topic Re: Unable to Text Australia in Get Support

Unable to Text Australia

susanjm — Thu, 06 Jan 2022 07:23:42 GMT

I'm pretty new to Public Mobile - activated my SIM a week ago yesterday on the $15 Province-wide plan. Everything was working fine - number ported from Telus immediately and I was able to send and receive phone calls and texts within Canada.

On Saturday I decided to test international texting. Sent two messages to my sister in Australia mentioning that it was a test. She replied a while later, we had a bit of a back and forth and then signed off. I subsequently sent her a text on Sunday and and another one on Monday. Turns out she got neither of them and hasn't received any since. I have tried to text her husband as well - but that didn't go through either!

I don't understand why it worked for a while but not afterwards and I'm not sure what to do! This plan is supposed to have unlimited texting. Help!

Re: Unable to Text Australia

TheGx — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 20:50:11 GMT

@susanjm :You should contact the Moderator Team by clicking the white bubble in bottom right or click envelope button in top right.

Re: Unable to Text Australia

TheGx — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 20:52:30 GMT

@susanjm :While you waiting for Moderator to reply you, can you tell us what phone you have and if you were connected to WiFi or not during your attempts to test Australia?

Re: Unable to Text Australia

NDesai — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 20:54:24 GMT

@susanjm Are you sending SMS texts? If you are using iPhone, make sure messages are not going through iMessage or RCS messages on Android. Are you able to text locally? Try turning Airplane mode off/on.

Re: Unable to Text Australia

susanjm — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 20:58:55 GMT

.@villellamcmeans I have a Google Pixel 4XL and I was on WiFi. But the messages are definitely going out as SMSes.

Re: Unable to Text Australia

Triguy — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 20:59:52 GMT

Make sure to use 011+61+area code+ phone number.

check your signal level
send a text to your own number to see if texting works at all
restart your phone
turn off your WIFI
some texting or calling apps on your smartphone may conflict with regular texting so try to identify a possible culprit

Re: Unable to Text Australia

susanjm — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 21:05:42 GMT

_@NDesai They are definitely going out as SMS (figured that one out when I wasn't receiving texts from husband in my car!). I can text locally no problem been using that all week. Thanks for the tip about airplane mode. I've done it but it might take a while to find out if it worked or not - it's early Sunday morning there 😁

I will definitely report back. Thanks!

Re: Unable to Text Australia

TheGx — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 21:05:54 GMT

@susanjm :Strange that it would work then all of sudden stop working...so something is different from when your texts worked and when it stopped working, hopefully we can figure out what caused it to do working before Moderator reply you back.

Have you tried the other suggestions posted here like rest phone etc?

I think first step to eliminate possible causes is too turn off wifi and make sure local texting works by trying to text local phones then also try Australia without wifi too.

Re: Unable to Text Australia

Spudster — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 21:24:46 GMT

@susanjm

Try this.

If you know someone nearby who is also with public mobile, have THEM try texting your sister in Australia to see if she receives it.

If they do, then you'll know it's an issue or setting with your own device/ SIM.

If they don't, likely a setting on THEIR end.

Re: Unable to Text Australia

TheGx — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 21:25:47 GMT

@susanjm :Here is link to try turning off RCS Rich Communication Setting as NDesai posted about above:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Using-Your-Service/RCS-working-for-anyone/m-p/670050

He has pixel 3 and has similar text issues not getting sent too. Maybe it similar to your problem since your phone a pixel too.

So when you do try texting again, make sure WiFi and RCS is turned off and see if it works and let us know.

Re: Unable to Text Australia

susanjm — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 21:26:58 GMT

.@Triguy

Thanks for your suggestions. I have some questions and comments:

011 in front of the number? Is that a peculiarity of Public Mobile? I've been sending international texts for years to many countries and from many countries. Never had to do that before. But I'll try it!
signal strength is always excellent in our place
I power down my phone briefly every day. Computers just work better with a regular hard boot in my experience 🙂
Tried with WiFi off but won't know the result until later (8:30am Sunday there)
I'll check whether I have something else that might interfering but I don't think so.

Re: Unable to Text Australia

susanjm — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 21:30:08 GMT

I tried texting her husband there too ... it didn't work either. I'm going to get my brother to try her and see if he can get through.

Re: Unable to Text Australia

darlicious — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 21:35:58 GMT

@susanjm

Toggling airplane mode on/off disconnects and then reconnects you to the network giving you a brand new connection. This would normally help when your texts are not recieved or just sit and spin and not send. Maybe your sister needs to perform this action on her end since she is the one not recieving them. You can also try :

Rebooting your phone.
Clearing your texting app's cache. Settings>>Apps>>Texting app>>Storage>>Clear cache.
Toggle airplane mode on/off. (As mentioned.)
Last resort....suspend your service via lost/stolen on the plans or usage pages. Log out/in. Resume. Log out. Reboot. Warning performing this action while it may reprovision your sim and can be used to force the system to take a payment while suspended using it with active service will cause your rewards to not apply upon renewal and require you to contact the moderators after renewal to have them apply the rewards manually to your account.

Suggest to your sister to try #1 thru #3 as well.

Re: Unable to Text Australia

Spudster — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 21:35:37 GMT

@susanjm

🤞

Let us know!!!

Re: Unable to Text Australia

susanjm — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 21:36:50 GMT

My hubby and I (Pixel 5 and Pixel 4XL) turned RCS off ages ago (we were both with Telus at that point) because it wasn't switching to SMS when one of us wasn't on WiFi. Have never turned it back on. It took us an awfully long time to figure out what was going on because we didn't realise that RCS was on!

And I have turned off WiFi and sent texts to both E and her husband G. But it's Sunday morning there. I will definitely be sure to report back.

Re: Unable to Text Australia

esjliv — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 21:55:42 GMT

@susanjm wrote:
.@Triguy

Thanks for your suggestions. I have some questions and comments:

011 in front of the number? Is that a peculiarity of Public Mobile? I've been sending international texts for years to many countries and from many countries. Never had to do that before. But I'll try it!
signal strength is always excellent in our place
I power down my phone briefly every day. Computers just work better with a regular hard boot in my experience 🙂
Tried with WiFi off but won't know the result until later (8:30am Sunday there)
I'll check whether I have something else that might interfering but I don't think so.

@susanjm 011 the Canada country exit code that you start with.

Re: Unable to Text Australia

sheytoon — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 22:24:38 GMT

@esjliv:

If @susanjm is using +61, she doesn't need 01161.

011 is equivalent to "+" when you are in Canada or US.

Re: Unable to Text Australia

gpixel — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 22:31:21 GMT

@susanjm contact customer support mods. this is most likely a pm network issue

Re: Unable to Text Australia

computergeek541 — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 01:03:16 GMT

@susanjm wrote:
I'm pretty new to Public Mobile - activated my SIM a week ago yesterday on the $15 Province-wide plan. Everything was working fine - number ported from Telus immediately and I was able to send and receive phone calls and texts within Canada.

On Saturday I decided to test international texting. Sent two messages to my sister in Australia mentioning that it was a test. She replied a while later, we had a bit of a back and forth and then signed off. I subsequently sent her a text on Sunday and and another one on Monday. Turns out she got neither of them and hasn't received any since. I have tried to text her husband as well - but that didn't go through either!

I don't understand why it worked for a while but not afterwards and I'm not sure what to do! This plan is supposed to have unlimited texting. Help!

I can also confirm that something is going on. I can also receive from Australia but not send. In my case, the other carrier is Telstra. I'll try to send if I can find something out.

Re: Unable to Text Australia

susanjm — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 00:33:03 GMT

@computergeek541

Don't know if you've heard from Telstra, or PM support or not. But the issue should now be resolved. Apparently Telstra had started blocking texts that used SS7 messaging, which TELUS was doing and therefore PM. The routing has apparently now been changed to Hub to Hub . Not sure what the difference is as I haven't had a chance to look it up, but all 3 of my Telstra contacts receiving messages from me now.

Sorry I didn't see your message sooner so I could let you know what was going on troubleshooting-wise.