I recently switched from an iPhone to Android. 1:1 messages are working fine, but group messages are being sent into a black hole. I'm hoping that someone here may know of a fix.
I deactivated iMessage using both the device settings and Apple's support site. I also (annoyingly) had to SMS everyone I know who has an iPhone, asking them to delete our existing conversation thread so that their phone would correctly start using SMS for our conversations.
Where I'm stuck is group messaging. It appears that anyone with an existing group conversation that I was part of is still "stuck" in iMessage -- i.e., it should have reverted to MMS for a group chat, since I'm no longer on iOS. But, the messages are still being sent as iMessage, and the senders have no idea that I'm not receiving them.
(I know that I'm not receiving them because my partner's iPhone receives these group iMessages, and I'm still listed as a recipient)
I've heard that the iMessage servers "time out" after 30-45 days and will fall back to SMS/MMS for a recipient if their iOS device hasn't revalidated iMessage in the background....Don't know if this is true. That would still be frustrating, but at least I'd know that I'll eventually start receiving messages again. Also, reaching out to everyone I've had group conversations with and asking them to delete every thread is pretty bananas -- there are so many permutations of group conversation members.
Do any other iOS --> Android switchers have any idea what I can do?
Hi,
This is an older thread, but might help,
> AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III [Forum Being Separated] > Galaxy S III Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting > [Q] Group Text Messaging - Problems caused by iMessage
If that's not helpful, you will need to ask for help here,
[Ask Any Question][Newbie Friendly]
Good luck!
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Hello,
Just had a question. I sometimes receive "group mms" messages from friends with iphones who are on AT&T (i'm on verizon with a DX). It seems like the list of recipients isn't being sent along with the MMS. So it looks like a message that's directed at me, and not at a group of people. Also, this makes it difficult to respond to everyone that was on the original list for the message. Not to mention the fact that the individual replies from other people go into the list of text's between that person and I, and not into one viewable group conversation. I had this problem with an old feature-phone that i had as well, but just chalked that up to bad software. I've been searching here, on howardforums, and other places, but no one seems to know much about it. Has anyone else seen this, and is there anything that i can do about it?
Thanks in advance!
Hey djuniah,
I understand what you are saying. I have been having the same problem too. These are automated msg's sent out by the service providers.
I reckon, you contact your network provider and look into the processes. I did that when this problem was occurring and it was rectified.
Now, its no guarantee that you wont get another msg like it... but the network provider does his/her best to rectify it..
Hope this helps.
err, i don't think you understand what i mean. I'm talking about this scenario
Friend1 (with iphone on AT&T) -> Sends group mms to "Friend2, Friend3, and me"
Friend2 (with iphone on AT&T) -> Sees the message with all of the other people's names attached. When they reply, it goes to everyone in the group mms
me (droid x on verizon) -> I see the original message from friend1 in the same thread as all of my previous messages with friend1. When friend2 sent their reply, i see that message in the thread with all of my previous messages from friend2. When i want to reply, i have to reply to each of them individually, not as a group.
I called vzw and the operator there said he saw the same issue on his OG droid. I've assumed this was a network issue for a while now, but i was wondering if anyone had any solid info as to why it was happening and if there was anything we could do about it.
bump to top
This isn't network trickery, as far as I can see. It's Apple intelligently using the features built into MMS long ago to send a group message, have other iPhones handle that group message in a way that you can 'reply to all' like email.
Someone (Google, Go SMS, HandCent) needs to simply build the 'group' feature into their application so that it can properly see the recipients of the MMS as a Group and reply to all. If I go into the message details of one of these MMS messages on my Evo, I can see everyone that got the message... Now, the app just needs to look at that and do something with it.
It's very similar to Beluga... albeit not as functional.
Yeah, i had come to a similar conclusion once i started looking at the message details. If most of those texting apps can handle sending group messages, i don't see why they havent/cant build the ability to notice them coming in...
seems like a really simple and practical thing to have
Any luck with this issue>?
djuniah said:
Hello,
Just had a question. I sometimes receive "group mms" messages from friends with iphones who are on AT&T (i'm on verizon with a DX). It seems like the list of recipients isn't being sent along with the MMS. So it looks like a message that's directed at me, and not at a group of people. Also, this makes it difficult to respond to everyone that was on the original list for the message. Not to mention the fact that the individual replies from other people go into the list of text's between that person and I, and not into one viewable group conversation.
Has anyone else seen this, and is there anything that i can do about it?
Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Any luck with this issue? I noticed it works for BB users also. I have iPhone users, BB users, and EVO (Android) users on a Group MMS chat and it seems that only us Androids are not able to reply to the "Group". We can create a group on our end and batch text each user, but the messages are not received in their "group mms" screen, its on a direct individual one. Need to figure this one out so I can continue my "My phone is better than yours" war with my iPhone friends. Heheh.
bump this back up, i just got into this issue a few days ago, if i cant me sms agent to iphone in handcent would that do anything for me
bump
this is a growing problem for me, and for Android i fear...
of my closest 20 friends, 18 of us use Android, 1 blackberry, the rest iPhone... and the group SMS (really MMS) messages are common - PLUS - the one BB user can reply to all with their device. granted the BB reply looks like email the way it contains the whole message with headers in its reply, but still it can play the game.
i find it really surprising that simply threading the messages that come in to multiple recipients hasn't been addressed, and if i had the technical skill i would address it myself.
i am currently on an Atrix using Cyanogen's beta, and have an Inspire running the 7.1 RC.... i have tried both the native SMS/MMS apps, Handscent (though not recently) and love GOSMS Pro (though it seems to periodically send out duplicate texts for some reason).
i would love to find a way to thread my SMS/MMS messages with groups like the iPhone does so i can join these conversations instead of receiving any number of random replies from people and having to piece together the conversation. ANY help with this would be appreciated.
installing the vzw messenger app DID "solve" the problem for me. I prefer to use GOSMS Pro, but when i get a group message, i reply to it with the verizon one. However, now i get double the notifications from GOSMS. For some reason, it's pop-up thinks i got 2 messages instead of one (with the same content). This is far from ideal, but it does work.
what about outside of VZW?
i wish there was an app i could get my hands on like your VZW app, maybe its not perfect, but it gets you through the issue until something better comes along. being on the Atrix and the Inspire i'm with AT&T coming off an iPhone, and periodically having to go back if there's reason for me to play a role in some happening which is causing an unusually high number of group texts.
from what i can tell, Handscent and GOSMS Pro are really the only contenders in the platform-wide SMS/MMS alternatives, I'm surprised they've spent so much time focused on making their themes pretty instead of addressing this well documented but unaddressed issue.
has anyone else found other alternatives?
Bump
I've been looking for this for a year. Today an iPhone user asked me why is that we cannot reply to group messages. She's anoyed because she have to forward all the messages received from Androids to the rest of the group...
Hi everyone. I honesly have no clue where to post this question as the subject falls into multiple categories.
I have been getting a lot of 2nd hand confirmation that iMessage Sort of works with Blackberries. According to my 2nd hand sources, the following happens all the time:
An Iphone user sends a group text to at least one other Iphone and at least one Blackberry
One of the Iphone recipients responds to the Group (Not sure if this step has to happen) and all users (including Blackberries) see the response
One of the Blackberry users responds to an individual in the group and all Iphone Users in the group see the response anyway (Unsure if other Blackberry users see it also).
According to EVERYTHING I've read, the above scenario is impossible. But alas, it is happening. So, now the question is how does it happen? And of course, the BIG question is, can we get something like this to work on Android?
The other thing that is of concern is that this means a Blackberry user has no way of knowing whether his/her response is going to a huge group.
The only GOOD theory I can think of for this happening is that the Individual Iphone that the Blackberry user responded to automatically forwards the message to the rest of the group. But, would Apple actually do that? Due to it being without the Blackberry user's consent, I feel like they could be sued for that or something.
If my theory is incorrect and the Blackberry phone is doing something to figure out the groups, then can we do this on Android too?
Its just a standard group text. There's no magic involved, no special requirements but the ability to send SMS over a cellular network. Android phones can do this, even dumbphones can.
GazaIan said:
Its just a standard group text. There's no magic involved, no special requirements but the ability to send SMS over a cellular network. Android phones can do this, even dumbphones can.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are correct that any phone can do a group SMS, but what I am describing above is a Blackberry successfully doing a "reply to all" to a group text. I have yet to see that happen with SMS on ANY phone as none of the receiving phones ever see a "group" associated with an SMS. If this is possible on Android, please tell me how to do it.
Ok, I finally found a thread at android central . com /verizon-galaxy-nexus/142991-reply-all-text-messages.html. Apparently the feature is missing from the Galaxy Nexus messaging App. I downloaded the Verizon Messaging App as was suggested, but is this seriously the only App in the market that can do this? This is atrocious!!
I noticed in the beans Rom thread under android development that some people are getting texts from VZWNMN1. As I don't have enough posts to submit a reply in the development section, I thought I could help by creating a thread here.
When this happened to me i did some googling and found that these texts mean that you are enrolled in a feature called backup assistant plus which sends you a text message alert when you receive an email to the account associated with the backup assistant plus. Some people have been able to remove the feature in their my Verizon account. I am on a corporate account and had to call Verizon customer support to have the feature removed. This stopped the text messages immediately. Hope this helps.
Rooted, unlocked S3 running Beans 9 and Imos leankernal .3
Heads up, I love iOS and Android, I think both OS provide excellent features to suite their respective users. With that said, he's my deal breaker as to why I may be returning my S6 within my 14 day return policy to go back to my iPhone 6 Plus.
1. MMS: Now with iOS you get Apple's proprietary iMessage which does not limit the quality of the picture you are sending out, it does however, limit the length of the video though but not the quality. The problem with Android is that it does limit the quality based on your carriers send size limit which in this case for me is 1mb per AT&T. I just couldn't believe it, it wasn't something I was aware of due to the fact that I've been with iOS for a few years now but when I attempted to send numerous pictures I had just taken with my brand spanking new S6 via Textra (Msg App), it kept throwing errors indicating it was out of memory or the file was too large! I was really disappointed to say the least, I mean damn I could send numerous .GIF images just fine via iMessage and can't even do that with the stock SMS app or with Textra - what gives?
2. Group Messaging: I text a lot, I also have quite a few group messages going during any given day at a time and to me group messaging is a big reason why I loved iOS + iMessage. To this day, I just can't comprehend how Google hasn't been able to come up with a solution to oppose iMessage.... It really baffles me... Everyone has their preferences when it comes to phones and OS, not everyone will be on an Android device nor will everyone be on an iPhone. I didn't think this would bother me as much but it is, now if this isn't a big deal to you then that's fine, again this is my preference and my personal opinion but how in the world are we in year 2015 and Android still can't get group messaging right is beyond me.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, again I'm not bashing the S6 or Android, I was just unaware that these were still issues after all these years.
Thanks!
When you open your messaging app go into the settings and try to see if you have to enable group messaging.
Anyone else have this issue? Ive tried everything and I just cant recieve group texts, everyone gets mine but I cant get theirs. This happens on all messaging apps.
This issue only cropped up a week ago for me
Any solutions yet?!
I've recently gone to the S6 from iPhone. I've de-registered my number from the imessage app on apple's website, turned off imessage and facetime on my old iPhone, downloaded textra and numerous other messaging apps, and I still cant send or receive group messages to/from other iphones! When I send a group message, the text goes to the receivers individually. When they text me into a group message I don't receive anything.
Please any help or suggestions?!
thannan said:
Any solutions yet?!
I've recently gone to the S6 from iPhone. I've de-registered my number from the imessage app on apple's website, turned off imessage and facetime on my old iPhone, downloaded textra and numerous other messaging apps, and I still cant send or receive group messages to/from other iphones! When I send a group message, the text goes to the receivers individually. When they text me into a group message I don't receive anything.
Please any help or suggestions?!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had some issues with MMS messages (including group messages) and a Sprint rep had me go into Settings->System Update->Update Profile and it fixed it. Give that a try.
As for your group messages going out as individual messages, this is typically an app settings. Group messages are MMS and send over mobile data, not over cellular like SMS (I might be using the wrong terms there). Most apps don't presume to use up your precious data and will instead send a group message as multiple SMS messages (using up your SMS quota rather than your data quota).
I just checked both Google Hangouts and Chomp SMS that I have on my phone, and both have a checkbox in their settings for something like "Use MMS for Group Messages."
flu13 said:
I had some issues with MMS messages (including group messages) and a Sprint rep had me go into Settings->System Update->Update Profile and it fixed it. Give that a try.
As for your group messages going out as individual messages, this is typically an app settings. Group messages are MMS and send over mobile data, not over cellular like SMS (I might be using the wrong terms there). Most apps don't presume to use up your precious data and will instead send a group message as multiple SMS messages (using up your SMS quota rather than your data quota).
I just checked both Google Hangouts and Chomp SMS that I have on my phone, and both have a checkbox in their settings for something like "Use MMS for Group Messages."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't appear to have the "update profile" setting anywhere on my S6?
But I do have the MMS for group chat activated on my app.. :/
Any other suggestions?
Or can android simply not group chat with iphones?
Thanks for replying though!
thannan said:
I don't appear to have the "update profile" setting anywhere on my S6?
But I do have the MMS for group chat activated on my app.. :/
Any other suggestions?
Or can android simply not group chat with iphones?
Thanks for replying though!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe the problem is that iChat is a proprietary (closed) group messaging system.
Alright, this issue has gone on long enough! The issue is a little more complicated than just not receiving group mms from iphones. Here's the deal:
iPhone user 1 and iPhone user 2 have the exact same settings under "settings/messaging"
imessage ON
Show contact photo: ON
Read receipts: OFF
MMS: ON
send as sms: OFF
group messaging: ON
However, I get picture messages from user 1, but not user 2. We have a family thread with 6 iphones and 3 android devices. I thought that I would get all text group texts (messages with just text) but I just learned that I don't even get all those. So there are iphones i only get text from, iphones that i get texts and pictures from, and iphones that i don't get anything from. This seems horribly inconsistent and wondering what the heck is going on!
My next step is to have iphone users delete the android contacts (however many duplicates there might be) and then re- add the numbers. But in the meant time, if anyone has any solutions/suggestions I'd love to hear them.
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