Sometimes failed messages are received as duplicates
aranel
Newbie

Occasionally my phone will tell me that a text message has failed to send--but the recipient will report receiving multiple copies, in one case as many as 50!  This was annoying when it only double-sent the messages, but 50 duplicates is a huge problem for the recipient.

I live in an area where the cell reception isn't always great and so it's not that unusual for a message to fail to send or to have to try a little longer to send. But when the duplicates happen, it's always the same pattern: my phone reports that the message didn't send at all, but the recipient gets multiple copies. There's never any record of multiple copies on my phone.  I use the default Messages app on my HTC One M8.

This only happens sporadically so I can't say exactly when it started or how long it's been happening.  And it's going to be hard to tell if it's been fixed.

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Re: Sometimes failed messages are received as duplicates
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

We are unhappy to read of the trouble. We understand how tough this can be. Help is here for you aranel. Let's see if we can isolate this. Have you been able to pinpoint if it's multiple people you message or a specific person? Are they are different networks? Please try settings>App manager>The all tab>Messages>clear data> retest after this has been done.
BobbyNN_VZW
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Re: Sometimes failed messages are received as duplicates
aranel
Newbie

I was optimistic that clearing the data cache had fixed it, but it just happened again right now, with a completely different person. Also, it was someone I don't normally text with.  And it was not just one duplicate. It was 6-8 times each.

There are at least three people I've confirmed this has happened with, all of whom are on Verizon. One of them has an iphone, one of them has an android phone, and one of them has an an older phone (much older) that isn't a smartphone.

The thing that's consistent is that I usually get a message telling me that the text didn't send, and do I want to retry?  And that's when I get a gazillion duplicates, even though as far as my phone is reporting, the message was sent successfully only once or else did not get sent successfully at all. I think what is happening is that it is trying to resend a message that didn't actually fail to send in the first place. 

While this was happening this time, I noticed that my phone was also losing and regaining the WiFi connection and the data icon was switching between 1G and 3G, which may or may not be related. I restarted my phone and it seems to have settled down.  (I also deleted the pending text message.)

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Re: Sometimes failed messages are received as duplicates
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

@aranel

Thanks for the additional information and for keeping me posted. Let’s take a closer look.

Are you at a specific location when this happens? If so, what is the zip code of the location? How many bars of service does your device display when this happens?

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Re: Sometimes failed messages are received as duplicates
aranel
Newbie

Usually I am in zip code 56056 when it happens, but I couldn't say if that's always the case. There can be anywhere from one to five bars, depending on where I happen to be standing. Coverage isn't just bad here--it's very erratic. 

I have a network extender (from Verizon) when I'm at the house but I don't think this is happening exclusively when I'm using that.

However I've been using this phone (with the same network extender in the same location) for much  longer than I've been having this problem. If anything, coverage in this area is slightly better than it used to be.

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Re: Sometimes failed messages are received as duplicates
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

aranel - Thanks for those additional details. It certainly does help a lot. Having an inconsistent signal can definitely contribute to this issue. If the signal is poor or disappears, it can trigger the device to believe the message failed although our network actually managed to received it. It's moreso a miscommunication between the phone and network because most messages transmit in less than a second and so long as the network was able to get it before the device signal dropped off, then it triggers a failure with the device because it wasn't able to obtain the delivery receipt of that message from the network that allows it to know we did get it and sent it to the other party. Since this issue is recent, have you noticed a lot of signal fluctuations while your device is connected to the network extender? How long have you been using a network extender?


EbonyR_VZW
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Re: Sometimes failed messages are received as duplicates
aranel
Newbie

I haven't noticed any problems other than this one.  It's been happening sporadically for a while now (definitely months) but in last few weeks it's gotten to be really bad.  Before that it was just the occasional message that got sent twice.

I've had the network extender for probably a couple of years now. It's pretty much a necessity where I live. (Unless some enterprising cellular network decided to actually invest in rural Minnesota...)

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Re: Sometimes failed messages are received as duplicates
aranel
Newbie

I was able to confirm at least one instance of this happening when I was somewhere else entirely (in a major metro area). 

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Re: Sometimes failed messages are received as duplicates
aranel
Newbie

Okay, I have been sending my sister text messages from everywhere in order to try to diagnose this problem.

Just now I sent a text message that she received eight times.  I was nowhere near my home network extender and in a completely different zip code.  There was only one bar, I think, but that's been normal for years and this hasn't been happening for that long.

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Re: Sometimes failed messages are received as duplicates
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

arenel, we don't want this to be an ongoing problem for you. Let's make sure that this isn't a memory capacity issue. Try deleting all unwanted text messages and power your device off/on to soft reset it. Test the text messaging feature again and keep us posted. We're standing by to make sure that you're okay.



LasinaH_VZW
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