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Help SMS Red Exclamation

jabbawest

jabbawest

Android Enthusiast
Found a few threads about this but nothing definitive.
My wife and I have the same phones, LG Optimus M v2.2.1 from Metro PCS but her phone is the only one having a problem with pretty consistent, meaning daily, SMS message failures.
Last night, while driving home, she tried to respond to a text from me about 10 times and kept getting the red exclamation in a triangle which meant it failed to be delivered. Her response was the letter K. We live in the DFW area so, signal quality isn't the problem.
When this first started I called LG and they had me remove the battery while the phone was on, which seem to fix the problem for a day or two. I'll call them again today but wondered if I might get a few suggestions from the collective.

Thanks,
Stephen
 
I seem to get it quite often but a lot less than before. I went from the default messaging to handcent (which it sounds like she's on too with the exclamation). I know that I called Metro when it was really bad and they said that some towers went down in my area (Central Florida). But what I also did was a factory reset and removed all the apps that were for sms and that seemed to clear it up and i only use handcent now.
 
I've had the same issue off and on since I purchased the LG Optimus M. Oddly enough it seemed to occur more often before I rooted... I rooted the phone to get rid of the crapware.

I'm using the stock messaging app because it seems to work better and faster then the others I've tried (Chomp & Handcent).

Occasionally it still happens but only when I've got several apps running and using data on or off WiFi.

I've never had to power off - it just seems to resolve itself after receiving a few more txt messages.

I'm a pretty heavy SMS/MMS user and I would say it's less than 1% of all messaging, so I would say the handset that is having the issue is defective.
 
The Korben Dallas said:
I'm a pretty heavy SMS/MMS user and I would say it's less than 1% of all messaging, so I would say the handset that is having the issue is defective.
Click to expand...
So's the wife and I'm hoping to boil this down to either a network or phone issue so I'll know how to proceed.
Funny thing, after the issue resolves itself, her phone will send out a few duplicate sms messages and then settle down.
 
Its not a phone issue...its metro. I get the same thing sometimes, and so does my wife with her ascend. It used to happen with our codes and my daughters freeform. The network just drops texts sometimes.
 
I have the same problems with mine...5th phone on metro and never had any problems before..so now I'm wondering if it's the handsent app or the phone. Happens at least 2 times per day if not more.
 
I would lean towards Metro myself as I use Handcent and have never experienced the issue. I have however had the issue with another Metro phone I had before I went Android and had an option other than stock.
 
You can pretty much put it on metro because what happens is it sends out the message which broadcasts it. Then the phone listens to hear for a confirmation if the carrier/phone support it or an error code. I have the same thing happen to me every once in a while on my Optimus but I find that most of the time the message still goes through. Chances are that it's just a timeout somewhere in the path of sending the text. I doubt it's the phone itself. It's just much more obvious with this phone because of the red exclamation point that shows up on the thread and the message.

In all honesty I used to have a samsung freeform through metro and every once in a while as well I would have the same issue. The message would receive a send error code but you wouldn't realize it unless you went into the sent messages folder, but like now many times the message would still go through.
 
Thanks for all of the feedback but I need to ask how the SMS system works, specifically using the LG Optimus M on Metro. Our previous phones, of varying models and technology, with T-Mobile would do the following when sending an SMS.
If I sent a text to my wife and her phone was off, I would see a confirmation that it was sent and she would receive it once she turned her phone on. So I'm assuming it was cached on the network and delivered after she powered up. Yes?

Long, long, ago I remember when the phone was responsible for the retry, so if the recipients phone was off, the message delivery would fail.

I could be wrong but, it seems to me that the Metro PCS network has handed back the responsibility for delivery to the phones and is not caching messages for later delivery or, the cache on the network is too small which then leads to delivery failures.

Educate me please.
 
Well, the SMS delivery error saga continues. We've tried a new phone and it does the exact same thing. Haven't tried the Handcent SMS app yet due to the gripes about the newest version.
Would someone be kind enough to PM me with a copy of say, version 3.7 something so I could give it a run my wife's phone?

Thank you,
Stephen

EDIT: Google and I found v3.75 of Handcent and are testing it with the hopes it will remedy this annoying issue.
 
Make sure you have area code in front of contacts for example like 5104334321 don't put a 1 infront of area code but put the 3digit area code of each contact in front of there number and I bet this fix's your problem.
 
LOL I know that's the problom LOL its like the phone don't know what area code to send message so gives u error LOL but this should fix your text problem. all yeah i called metro to before and they said pull the battery to lol, they also said they refresh my phone signal from there lol.
 
blaxican25 said:
Make sure you have area code in front of contacts for example like 5104334321 don't put a 1 infront of area code but put the 3digit area code of each contact in front of there number and I bet this fix's your problem.
Click to expand...
That might be it. I thought I had removed those pesky 1+ entries a few weeks ago after reading that very thing but I found a couple in mine and in my wife's contacts.

Thanks
 
Well, that wasn't it and I really hope someone can give me some more advice.
Again, this is happening on a now rooted LG Optimus M.
This is the second LG Optimus M with the exact same issue.
The not sent errors happen roughly at the same time of day, usually between 5 & 7pm. This phone also will not receive SMS when the send errors happen.
Currently using Handcent SMS, had hopes that would help resolve the issue but it did not.
Pulling the battery seems to help for a few days but not too sure about that.

Any new suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thank you
 
I would go to different locations far enough from each other and check if it happens there. Maybe get the Open Signal Maps app and see what the signal frequency or tower location is. It sounds like a network issue.
 
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