Hi all,
The following is a message I sent to the CSR, "Alex", who was helping me try to get my MMS working on Public Mobile. He was great but the hoops I had to jump through were not. I have never had any problems getting online with a new carrier (>4 carriers on this device, 5 minutes tops to be up and running) but to get MMS working on Public was pretty ridiculous. Granted I am using a 2016 Motorola G Play with a custom ROM, but still - it worked fine everywhere else. Hope the info in this message might save someone else a few hours, glad I got 50 GB I can use in the states for $34 / month now. Begin Message:
Hi Alex,
I eventually got this working. It took me hours. I think you may want to pass along what I have learned, since the problem may be with the APN settings stored on your sim cards, or pushed by the network, or something along those lines.
I have used this device on 4 different carriers (including those back by both Bell and Telus) without a single change to the software (no apps added / removed / updated, no device software updates - if it isn't broke, I don't fix it) since 2018, and I have never had to mess around for more than 5 minutes to get it going on a new carrier.
For anyone encountering the problem of mobile data working fine, but MMS not working at all - first I recommend that they delete every saved APN settings profile stored on their device, including the Public mobile one that loads off the sim card. I think somehow one of the values on it that gets loaded by a users text messaging app behind the scenes may be wrong.
On Android devices running Android 7 & 8, this can be quite a process involving using ADB from a computer with root access to the device to uninstall carrier default config packages.
The commands you want are:
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.android.carrierconfig
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.android.carrierdefaultapp
As explained better in:
https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Get-Support/Can-t-edit-APN-settings-on-my-phone-no-da...
On most devices this should not be necessary.
Once successfully removing all APN settings, I recommend the user create a new APN set using the up-to-date settings shown at https://apn.how/ca/public-mobile
APN: Public Mobile
(this name shouldn't matter but I gave it a different name to differentiate from the SIM card settings)
Proxy:
Port:
Username:
Password:
Server:
MMSC: http://aliasredirect.net/proxy/mb/mmsc
MMS Proxy: mmscproxy.bobility.ca
MMS Port: 8799
MCC: 302
MNC: 220
Authentication Type:
APN Type: default,mms,supl,fota,hipri
APN Protocol: IPv4
APN Roaming Protocol: IPv4
Bearer: Unspecified
APN PPP Phone Number: Not Set
MVNO Type: gid
MVNO Value: 4D4F
All others left blank
Then, in the Messaging app - I use Textra, the paid version, from 2018. It has a lot of advanced features that I find come in handy. Today I used one I did not previously know about.
Under settings -> MMS I selected "Legacy" mode, which is recommended for problem carriers. Once I did that, I had the option to set the APN settings that the app will use manually. I selected that option.
Here is where things get interesting: When I first tried this, the app showed me that the APN settings it was using (which it must have loaded from the SIM card or the APN settings on the phone, which were now showing as 100% correct and verified 17 times). This line was wrong:
MMSC: http://aliasredirect.net/proxy/mmsc
It is missing the /mb/, it should be this:
MMSC: http://aliasredirect.net/proxy/mb/mmsc
Once I corrected that, and restarted everything again - it started working.
Interestingly, as soon as I switched MMS mode back from "Legacy" to "System" it stopped working again. It's as if when the app is in it's default "System" MMS mode, it is getting bad APN info from somewhere.
This is a Public Mobile specific thing on my device. I am coming from Koodo (which is running on the TELUS network, just like Public Mobile), I still have my Koodo contract and SIM, and when I put my Koodo SIM back in, the APN settings from the SIM card load up and work fine - I don't need to mess with my MMS app settings at all, "System" mode works fine and whatever APN settings the App finds itself work "plug and play".
I was pretty determined to get Public Mobile going on my device for the cost savings but I think that this is a pretty high barrier to entry for normal people who own their own devices. Admittedly this may be a special case where my device loads the APN settings for the text messaging app directly off the sim, ignoring the settings entered by the user - but I can't be the only one. Might be worth looking into.
Thanks for your help.
- JM
