Enabling Verizon Messages+ duplicated ALL of my text messages

[vtapt]

Galaxy S5 with latest stock Android 4.4.4

I was using Samsung Messages without problems. I tried to enable Verizon Messages+ so I could text over wifi while traveling and during the sync process (which was unexpected, annoying and took a long time) it duplicated ALL of my text messages.

It's not duplicating new messages, it just duplicated the old ones when I first enabled it.

How do I fix this? I'm not willing to lose all of my old messages.

thanks,

Andrew

[Snn5]

Is it still duplicating messages on old threads when you send a new message, or are you just having issue with old messages having been duplicated but no more?

[vtapt]

No new duplicates, just the ones that were duplicated when I first enabled Messages+.

I reverted to Samsung Messages, forced Messages+ to stop, cleared its data and cache, and turned it off which also caused updates to be uninstalled.

thanks

[Snn5]

Glad you got it working correctly.

[vtapt]

Well, it's working correctly now but I'm stuck with 1000s of duplicate messages so it's not resolved.

It would be great to find a way to clean up the duplicates, and also ensure it won't happen again if I try Messages+ again.

[Snn5]

Unless you can find an app to delete duplicates, it might be a long night of selecting individual texts to delete.  Maybe someone else here has an idea of a shortcut.  Just saw this page:  http://appcrawlr.com/android-apps/best-apps-duplicate-text-messages

[winterbaby18]

I've never used Verizon Messages but I believe you can use the web portal and then just remove all of the duplicate messages.  As to how time consuming it will be I don't know.

[Snn5]

But those texts are saved in duplicate on the hidden partition of the system.  Easiest way is not the legal-to-speak-of way here.

[winterbaby18]

What could be done is download the Verizon cloud app and let it back up all the sms messages.  When that's done uninstall the app and clear the data in Samsung messages app.  Then redownload the VZW cloud app and allow it to restore the sms messages.  Then just permanently remove the VZW cloud app when done.  Of course, before ever re-enabling VZW messages app make sure you clear all the app/cache data on the phone for VZW messages and then login to the portal website for the VZW messages and wipe everything from it.  Of course, I've not tried any of this but I know the capabilities of VZW cloud since I've used it.