T-Mobile and receiving picture via texting...

[Cr00zng]

So, you finally make the jump from Windows phone (eight or nine years old) to iPhone 6s 64GB for your business partner. The primary reason being that the old Windows phone didn't receive pictures in SMS, required for the business nowadays. Fire up the iPhone 6s, send some text, it works fine. Send some pictures, there's nothing received. Do some testing, text pictures to the iPhone from Windows and Android phones, nothing. Send some from an iPhone, there it is... via iMessage and not via SMS, or SMS/MMS as it shows up on the iPhone. Research the issue on web, making sure every settings as they should be, they are, and still no SMS pics received. The 6s can send picture via text, but still don't receive them.

Call up T-Mobile, level one support escalates the case to level two, the iPhone specialist. Finally, someone, who knows his stuff. He runs through the same checks as I did and in addition, he ask to shut off the WiFi and reset the cellular settings. I comply. He ask me to text a picture to the iPhone, done, but not received. He texts one and that didn't get to the iPhone. He suggested to reset the iPhone to factory settings, pretty much start as a new phone. I ask him, if he can guarantee that it'll fix the receiving pictures via SMS issue. He says, sorry, but I cannot. My answer was, I'm not going through the whole resetting without knowing that it'll work.

To make me feel better, he admits that this has been an issue at T-Mobile with iPhones for the last three weeks or so due to network issues, but it does not impact Android phones. Knowing that the old Windows phone acted the same way as the new iPhone, at least as far as receiving pictures via SMS goes, doubt creeps in that the network engineers will fix this in couple weeks. At least that's what the iPhone specialist guessed, but could not promise any firm date to remediate the issue at hand.

Does anyone else use an iPhone 6s with the latest iOS version with T-Mobile and experiencing the same issue with receiving pictures via text? I have hard time believing T-Mobile that this is a network wide issue.

TIA...

PS: Oh look, I've stayed civil all through this posting... ;D

 

[chscag]

Does anyone else use an iPhone 6s with the latest iOS version with T-Mobile and experiencing the same issue with receiving pictures via text? I have hard time believing T-Mobile that this is a network wide issue.

So do I, since I routinely receive pictures via text on my iPhone 6+ and my wife's 6s+. We receive them from both other iPhones and an Android phone. And yes, we use T-Mobile with both phones running iOS 9.3.2.

 

[Cr00zng]

Thanks... Other than mine is being just a regional network issue, there are couple of resolutions...

Reset the SIM card is one option and that's easy enough to do. Albeit it's somewhat doubtful that it'll do any good...

Reset the phone to factory settings. The iPhone backs up to the iCloud, pretty much with default settings, this shouldn't take long since it's been only two days. Just checked the iCloud, 600MBs isn't that much nowadays with 50Mbs connection to the web. One question about iCloud backup. It does backup emails, but does it also backup account settings and passwords?

Replace the hardware, either the SIM card, the iPhone, or both need to be replaced.

Changing the carrier would be the last option and I rather not get there, but I will, if this issue is not resolved.

 

[Cr00zng]

While neither the T-mobile rep, nor I could resolve the issue, the user of this phone with very limited knowledge did. it's been two days hands on experience with iPhone for her. She called back support and had them close the two open tickets.

The source of the issue was the account settings at T-Mobile. She logged in to her account with a browser on her PC and:

1. browsed to setting
2. clicked on block text and MMS messages
3. saved the changed setting
4. returned to settings and unchecked block text and MMS messages
5. saved the changed settings
6. and voila... MMS messages are coming through...

While changing the settings states that it'll take 72 hours for the changes to become active, it's been pretty much instantaneous. The images from yesterday came in as well.

The moral of the story is a pretty good example of the KISS principal. Not just for me, T-Mobile should take notice as well...

 

[badshoehabit]

I had the same issue with my first iPhone, a 4s. My UK carrier at the time was TalkTalk and after bouncing between them and Apple for a while, it came down to the account settings.

 

[chscag]

The moral of the story is a pretty good example of the KISS principal. Not just for me, T-Mobile should take notice as well...

You can't fault T-Mobile or any carrier. It's not the carrier's responsibility to provide tech support on the usage, specifically the various settings of any phone they sell. The carrier is only responsible for the inner working of their repective network. I have found that the sales folks at the local T-Mobile stores that I have visited were very knowledgeable and helpful. However, it's very easy for a new user of any smart phone, be it an iPhone or one of the many Androids to stumble thru the first weeks or even months of using the device. Adding to that the complexity of the various "clouds" and syncing between devices, you can well understand why mistakes are easily made. I consider myself a farily savvy user but find that I too sometimes mistake a setting or lose a contact sync.

 

[Cr00zng]

You can't fault T-Mobile or any carrier.....

As much as I agree with you, blaming the end user is not always the answer either. Certainly, it is not the answer in this case...

The "Apple specialist" did look through her account settings and text and MMS was not blocked. Based on what the system showed, receiving pics via texting was not blocked and should had been received. In actuality, they were blocked that had been caused by system behind the web interface that didn't do what the display showed. That's on T-Mobile's system. It may have been a "glitch" that does not happen often, nonetheless, it is an error on the T-Mobile's system.

Knowing that the source of the issue and the resolution had been discovered by the end user, let's give the credit to where credit is due. Instead of trying to excuse T-Mobile...

 

[Slydude]

I didn't interpret Charlie's response as giving carriers a pass. I think it is more a reminder that the carrier representatives can't possibly keep up with the specifics of every feature of every phone they sell. Many of these features are to some extent software driven and dependent upon the software version on both the phone and customer setup.

In this case the problem was with the carrier but I suspect that a similar situation could be created by an incorrect setting on the user's phone.

 

[Cr00zng]

I didn't interpret Charlie's response as giving carriers a pass. I think it is more a reminder that the carrier representatives can't possibly keep up with the specifics of every feature of every phone they sell. Many of these features are to some extent software driven and dependent upon the software version on both the phone and customer setup.

Well, it's hard to take the "You can't fault T-Mobile or any carrier....." any other way...

In this case the problem was with the carrier but I suspect that a similar situation could be created by an incorrect setting on the user's phone.

The problem in this case had been with the carrier, period. Bringing up user settings just tries to hide the responsible party and does not help the next person with the same issue that may easily be resolved as indicated earlier.

Look, I understand that devices are complex nowadays and lot of things can go wrong with the device, user settings and yes, with the carrier settings. And least that's how I view it...

 

[Slydude]

I understand the point you're trying to make. I'm well aware that carriers can have issues where their systems are at fault. My wife once received roughly 100 text messages from a Houston area club over about a two hour period. The opt out procedure in the message did not work nor did the account settings on the carrier site. I eventually had to call their tech people who were somewhat confused for a while.

My point is simply that when problems such as the OP's occur my starting point is not with the carrier but with a change I might have made inadvertently.

 

[chscag]

Well, it's hard to take the "You can't fault T-Mobile or any carrier....." any other way...

You originally asked the question about anyone else having the same problem and I responded to that in the negative.

You can't fault T-Mobile or any carrier. It's not the carrier's responsibility to provide tech support on the usage, specifically the various settings of any phone they sell.

Notice I said nothing about their network... You're taking what I said out of context and making it into something it's not. So let's let it drop.