Why am i getting the message 'no longer a participant'??

[DerbyGirl925]

Earlier today I installed the whole Integrated Messaging and have been sending/receiving texts just fine.  Until I went to text my husband and normally where I would type my message, it gives me a message that I am no longer a participant of the conversation.  I tried to start a new text with him and I can type my message, but it doesn't allow me to send. [removed]

I'm not the only one with this problem and all the questions regarding this have gone unanswered.

Content modified as required by Verizon Wireless Terms of Service​

[jav6]

It always helps if you identify the make/model device you are experiencing the issue on.

[DerbyGirl925]

It's a Samsung Galaxy S7, but the make and model don't seem to be the problem, I've read others who have different phones from mine.  If I felt the make and model mattered, I'd have put it, but this problem doesn't seem to discriminate make or model.

[TAB1972]

I am having the same issue when trying to text my husband. It is frustrating that this question has been I asked several times and there have been zero responses. My phone is in LG G6 and this problem just started yesterday. My SIM card came loose so I inserted it again and all of my other messages are fine, I just cannot text my husband because it states that I am no longer a participant in this conversation. Can someone please provide help on this?

[DerbyGirl925]

YES!  Same!  And the same Verizon employee has responded to every one of the same questions with no help at all...

Spouses seem to be the main contact affected...all other texts are good.  I can also receive from my husband, but can't respond.

[vzw_customer_support]

It's important to be able to communicate with your husband, DerbyGirl925. We can further assist with your messaging concerns. You mentioned that you recently installed Integrated Messaging. Can you clarify the change that was made with regard to Integrated Messaging please? Have you been using a different messaging app on your phone aside from Message +? Is your husband using Message + too? You mentioned that you have tried to start a new text. To clarify, have you cleared your previous conversation history with your husband and attempted to start a new conversation?

Lauren_VZW
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If my response answered your question please click the _Correct Answer_ button under my response. This ensures others can benefit from our conversation. Thanks in advance for your help with this!!

[Candi4u]

I have an HTC phone.

I can no longer use message+ to send messages to three people in my contacts.

It states that I am no longer a participant in this conversation.

It just started today.

I can text if I go into contacts and send by Messages under threads.

When I return to mesaage+ it asks me to "Change SMS App?"  If I say NO, then I get a banner across the message screen list. You cannot remove the banner to "set VZM as your default SMS.."

[vzw_customer_support]

Candi4U, we definitely want to work together to find out what's going on. Do you recall any changes to the phone around the time this started? Are you able to call and text this person from another messaging app, such as the HTC standard messaging app? Are you trying to start a new text thread with this person or send a text in an existing thread?

Takendra_VZW
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If my response answered your question please click the _Correct Answer_ button under my response. This ensures others can benefit from our conversation. Thanks in advance for your help with this!!

[MINNIEGO05]

U am having the same problem I have a samsung galaxy s9. A couple days ago i tried to send some pictures to my husband and they still are 'sending' now i am being told i am ' no longer a participant in this conversation.' It is only a thread between he and me.

[vzw_customer_support]

Being able to connect through text message is crucial, MINNIEGO05. Let's troubleshoot this, so you can send messages again. As one of our community members reported that uninstalling and reinstalling the Messages + application helped, let's give that a try. Here are links with steps to complete this: https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/knowledge-base-216741/

https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/knowledge-base-43740/

Lynn_VZW
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If my response answered your question please click the _Correct Answer_ button under my response. This ensures others can benefit from our conversation. Thanks in advance for your help with this!!

[MINNIEGO05]

Using default message app on phone. Not interested in using an app that makes me uninstall and reinstall to fix

[JAYNEW20]

All apps have periodic updates released, which on most phones install invisibly in the background. It's not that uncommon for a release to occasionally have a bug in it. It's happened with Microsoft Windows more than a few times over the years. The solution is that they find out about it, fix it, and release a new release right away with the bug having been fixed -- and with something as big as Windows online forums are able to discuss the fact that the new version has been released with the fix and that users should install the fixed update.

Here, we don't have that. We have a smaller user base by far as compared to Windows. So, we have nice tech support people on this little forum saying the same nice things about "Your communication capabilities are important so... what kind of phone do you have...?" and then finally realizing it's a widespread issue so the advice, which is reasonable, is to notice others reported an uninstall and reinstall seemed to work and to try that.

But it fails to give us any clue about whether we're just installing the same version that has the bug and are likely to have the same problem randomly cropping up -- or whether they've found and fixed the bug and it's time to uninstall and reinstall with peace of mind.

Given the size of VZW and the size of the user base using Message+, and the number of people who have reported this issue in the past week alone on this forum alone, one would think this would be much more of a priority for them.

I spoke a couple days ago with a tech support supervisor at Verizon. He had no suggestions, and said he's not able to communicate with the developer team. He said he would, however, report it. He agreed that with that many users reporting it on the forum, it must be pretty widespread (since most are not posting online). He said he'd try to get back to me if and when they get back to him -- and that I should expect that to take "weeks!"

Verizon tech support is usually pretty darned good, but so far the handling of this one is a bit disappointing.

[vzw_customer_support]

I completely understand and realize that it isn't convenient to have to uninstall and reinstall an app. On the flip side, if you are more comfortable waiting for an update with a fix, it isn't yet known when that will be, but the only other solution appears to be the uninstall/reinstall method for the time being.

If you are using a different messaging app on your phone aside from Message+ and the other person is using Message+ and you already tried to a) clear your previous conversation history, then b) attempt to start a new conversation with no success, believe it or not, uninstalling and re-installing only takes 5 short minutes or less. The choice is yours as always. 

Tina_VZW

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If my response answered your question please click the _Correct Answer_ button under my response. This ensures others can benefit from our conversation. Thanks in advance for your help with this!!

[JAYNEW20]

I, too, am having the same problem. One of my commonly used contacts in Message+ is suddenly saying in the text field (which I cannot type in any longer):

"You are no longer a participant of this conversation."

For me, even going to the last phone call between us and trying to send a message from there takes me to the same issue.

And if I go to contacts (I use ActiveSync) and try to send a text as a reply to a recent email, I have the same issue still.

Also if I go to Contacts and try to send a new text message.

All using Message+ (I haven't tried another texting app and have no interest in having to go that far).

I'm using a BlackBerry KEYone running Android 7, though this is obviously not limited to any model of phone.

I WANT TO POINT OUT SOMETHING THAT MAY BE OF SIGNIFICANCE HERE:

As of a few days ago, my Message+ app began exhibiting a very odd behavior that never existed before. When I go into the app and open a text with the intention of sending a reply, and I just start typing right away like I've always done, instead of being in text-entry mode like it was always doing in the past I'm just in the list mode and my key input is resulting in a couple of keyboard-shortcut commands that are acting on the list itself (such as "T" that brings me to the Top of the list).

(Note that since I'm using a BlackBerry with a physical keyboard that has built-in shortcut commands in some of the keys for various apps, this may not be the same behavior others with full-touch keyboard are getting.)

So, there are two factors to consider here in my judgment:

1. This odd list-mode rather than text-entry default seems to have cropped up at just about the same time a lot of other users seem to be reporting this same problem with "You are no longer a participant of this conversation."

2. I wonder if it's possible that when the user goes in to start typing text and is instead inadvertently entering keyboard commands that are acting on the list, perhaps they're hitting one that removes them from the conversation? Just a long-shot guess. (I know for me I'm typing away before I realize the list is jumping all around as a result of some key-commands I'm inadvertently entering while I think I'm just entering text.)

[DerbyGirl925 · Accepted solution]

Uninstalling the Message+ app and reinstalling it finally fixed the problem. It did delete my prior convo with my husband, but another user said she didn't lose her convo. <--- I only add that part as precautionary info.

[TAB1972]

I was finally able to resolve this problem by uninstalling and reinstalling Message+. I was worried it would delete my entire messaging history, but it didn't. It works fine now.

[DerbyGirl925]

Yes! Thank you, this is what works. I uninstalled and reinstalled the Vzn Messages+ and was able to text my husband once again. I found one other contact that I couldn't text either. Once uninstalled and reinstalled it wiped the text convo I previously had going with my husband, but I was able to start a new one.

[JAYNEW20]

As a suggestion to VZW tech support here, it would be nice to have you interact with the developers and find out if they found and fixed the bug that caused this for so many people -- before we all uninstall and reinstall the app.

Just a suggestion.

I know that's not easy for you to do but if it's at all possible it would be nice to have that step under our belts.

[hawaii52]

My phone also started having this issue last week.  Nothing changed during that time, unless the VZ Messages app was updated int the background.  Uninstalling and reinstalling the app also worked for me.

Not that it matters, but I have a Blackberry Priv.  Given that it's an extremely rare phone, this just about confirms it's a widespread app issue.

[JAYNEW20]

I went ahead and did the uninstall and reinstall of Message+ and it did resolve the problem. It was only five minutes for that, and another five minutes to mark about a dozen previously read messages as read (for some reason they were showing as unread upon reinstall) and reset my font size, but that was easy enough.

It's still buggy in that going to do a reply to a message doesn't put the focus in the text field like it always did and surely should do. That needs to be reported until it's fixed (and I still wonder if it may possibly be why people are having this issue of threads becoming "You are no longer a participant," but that's just a guess).

Thanks for the help!

[JAYNEW20]

Great, so now I have a new, even bigger problem. As I mentioned directly above, after reinstalling it had marked about a dozen messages as unread that were previously marked as read. I had to scroll through hundreds of conversations to find them so I could open and close each so they were again marked as read.

This is important for me as a busy professional because I have a BlackBerry KEYone that shows me with a "star" notification on the Message+ icon on the home screen when I have new unread text messages. I have no idea how other phones work but this is just a basic Android phone running Android 7 with minor custom enhancements by BlackBerry with this start notification feature being one.

(Note that even this has been a bug in Message+ for over six months now, in that it suddenly stopped showing that star when new texts came in. I was able to find a workaround on a BlackBerry forum by adding the Message+ widget to the home screen, which doesn't show the star but does show a little count indicator for the number of unread messages, which disappears when there are no unread messages.)

Since I uninstalled and reinstalled Message+ yesterday and then had to manually find the dozen-or-so messages that were marked unread when they were previously marked read, I thought I was okay and didn't see any issues through the rest of the evening. But today I woke to a few new messages and when I read them and they were marked as read I still had that indicator on the widget saying one was still unread. I had to scroll down to find a conversation that was months old that was now newly marked unread for no reason.

That made the widget indicator clear and show no unread messages.

Minutes later, I saw the indicator was now again showing unread messages -- 4 this time -- and again I had to scroll way down into history that was months old and sure enough another old conversation that had previously been marked as read was also marked as unread, which I had to open and close to change it.

These are now four bugs in Message+ for me in the recent few months (when 100% of the rest of my device works flawlessly and is always kept up to date; and I never do anything that is not pure, official, factory):

1. Stopped showing the star icon (unique to BlackBerry) on the Message+ icon on the home screen to indicate unread text messages (requiring me to find the workaround of adding the widget to the home screen).

2. Stopped putting me into the editable text field for typing a new message when I go to Reply to a conversation, and instead just putting me into the list mode requiring me to manually tap into the text field.

3. Marked a conversation as "You are no longer a participant" by itself and prevented me from texting this person until I uninstalled and reinstalled Message+.

4. After that reinstall, began randomly marking read messages/conversations as unread, requiring me to scroll through the whole list to find them (though if this persists to occur I'm chasing my tail and wasting my time).