MMS messages going into limbo?
Firemedic501
Newbie

Hey folks -

I am the chief at a volunteer fire department in Alabama.  We recently just purchased software that will send audio of our page-out events to the members cells via MMS.

In testing this it has been working fine, until today, and now apparently no messages I send either programmatically, via the department's gmail account, or my charter email account are reaching cells.  I have been using my iPhone 5 for testing, as well as my deputies Galaxy S4, with similar results.

I am using the format of xxxyyyzzzz@vzwpix.com for the destination addresses for the emails.  Everything on my end indicates test emails went (no bounces/rejects) through.

Any ideas??

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Re: MMS messages going into limbo?
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

Hello Firemedic501,

I appreciate you reaching out! I love what you're doing for community members with the event page now lets ensure everything is up and running.

What software are you using? How many members are there? Have you tried sending out few messages? Possibly sending them in batches instead of all at once.

YosefT_VZW
Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport

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Re: MMS messages going into limbo?
Firemedic501
Newbie

Hey, thanks for getting back with me Yosef!

We are using software called SafAlert.  We have about 40 members, and the software batches the outbound messages in blocks of 10 for a given call.  So one call = 4 batches of 10 emails each.

The call I reference happened 2-3 days ago, we have one member on another carrier, and his made it thru then, but so far as I know, none of the VZW texts made it thru that day for that call.

I guess I was wondering if there was some sort of outage in the MMS system?  I never recieved any bounce messages back from the messages, they just went out, and nothing happened.

We have had subsequent calls since then (just a few hours ago as a matter of fact), and it worked fine then.

Thanks!

Jim

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Re: MMS messages going into limbo?
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

10-4! Keep us posted if this happens to occur again, Firemedic501. Though it sounds like it may have been isolated to just that one day.

Thank you Firemedic501. Take care, and have a great day.

NicandroN_VZW

Follow us on twitter @VZWSupport 

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Re: MMS messages going into limbo?
Firemedic501
Newbie

Hey guys -

Same thing happened again last night.  At around 0219 AM on 3/4/2014 CST the system generated outbound emails to mostly verizon numbers (mine included), and it shows they were all emailed.  To my knowledge, again none of the VZW subscribers received any message.

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Re: MMS messages going into limbo?
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

Firemedic501,

It's very unusual to run across an intermittent issue like this, but I do have an idea. The address @vzwpix.com is supposed to be used for picture/video messages. Would you mind trying to change that part of the address to @vtext.com and test to see if you continue to experience the issue? So the messages should be sent to this format:  xxxyyyzzzz@vtext.com instead. Also, the message length is limited to 140 characters, including the email address. Keep us posted and let us know if this solves it!

SarahO_VZW
Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport

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Re: MMS messages going into limbo?
Firemedic501
Newbie

I am sending audio files (mp3) which is the actual audio recording of the radio call dispatch sent us.  Would those not normally be MMS messages?  I can certainly change it, I just assumed an audio attachment would make it MMS.

As far as the text with the audio attachment goes, that has not changed.  I have the messages get delivered sometimes, and other times no one gets anything.  Other than the contents of the audio file, the filename of the audio file - nothing else changes, it is static text.

I will test with vtext.com today, and see if that works any better.

The problem is that I don't have any logs of what happens to the message after it leaves via SMTP.  I can see that the messages are properly sent (and no bouncebacks), but after that it goes into a black hole at Verizon.  As far as I can tell here, it is somewhat random if the messages will be delivered or not.

Thanks!

Jim

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Re: MMS messages going into limbo?
SuzyQ
Community Leader
Community Leader

Firemedic501 wrote:

I am sending audio files (mp3) which is the actual audio recording of the radio call dispatch sent us.  Would those not normally be MMS messages?   Yes.

I will test with vtext.com today, and see if that works any better. It will not work - vtext.com itext only; your original understanding is correct, use vzwpix.com

Have you figured this out yet?  One thought I had is the size of the attachment may stop it from being delivered.... were the ones that did not go through consistently larger than the ones that did make it? 

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