model: SM-N920V
Android Version: 7.0
Messages Version: 3.3.044

SMS settings are as follows

 

[Member 1919122]

Use a different messaging app

 

[mikedt]

Unable to send and receive/download MMS? Check the phone's APN settings are correct and present for your carrier.

SM-N920V ....I believe that's a Verizon variant Samsung. Is your carrier Verizon?

 

[LoudDroidSound]

Unable to send and receive/download MMS? Check the phone's APN settings are correct and present for your carrier.

SM-N920 V <span style='color:#FF0000;'>....I believe that's a Verizon variant Samsung. Is your carrier Verizon? </span>

Yes! Sorry for the late response. I didn't get a notification on this for some reason.

 

[LoudDroidSound]

Use a different messaging app

I have. I've used Textra and the Samsung messaging app and they have the same issue, except they don't show it stuck in downloading. So, I just never get any notification I'm missing messages.

 

[tube517]

EDIT: Nevermind, I see your answer to mikedt that your carrier is Verizon

 

[Clementine_3]

seems to happen when I'm group-chatting with iPhone users

It may be them, not you. Make sure they are all set up correctly and not trying to use iMessage. Their settings need to be set to allow SMS and MMS not through iMessage, see images. (Yikes, those are big!)

Also, how is your signal?

 

[mikedt]

AFAIK with iMessage, green speech bubbles are good(sent as SMS), blue speech bubbles are bad(iMessage only). That's only what I've read, as iMessage isn't available in this country(found that the other day).