Text messages / phone calls delayed intermittently

[Only1KW]

I have had intermittent problems with receiving texts and calls since day one of getting my first Android device from AT&T over a year ago. About every few weeks or so, text messages I receive will be delayed by 4+ hours from when the sender sent them until suddenly my phone alerts me to a ton of messages all at the same time. At the same time, I can be alerted to phone mail coming in with no indication that there are any missed calls on my phone, but the caller states the phone rings and rings on their end with no answer. This has occurred with multiple callers/senders using multiple different networks. I have had zero known issues with making calls and sending texts.

Some other symptoms that I have notice occur when this issue occurs (though not all of them every time):

 

[Only1KW]

I hit this problem again last night. To debug, I actually called my cell phone using Google Voice while the phone was on Standby. From Google, I heard the phone ring multiple times but my cell phone never rang once, and afterwards I was sent to voicemail and so hung up. I then tried again, but this time, after letting the phone ring twice (according to Google Voice), I pulled my cell phone out of Standby. The cell phone instantly started ringing at that point.

Based on this and previous experience, this problem seems to occur only when my phone is in Standby mode (though it obviously doesn't occur every time it is in Standby). As soon as I hit the button on my phone to turn the screen back on and enter in my pin, that's when I start getting the texts and voicemail messages. If I had to guess, when in Standby mode and this problem occurs, the phone is accepting text messages from the AT&T network, but it is not ACKing the messages, and so AT&T keeps trying to send the message again later, which is why I get all those copies of the first message, but doesn't bother sending along any additional texts/calls since the phone is currently not responding to the first one. My phone also doesn't alert me when the first message comes in in Standby mode. Once I pull the phone out of Standby, then the phone starts acking the messages and so AT&T starts sending me the additional messages/voicemail notifications.

This is my best guess as to what is happening at this time base on what I observed, but of course AT&T won't confirm this is a possible scenario. Does this sound like something that Android devices have done in the past to others? Is there any way to fix/prevent this?

 

[koshki]

I have been experiencing some of the same problems, and surprise, I have a Captivate Glide on AT&T. I am a noob, so I can't answer any of your questions, sorry. Hope you can figure it out!

What do you mean by standby?

 

[Only1KW]

Roughly speaking, Standby is basically any time your phone is on but your screen is off and you're not actively using the phone (e.g. making a call).

 

[csillu987]

Hi,
I am from Hungary and just bought a new Samsung Galaxy S3 mini.
About 2 weeks later I had difficulties with calling others, it was dialing but not ringing. Others also could not call me, and I got an sms (sometimes an hour later) that I had a missed call (like if the phone was off). Then I could not send smses, and emails got stuck in outbox and were sent middle of the night while I was sleeping, hrs later. I took the phone to the Samsung service centre and they did a quick software update. The problem remained so I left it there for a full reinstall. 2 days passed and I have problems with calls again...

They said I downloaded something, a virus or such. I only downloaded a few standard apps, like Fb, Twitter, MyUploads, WhatsApp, Viber. I cannot accept the answer they gave me that I downloaded something with a virus coz in 2 days I didn't download anything other than these few apps. I think it is the problem of the phone.

 

[RazzMaTazz]

To me it sounds like AT&T's fault. It's highly unlikely that your phone's software would behave intermittently. Over the last 15 years, my wife and I have occasionally experienced similar behavior on Sprint-- both with all of our old (dumb) flip phones and our newer LG Android smartphones.

Keep in mind that perhaps you (and 10,00 people near a given AT&T cell tower) may be getting 5-bars of signal strength, but that doesn't mean that the cell tower has enough bandwidth (i.e. free circuits) to connect everyone's calls simultaneously. And just because somebody left a voicemail or text for you on AT&T's server, doesn't mean that they will properly deliver it to you in a timely manner.

It's common that when placing calls to cell phones, the caller will hear the ringing well before the intended recipient.