Although text messages or SMS have become extinct as a form of daily communication, it is still used daily as a method to receive or send confirmation codes. They are also used by operators as an alternative and quick method of customer service and of course, they continue to be used to bombard us with advertising.
SMS lived its moment of glory, but there are still users who make use of them. Even when platforms like WhatsApp go down, they are a reliable method of communication, not even requiring an internet connection. For this reason, it is still a problem when we cannot receive or send SMS on our Android mobile. Luckily we have a few solutions or tests to perform, to try to solve the problem.
Solutions to the problem
All these tests are valid for all Android phones, since they are mostly the source of the problem . We must check them one by one and go to the next one in case this failure with the SMS persists.
- Verify that we have the most updated version of the Messages app.
- Check that the SIM card is properly inserted.
- Verify that we have Messages configured as the default application for sending SMS. We can do it from Settings / Applications / Messages
- Check that our operator supports SMS, MMS or RCS messages and there are no restrictions.
- Be sure to have an active plan or balance to send or receive messages.
- Verify that we have good coverage.
- Deactivate Airplane Mode if it is activated.
- If you have changed from an iPhone to an Android phone, we will need to have iMessage disabled for the reception to occur correctly.
The problem is in a contact
At other times, the problem of not being able to send or receive text messages can come from a specific contact. In this case, we must also try various actions to fix the problem.
- Delete the contact and add it back
- Check that it is not on the black list: leave the name pressed and check if it is in the “BlackList”, if so, deactivate the option.
- Check that the phone number is correct.
- In case of a foreign number, check if we need to add a country code (for example, +1 for US numbers)
Other solutions
If all of the above fails and we still have problems, we can try to reset the APN settings to the default values . This can be done from the network settings, entering the configuration of our SIM card. Once restored, we must restart the phone and try again.
