Although text messages or SMS have almost become extinct as a form of daily communication, they are still used daily as a method to receive or send confirmation codes by Android users. In addition, it continues to be used by the different operators as an alternative and fast method of customer service and, of course, they continue to be used to bombard us with all kinds of 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 problems with SMS . For this reason, we must go checking them one by one and go to the next one in case this failure with the messages continues to occur on our mobile phone:
- Verify that we have the most up-to-date 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 the last to arrive known as RCS messages, and there are no restrictions.
- Be sure you have an active plan or balance to send or receive messages on the phone.
- Check that we have good mobile coverage.
- Deactivate Airplane Mode if it is activated.
- Force the messaging application on your smartphone. It may have been ‘frozen’ for some reason, so you should try to force it in the following way: go to Settings> Applications and notifications> enter the app> Force stop. Then turn it on again.
- Clear the app cache. Go to Settings> Applications and notifications> enter the messages app> Storage> Clear cache.
In case, after having tried all these possible solutions, the mobile messaging service continues to fail. It’s time to look at other workarounds that could hit the right key to correct this nasty mistake.
If the fault is in a contact …
On other occasions, the error of not being able to send or receive text messages may come from a specific contact on our agenda. In this case, we will also have to try several actions to solve the problems with the SMS:
- Delete the contact and add it back to the phone book.
- Check that it is not on the blacklist: press the name and check if it is on the ‘BlackList’. If so, we will only have to deactivate this option on the smartphone.
- Check that the phone number is correct.
- In case of a foreign number, check if we need to add a country code, such as +1 for US numbers.
If the problem persists, we will only have three more options with which to fix the SMS error on our Android phone.
Other alternatives
If all of the above fails and we continue to have problems with SMS , we can try the following alternatives from our Android mobile. In addition, it will only take us a few minutes to test them. So, don’t waste any more time, and try these solutions on your phone.
Not enough space
One of the reasons that not everyone takes into account is the storage of the terminal. As much as we think that it cannot affect the case of short text messages in which there are only a few megabytes or less of space, the truth is that the error may not be enough internal space on the device.
If, for example, you receive a notification that the SMS app cannot send or receive messages until there is more space available, it will be time to move on to deleting multimedia files that you no longer want to have on your Android phone . In addition, we also recommend that you uninstall the apps that you do not use. In this way, you will gain storage quite quickly and in just a few seconds.
Are they illegible?
Not always the error will be in the shipment, but we could even have a failure in the reception . That is, if the text messages you receive are unreadable, the problem is that you have changed from a phone with visual voicemail to one that does not have this feature.
So you will start to get garbled messages from your operator, fix your voice message notifications problems. To fix it, the only solution will be to contact your mobile operator in order to have this configuration changed.
Switch from iPhone to Android?
If you have changed from an iPhone to an Android phone, we must have disabled iMessage for the reception to occur correctly. Therefore, it is better that you do not forget to disable iMessage before removing the SIM card from your Apple phone. If you have not done so, it is possible that you have already found the reason why SMS or MMS messages still do not reach your new mobile with the Google operating system.
More than anything, because they keep coming to your old iPhone instead of your new smartphone. To deactivate iMessage you will have to put the SIM in your Apple mobile and follow the following steps: access the terminal Settings> tap on the Messages option> deactivate the switch on iMessage.
In case you do not have the phone of the bitten apple, you will have to do it remotely on this official Apple page . With this, you will request that your phone number be unregistered in the messages app of the American company. Once inside, you just have to follow the steps they establish.