When you text and get a message delivery failure

[fernweh]

Response when your service is fine...
Does that mean you have been blocked? The phone is shut off? The number is disconnected?

I am trying to text a friend I haven’t seen in awhile and keep getting this. We didn’t have a falling out so I don’t think she would block me. If she did that’s fine, I’m just starting to worry about her and have no other way to get ahold of her.

[isabel]

Did you call?

[Leeham Rimes]

This happens often when I text from my Apple phone to my sisters android. Super annoying.

[hamster]

My phone just does this sometimes. Did you restart it?

[fernweh]

Feb 29, 2020 9:25:30 GMT -5 hamster said:

My phone just does this sometimes. Did you restart it?

I’ll try that. I haven’t had any issues texting anyone else though. That’s why it’s weird but it’s worth a try anyway.

[mcsangel2]

This happened to me once trying to text my hairdresser (who is also my SIL). It kept happening for like a day. I had no other texting issues. She didn't have any issues texting me though. I have an apple and she has an android. It solved itself eventually.

[fernweh]

Feb 29, 2020 9:15:13 GMT -5 isabel said:

Did you call?

We this is embarrassing. I didn’t. I’m not a phone person, she’s not a phone person, plus she works third shift. I don’t think we have talked on the phone once in 15 years if knowing each other, it’s always been text so I didn’t even think of that. I’ll try that. lol

[fivechickens]

Feb 29, 2020 9:18:19 GMT -5 Leeham Rimes said:

This happens often when I text from my Apple phone to my sisters android. Super annoying.

Same.

It doesn’t mean you are blocked. I think even blocked #s go through on the sender end but the receiver doesn’t receive them. It usually means there is an issue between carrier/different phone types. Just keep trying it will eventually fix itself.

[TrickyBob]

All the time. If wifi is available I connect and turn off my mobile data and all goes through.

It is so annoying

[wanderingback]

If you’re worried, did you try calling?

This happens to me randomly for no reason.
I’ve never even thought about a person blocking my number.
It happens more often when I’m out of the country or when the other person is out of the country.

[sunflower17]

Happens to me when I text some people with androids from my iPhone. So annoying.

[cmeon]

iPhones and Androids use different protocols to send messages. There are lots of things that can wrong- from connectivity issues on the other end, to conversion failures on your end- I wouldn't assume you're blocked.

[readyin07]

This randomly happens when I text my husband for some reason. It’s very annoying!

[jinkies]

Just chiming in to say that if you are blocked, the message would still appear to go through on the sender side.

It is more likely a temporary glitch. I also have more trouble of I'm trying to send a photo or graphic.

[MixedBerryJam]

Feb 29, 2020 10:26:43 GMT -5 sunflower17 said:

Happens to me when I text some people with androids from my iPhone. So annoying.

A lot of responses say this and I’m shaking my head because the only person I consistently have trouble texting is my brother with an Android. When I text him one-on-one it goes through as far as I can tell, and I get the “Delivered” confirmation. But he doesn’t get it. When I haven’t heard back from him I text a group chat among all of my siblings and our kids (it gets a little wild sometimes but it’s been going on since about 2013) and resend it in there. It’s very annoying to our siblings I’m sure when I’m texting about picking me up at the airport and other random stuff. Oddly the group chat always works, even though he’s the only android in there, too.

[morecoffeeplease]

Feb 29, 2020 9:27:41 GMT -5 fernweh said:

Feb 29, 2020 9:25:30 GMT -5 hamster said:

My phone just does this sometimes. Did you restart it?

I’ll try that. I haven’t had any issues texting anyone else though. That’s why it’s weird but it’s worth a try anyway.

Did you just do a software update? After the last update my phone would not log back into iMessage and it kept doing this. It was a huge pain in the ass.

[Deleted]

Another chiming in that I experience this sending a text from my iPhone to Android phones occasionally. Usually i just resend and it goes through, if not, if I reboot my phone it works.

[cmeon]

Feb 29, 2020 19:33:43 GMT -5 MixedBerryJam said:

Feb 29, 2020 10:26:43 GMT -5 sunflower17 said:

Happens to me when I text some people with androids from my iPhone. So annoying.

A lot of responses say this and I’m shaking my head because the only person I consistently have trouble texting is my brother with an Android. When I text him one-on-one it goes through as far as I can tell, and I get the “Delivered” confirmation. But he doesn’t get it. When I haven’t heard back from him I text a group chat among all of my siblings and our kids (it gets a little wild sometimes but it’s been going on since about 2013) and resend it in there. It’s very annoying to our siblings I’m sure when I’m texting about picking me up at the airport and other random stuff. Oddly the group chat always works, even though he’s the only android in there, too.

SMS (traditional texting) requires cellular service. There are ways to mitigate this- WiFi calling will (but, that's carrier/phone dependent), and many modern Androids messengers utilize RCS (which transmits and receives over the Internet-  like MMS messages do). You are probably running into that, though, on either your end or his, if SMS won't work but MMS will.

[MixedBerryJam]

Feb 29, 2020 20:17:21 GMT -5 cmeon said:

Feb 29, 2020 19:33:43 GMT -5 MixedBerryJam said:

A lot of responses say this and I’m shaking my head because the only person I consistently have trouble texting is my brother with an Android. When I text him one-on-one it goes through as far as I can tell, and I get the “Delivered” confirmation. But he doesn’t get it. When I haven’t heard back from him I text a group chat among all of my siblings and our kids (it gets a little wild sometimes but it’s been going on since about 2013) and resend it in there. It’s very annoying to our siblings I’m sure when I’m texting about picking me up at the airport and other random stuff. Oddly the group chat always works, even though he’s the only android in there, too.

SMS (traditional texting) requires cellular service. There are ways to mitigate this- WiFi calling will (but, that's carrier/phone dependent), and many modern Androids messengers utilize RCS (which transmits and receives over the Internet-  like MMS messages do). You are probably running into that, though, on either your end or his, if SMS won't work but MMS will.

Thanks! I understand most of what you said (def not all tho lol) but why is the group text always reliable but the one-in-one texting not? I have always thought it had to do with cell reliability/WiFi availability but I’ve never been able to follow the problem from start to finish. Mystery!

[cmeon]

Feb 29, 2020 20:25:28 GMT -5 MixedBerryJam said:

Feb 29, 2020 20:17:21 GMT -5 cmeon said:

SMS (traditional texting) requires cellular service. There are ways to mitigate this- WiFi calling will (but, that's carrier/phone dependent), and many modern Androids messengers utilize RCS (which transmits and receives over the Internet-  like MMS messages do). You are probably running into that, though, on either your end or his, if SMS won't work but MMS will.

Thanks! I understand most of what you said (def not all tho lol) but why is the group text always reliable but the one-in-one texting not? I have always thought it had to do with cell reliability/WiFi availability but I’ve never been able to follow the problem from start to finish. Mystery!

SMS is your "one on one" texting (requires cellular service- or WiFi calling- to send and receive).

MMS is your "group texting" (so requires internet- data or wifi to send and receive).

It's complicated, for sure- there are a lot of variables at play!

[MixedBerryJam]

Feb 29, 2020 20:34:10 GMT -5 cmeon said:

Feb 29, 2020 20:25:28 GMT -5 MixedBerryJam said:

Thanks! I understand most of what you said (def not all tho lol) but why is the group text always reliable but the one-in-one texting not? I have always thought it had to do with cell reliability/WiFi availability but I’ve never been able to follow the problem from start to finish. Mystery!

SMS is your "one on one" texting (requires cellular service- or WiFi calling- to send and receive).

MMS is your "group texting" (so requires internet- data or wifi to send and receive).

It's complicated, for sure- there are a lot of variables at play!

This was at least part of my disconnect bc I thought they were BOTH SMS and that MMS was iPhone-proprietary. I still don't really get it but, baby steps ...

[cmeon]

Feb 29, 2020 22:55:46 GMT -5 MixedBerryJam said:

Feb 29, 2020 20:34:10 GMT -5 cmeon said:

SMS is your "one on one" texting (requires cellular service- or WiFi calling- to send and receive).

MMS is your "group texting" (so requires internet- data or wifi to send and receive).

It's complicated, for sure- there are a lot of variables at play!

This was at least part of my disconnect bc I thought they were BOTH SMS and that MMS was iPhone-proprietary. I still don't really get it but, baby steps ...

Nope, it's the iMessage protocol that's Apple's proprietary baby. MMS stands for multimedia message service- it was an upgrade to SMS (short message service) that allowed... multimedia (LOL), longer text messages, and sending/receiving over the Internet. It was in use before iMessage was a twinkle in apple's eye.

Really, the crux of it is that Apple doesn't have a lot of incentive to make their proprietary messaging protocol play well with others (see how everyone just assumes it's the Android phone that's the problem when things go wrong?)- and the ball is in their court (they're the one with proprietary code).

[sunflower17]

Feb 29, 2020 19:33:43 GMT -5 MixedBerryJam said:

Feb 29, 2020 10:26:43 GMT -5 sunflower17 said:

Happens to me when I text some people with androids from my iPhone. So annoying.

A lot of responses say this and I’m shaking my head because the only person I consistently have trouble texting is my brother with an Android. When I text him one-on-one it goes through as far as I can tell, and I get the “Delivered” confirmation. But he doesn’t get it. When I haven’t heard back from him I text a group chat among all of my siblings and our kids (it gets a little wild sometimes but it’s been going on since about 2013) and resend it in there. It’s very annoying to our siblings I’m sure when I’m texting about picking me up at the airport and other random stuff. Oddly the group chat always works, even though he’s the only android in there, too.

At work a group of us generally have a group text going. There’s one coworker with an android and for some reason it screws things up frequently. We often need to text her separately.