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Mixed up text messages??

A lot of times when I send a longer text message it will get mixed up. The first half usually is what I just wrote but then it will just take part of a random usually really old deleted text message and throw the bottom half of that old text message in place of the second half of my new message.

I just recently upgraded to a droid 4 from a droid 2 hoping maybe this would solve the issue but it does it just as much with the droid 4 as it did with the droid 2.

Why do my longer text messages keep getting mixed up with older deleted text messages??

Thanks for the replies.

Comments

baullz

Any ideas out there?

TenaB

It's happening to me too. And I am not amused. I don't know how long this has been going on, but it's messed friendships and business associates before I figured out what was wrong. Here's what I found out:

Happens when both people use verizon. Usually one person is in a different state. Most times the message being inserted has already been deleted.

This needs to be fixed! I think Verizon can afford to fix this bug.

kbark

If it's an android phone try resetting the text app. Settings/apps/manage apps. At the top select all. Scroll down and find text messaging or messaging and open it. If clear data is an option press that and then force close(it won't delete anything). If force stop is the only option then just press that and test it out. Another thing to check is to make sure the text is going to the 10 digit mobile #. Baullz..you already switched equipment so unless you are using a downloaded text app or the issue was transferred from one phone to another, it may be something to call tech support for. Another option to try is to delete the entire sms thread with your phone and the people it's happening with and see if that works.

Verizon_Support

Baullz, I clear up this text message concern for you. When you send a message that has more than 160 characters to an inter-carrier destination, that message is delivered in its entirety (up to 1120 characters) in multiple message segments. Each of these segments will appear on the recipient’s handset as individual messages from the sender. Our wireless network will break up the messages into segments at a space between words at or near 160 characters for each message segment.

This is why your longer text messages are broken up into seperate segments. I trust that this explaination will address your concerns. Feel free to reach out to us if you have any additional concerns. We're for you. ^LH

TenaB

LH, I don't think this is what Baulz was talking about, because it's happening to me, too. It doesn't have to be a long text. At least not for me. It does seem to happen at a misspelled word. It recalls a text message that has been long deleted from both phones. Just throws the last few lines in there for no good reason. I can't understand where they are getting these old emails from. I can't even recall my deleted emails. But apparently they are out there some where. I have seriously almost lost a friend and a business associate over this mess. I don't know who else I have insulted. They probably aren't talking to me anymore.

I use a Droid, the friend and b.a. use IPhones. We all have Verizon. The last time I typed 1200 words or more was in college for a paper. The mixed up messages contain about 4 lines or about 125 characters including spaces. After half of an old deleted message is thrown in there, I would estimate maybe about 250 characters might be there. Or less.

TenaB

Oh, the misspelled word may only appear misspelled because it contains half a word from the old message. If you don't use a period at the end of your last sentence, which I don't, it appears misspelled.

baullz

LH, this is not even close to what is going on. I'm glad to see our Verizon costumer support actually reads what we write. As TenaB said it will take the first half of what I just wrote in a new text message and then it will take part of a really old deleted text message and REPLACE the second half of my newly written message with that old half creating a text message that is half new content and half old content from an old random text message. Hence the name of the thread being MIXED UP TEXT MESSAGED not BROKEN up texted messages. I am not going to reset my phone like is your answer to every other tech problem. This happend both on my droid 2 and droid 4 which use different built in text message apps (the one the comes with the phone) so I really do not see how reseting my phone will do a damned thing. This is really just getting irritating, I pay out of my a** for this phone each month and it doesnt do what it is built to do.

baullz

Thanks for the reply, much more informative than the reply from the actual Verizon cosutomer service rep. I have deleted the full SMS conversation before and that does not help. I will try your other suggestion and see if that does anything.

Again thank you for some actual help and ideas.

Kyle

Verizon_Support

I am sorry for any confusion on our part, baullz. We definitely want to take a deeper look into this for you. Please send me (AdamE_VZW) a direct message if this issue persists.

Thanks,

AdamE_VZW

Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport

bcd23

agree with Baulz and TenaB. I just had the same thing happen with my messaging. Thank god we were smart enough to google this. We are both on Verizon, I have a Droid Razr Maxx, he is on an Iphone. I never got his true message, but it pulled from a message from at least a year go between us that was LONG AGO GONE from my phone (so obviously sitting on a server somewhere) and mixed in the last few words of the current message he intended to send. It caused a serious issue with us for a couple hours. What a waste of our time and really could have been much much worse had we not put the effort in to try and get to the bottom of it. Why do you store our messages? That is just plain Orwellian weird.

fix the bug and delete messages. thank you.

jakki_glass

The same thing is happening to me! Today I sent my friend 2 different long texts and she got the first half of what I wrote mixed up with something I didn't write at all. I'm steamed! I'm lucky she is my best friend and not some important work contact. I will try resetting the text app like someone here suggested. I wish Verizon would check it out!

jakki_glass

I just did everything you said. I hope this takes care of it. It's really strange that half of what I write for thru but attached to the other half is something I didn't! Crazy!

jakki_glass

Same thing is happening to me. Another customer suggested if you have an android phone to go to settings/applications/select all from the top, and scroll down until you find your messaging app. Select it, clear cache, and or force stop. Nothing will be erased as far as your current messages go and I did it with no issue. I haven't tested it yet so I hope it works! If you have iPhone I think the same process can be done! Hope that helped :smileyhappy:

linrichie

So sorry I can't help, Baullz, but this has happened to me, too, and I am not happy. I am a small business owner and have an iPhone 5 through Verizon. Recently, the phone calls and texts of two clients in my contacts crossed, and I lost touch with the one client because every time I called or texted her, I got the other client instead. I cross-referenced the number, btw, from her paper file, and it was correct.

And, just two days ago, which is the reason for me looking at this forum, a text to my colleague had an old text of mine inserted into the middle of it, and it did not show up on my side, so I couldn't have corrected it. It was hard because I really believe she thought I was flaking out or was drunk writing it (which is what she later told me it sounded like). Glad we straightened it out, but that is only because she told me about it. How many of these "flaky" messages have I sent to clients, I wonder?

I know as well that I have had other texts arrive hours and days or weeks late, that friends and clients have told me before that they have not received texts, and that one client did tell me once he received a bizarre text from me about which he thought I was out to lunch. I didn't know at the time that it was probably a crossed text. I pay a lot of money our Verizon contract and do a lot of business communications via text. I have to wonder how many clients I may have blown off, offended, or appeared out to lunch to...

Verizon needs to step up and fix this bug. I think I may switch providers otherwise.

deemea828

found this info on another forum

There isn't anything you can really do. This is due to the carriers.. ATT is GSM technology and it can handle huge text messages so that's why you can send a massive text to a friend on ATT and it all shows as one... Whereas a verizon or Sprint customer will "split" these texts as you mentioned. This is because CDMA technology (what Verizon and Sprint use) can only handle a 160 character text before it has to "break" it into multiples of 160 each.

When I send a long text on Sprint on my screen it looks normal.. But I know it splits it up. The only thing to help the order its received is for the person sending it (your friend) to have a third party messaging app that will split the messages before going to the carrier. For example you see below that I use ChompSMS and it has this feature.. So if I send bigger than 160 character text messages the app automatically splits it and send it one by one to the carrier.. That way the carrier then sends it one by one to the person and then they stay in order.

deemea828

another comment found

Any SMS text over 160 characters has to be split up as that is the max. character limit for the SMS system (many networks also convert anything beyond 480 characters into an MMS message).

I know the problem of out of order message-portions can occur when the sending handset's clock is not in sync with the network they are sending over. One solution for the iPhone has been to make sure, under date and time in settings, to have "Set Automatically" ON (syncronized your phone with the cellular towers you are connected to). However, if the sending phone is out of wack, that may not fix it on the receiving end, as they messages get messed up on sending, then received in the proper sent order (which of course was messed up). Things often seem to get worse when sending across networks (eg. verizon to at&t).

You can find lots of internet posts about the phenomenon gong back years - no sure fire fix, or really any fix at all. SMS was never intended to work this way - it is inherently limted to single messages of 140bytes (160 seven bit characters), so it has to chop up longer messages. If the sending or receiving handset have messed up clocks, then the messaging apps can mess up the order, or if the tower at the time of sending has a clock out of sync, it can mess up the order, or if the transmitting network does not use a buffering system (or has a faulty one) to keep the messages in order, the order gets messed up.

Its why I use email over SMS just about 100% of the time - SMS is old, and inherently limited technology. The very fact that it even allows messages over 160 characters is a sort of software kludge, not a real fix.

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