Motorola Droid not receiving text messages.

[SuddenConfusion]

I've had my Droid for a week now, but have been unable to receive text or SMS. A few of my friends are also on Verizon and not even their text messages go through. Calling Verizon customer service didn't help, they made me re-activate the phone, take the battery out for 15 seconds, and some other stuff. Two separate hour long phone calls and they gave up and gave me a generic "we are working on it." It's been a few days and nothing has changed. I'm thinking that it might be a hardware issue but I am reluctant to return the phone. A Best Buy employee suggested that it might be an application that is causing this, but I was unable to receive any messages prior to downloading anything. Are there any apps that have a track record of messing with the messaging functionality? Any suggestions would help, I have the minimum amount of minutes with unlimited texting.

[Oleg_SD]

I had the same thing happen to me, 4 times.

I finally started an escalation ticket with Verizon, and they figured out what the cause is. Basically, it's a bug in the Droid software for receiving EMS (which apparently are enhanced text messages, with symbols or similar, but not MMS which are picture messages). Anyway, once someone sends you an EMS message, your Droid won't receive that message or any subsequent messages until the EMS message gets cleared out. To get it cleared out, call Verizon help desk (*611 from your cell phone, if they give you crap for being on the phone that you're trying to troubleshoot, tell them you have no choice, that you've already done the reset on your phone, that you know what the problem is, and that you need to talk to tech support. If they tell you they can't trasfer you, ask them to let you talk to someone who will (I had to do that once and it worked))). Anyway, once you get to actual tech support, tell them what the problem is and they should be able to go and delete this message (they've also cleared it out for me by blocking all txt messages on my account, then unblocking them).

The escalation engineer told me that Verizon has a beta OS update for the phone that they're currently testing, and that it'll get pushed to phones once it is released (he said ETA right now is about mid-December).

The only things you can do to avoid this are:

1. return the Droid back to Verizon and wait for the fix to be released (they have a satisfaction guarantee for 30 days, so if you haven't sent in your rebate yet, you can just return the phone and the box for a full refund).

2. Tell all your friends not to send EMS messages (tricky because the guy couldn't really explain to me on the phone what those messages are, just that they're "enhanced" txt messages).

3. When you suspect your phone stopped receiving messages again, txt yourself (send a message to your 10 digit number, omit the 1 before the area code). If you don't receive it in a few seconds and you have signal, call *611 and have them reset again.

Hope this helps.

[alwaysmalia]

please give me a steo by step on how to make my messaging start working again! i can sent them just fine but i can not get them. HELPP! 

[kcooke]

I have a Droid - won't send text.  Go to Verizon Brandywine MD meet James who manges to delete 400 priceless pictures and says, that happens sometimes.  What a tool.  Phone still won't receive test.  The only thing worse than the crappy product is the incompetent service, a perfct marriage of uselessness.

[DROID]

The New Software has been pushed:

Enhancements

This software update will provide the following enhancements on the DROID by Motorola:

• The operating system stability has been improved
• Batterylife is improved
• Camera auto focus functionality is improved, and the time between shots is reduced
• Enhancements for three-way calling have been added
• Audio for incoming calls is improved
• When the user receives a call on call waiting, the speakerphone now remains on
• Bluetooth functionality is improved; the background echo has been eliminated
• There is an improved Bluetooth phone book transfer of contacts to in-vehicle Bluetooth solutions
• After the user closes a GPS application, the GPS icon will now automatically be removed from the notification panel
• Users can now receive SMS and MMS messages after an EMS message is received
• SMS and MMS messages may now be sent to seven-digit addresses
• Google contact merging has been updated to accommodate seven-digit numbers
• Visual Voice Mail notices now arrive instantaneously
• The corporate calendar widget user interface is updated

[dimych]

I know that the topic is rather old, but I seem to have the same bloody issue the topic starter had.  No EMS' make it to my phone.  2 vexing phone calls to verizon, and I get the "we're not aware of the issue and not going to do a Remedy ticket, as it would be a customer education" or something to that extent.  So my question is whether or not there is a fix for the issue?  Different txt app?  Rooting the phone?  I’m at loss here.

[shersher]

I had a problem w/not being able to send/receive pic msgs about a wk after getting my Droid. I called tech support & the guy figured out that it had something to do w/the way my account was setup & how the phone was activated. It took a while, but it WAS fixed & has not been a problem since. He said he had only seen the problem a handful of times since the Droid came out in Nov 2009: The tech guy even gave me a cell phone number to send him a couple test pic msgs to make sure it was working.

Perhaps it can be a suggestion as to where to look for the problem next time you call.

Can also try removing the battery for 10 secs, dial *228 and press option 1.