Text messages stuck on "sending..." but actually sent dozens of times

[santaclaus_real]

I haven't had any problems texting with Public Mobile until today. I sent and received a few messages this afternoon without issue, but this evening I sent one and it got stuck on "Sending ..." and eventually said that it failed to send, "tap to retry"

I got an email from the recipient saying they actually did receive it, 40+ times.

I checked my plan "usage history" and it showed the text message sent about 75 times over the course of 15 minutes (5 pages of the same "Outgoing text"). It also showed a few incoming texts from that person but I didn't receive any of them.

Same thing when I tried texting a different person. I turned off my phone for a few minutes and still no luck.

I wanted to check if calling worked before I posted this, so I called my voicemail -- once it connected and asked me for my voicemail password, I received all of those incoming text messages ("I think your phone is going crazy...", "I just got the same message 4 times... 8 times!...")

So while I'm busy apologizing to my friends, can you tell me what happened there? Was that on my end or yours? How can I avoid that in the future? This was in the first-party Android messenger app btw.

[danl]

Thanks for the heads-up. I am talking just about SMS messages. Even now, messages are stuck in "sending..." for at least one minute before they clear up the device. At some point, I have noticed another message "waiting for connection..." before the "sending...". During all this time, I don't see the connection going down, does anybody have any idea whats going on and how it can be fixed? Tx

[srlawren]

@danl FYI APN only affects data services.  So unless you were sending MMS messages, APN would have zero effect.  SMS does not use data and the APN settings don't affect SMS.

[danl]

Same thing happened to me in the last couple of days or so. Unfortunately making a phone call did not make any difference, as it seems to have stuck SMS messages again. On the other end, people tell me that they receive duplicate messages from me. Initially I thought it might have something to do with the APN settings but it did not make a difference. Is anyone else in this situation? Thanks

[santaclaus_real]

That's very interesting, I mentioned it to a friend on Telus (plain Telus, not Koodo or Public Mobile) this morning and he said he had similar problems last night; texts not sending, delayed receipts. I just switched to Public Mobile recently, so I hope that's not a common occurence on the network. Is it the first time that has happened to you all? I wonder if we could find some answers from Koodo/Telus about what happened. Inquiring mind here.

[NDesai]

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@santaclaus_real wrote:

Probably not a coincidence then! Making a call must force a new connection to the cell tower or something? Hoping somebody can shed some light on this. In particular, I want to be sure I can prevent it happening again. Spamming your friends with 75 repeated texts is a bad look!

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My brother experienced this last night as he did not get my texts. He is on Koodo so i believe this was a wide spread issue on Telus systems. I sent a test message from his cell to mine and as you mentioned, i received many duplicate texts. It did not resolve after a reboot or turning airplane mode on/off. Next i did is placed a call and he instantly received my texts i sent earlier. So i think it was not a coincidence. 

[santaclaus_real]

Probably not a coincidence then! Making a call must force a new connection to the cell tower or something? Hoping somebody can shed some light on this. In particular, I want to be sure I can prevent it happening again. Spamming your friends with 75 repeated texts is a bad look!

[mom4thpower]

After making a call, it appears that the repeated texts have stopped.  Thanks for the tip!

[santaclaus_real · Accepted solution]

Mine seemed to start working again after I made a call (to my voicemail, at least), but that could have been a coincidence. The whole thing lasted about an hour and a half. Interesting that others are experiencing it tonight too, though. Maybe there's a problem with in a particular region?

[matbasm]

@mom4thpower, @santaclaus_real, Although the problem could clear on its own, you might want to send a private message to the moderator team - just in case it does not.

Click here to send them a private message.
Information regarding the moderators team can be found by following this link.

I can confirm that the problem is not global, since i sent out a text a few minutes ago without a problem.

[mom4thpower]

I've been having the exact same issue ... just starting tonight too.

Hubby's (on Public) text keeps repeating every half a minute or so, and he can't receive my texts.

Any help?  @CS_Agent