Disable MMS/Texting over WiFi

I just had a closer look at Textra, and it does have the ability to set the number of messages to "keep", with separate setting for "text" and "media".  I'm not sure exactly how it works, but I may give it a trial.  If I do that, I'll see if I can also get Microsoft's "My Phone" app working to use with my laptop.  I've tried it before with very limited success.

If my problem with MMS is really due to too many saved messages, then it's really quite annoying that Google has taken away the ability to manage that number "automatically".  I haven't consciously managed text messages for years.

download it..send yourself a pic and then some random texts after..say like 5 regular texts.. hold the pic and see if it gives you a lock option..if it does then go out of the app..back in and delete the whole text thread to yourself..if it all of a sudden jumps to the top and is still there then that one pic you locked is still there..if the whole text thread yeets then it didnt work lol.

how is your internal memory looking? texts and such eat up quite a bit of memory..as does call history (i cleared mine yesterday and was a bit shocked to see 380 of them were getting deleted lol).

I'll have a look at the lock option in a bit.  Thanks for the suggestion.  I do have a "pro" license for Textra.  I used to use it all the time and I like it, but a couple of the recent improvements to the Android app caused me to quit using it (iPhone emoji reactions and chat functionality).  But now apparently Textra does at least one thing that the Android app doesn't (how many messages to keep), so I'll use it for awhile.

I've installed "Phone Link" again and we'll see how long it works.  I have not had good luck with it.

As far as memory is concerned, the system currently reports 5.43 GB average use out of 8.00 +3.00 GB.

When I backed up my SMS and MMS messages a couple hours ago, there were more than 64,000 of them backed up.  That seemed like a lot to me!

Another update.  After deleting all but a few text messages from my phone, I had no problems for the rest of the day yesterday.  But today, I've already had to reboot my phone 4 times to send/receive MMS messages.  So, too many messages taking up space is not the problem.

By the way, my wife is on the same T-Mobile plan as I am, but she has an iPhone.  She has experienced no problems sending or receiving MMS messages.

So, it seems like I have an Android/T-Mobile problem.  (It's apparently not a OnePlus problem based on other posts in this thread.)  Switching to Textra has no impact.  When I can't send or receive with the Android app, I can't with Textra either.

You don't suppose anyone at a T-Mobile store could help me, do you?  Any other suggestions are welcome.

Here's another update on my recent experiences.

I have not had any problems with MMS for over two weeks.  I switched from Textra back to the stock Android messaging app with no problems.  I'm currently using the stock app.

I'm increasingly thinking that my problems with MMS were due to TMo congestion issues involving Android devices.  My wife never experienced any problems with her iPhone.  I experienced the problem with both Textra and the Android app.  I did get a message from Textra that there were "no MMS connections available" once when the problem occurred. I deleted all but a couple text messages from my phone to no avail, so the problem is not caused by lack of available space for messages on my phone.  I disabled wifi calling and still had the problem.  I forced the texting app to use mobile data and that had no effect -- I still had the problem.

I did enable the developer option "mobile data always active" a couple weeks ago, about the time I stopped experiencing the problem, but I can't be sure that really had an impact; I mention it for completeness.

I'm not sure when the next "congestion event" might happen, but I'll be alert for the next time I have a failure to send/receive MMS and report it in a new thread.

Just a quick update, in case anyone is still watching this thread, to note that the problem returned yesterday for me.  I've had to reboot my phone about 10 times between yesterday afternoon and now (5:30 pm local time) in order to send and receive group (MMS) messages.  Until now, I've had no problems for about 6 weeks.

I'm concluding that this is an intermittent issue involving Android phones and some kind of capacity issue with T-Mobile.  Apple phones don't have the problem, probably due to their proprietary way of handling messaging.  Also, this problem only affects MMS messages.  While I'm having problems with MMS, I can happily send and receive SMS messages without difficulty.  I can also make and receive phone calls with no problem.

Another symptom worth noting, perhaps, is when I’m experiencing this problem and someone in a group text sends a message, it comes to me as a text from that person only that can’t be downloaded.

I'm having the EXACT issues LawnMower described. It started a few days ago out of nowhere and now its 11/1/23.  The lack of group text is really difficult as we were in the process of coordinating funeral arrangements for a family member and I can't communicate effectively. 

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LawnMower wrote:

Just a quick update, in case anyone is still watching this thread, to note that the problem returned yesterday for me.  I've had to reboot my phone about 10 times between yesterday afternoon and now (5:30 pm local time) in order to send and receive group (MMS) messages.  Until now, I've had no problems for about 6 weeks.

I'm concluding that this is an intermittent issue involving Android phones and some kind of capacity issue with T-Mobile.  Apple phones don't have the problem, probably due to their proprietary way of handling messaging.  Also, this problem only affects MMS messages.  While I'm having problems with MMS, I can happily send and receive SMS messages without difficulty.  I can also make and receive phone calls with no problem.

Another symptom worth noting, perhaps, is when I’m experiencing this problem and someone in a group text sends a message, it comes to me as a text from that person only that can’t be downloaded.

No issues using Pulse and Textra.  If the issue is confined to Samsung Messages a d Google Messages.  I am going to say those apps are the issue.  There is a known issue with the current Google Messages beta restricting MMS to 1.05MB regardless of what file attachment size you have selected in the apps settings.  That is the current beta as of 5 days ago though.  

My problem disappeared for almost 8 months, but reappeared last week with a new wrinkle.  This time, I was able to send MMS messages but I couldn't receive them.  Moreover, whereas I got a notification in my messaging app last time I had this problem, I got no notification this time.  I tried rebooting my phone to no avail.  Having no other choice, I decided to call T-Mobile support.

I spent a fair bit of time on the phone with a fairly knowledgeable rep, who took me through a series of steps to fix or at least diagnose the problem, but those steps failed.  He decided to open a ticket on my behalf with T-Mobile's engineering group, and he agreed to get back to me within three business days with their findings.

(The phone started working correctly again later that day and it’s been working fine for over a week.)

Well, he never got back to me, so I called support again and asked them to look up the status of my ticket.  He looked up the ticket and told me the engineering team hadn't done anything yet and forwarded me over to the engineering team.  At that point, I was talking to someone who knew what he was doing.  He told me they had made some changes on "their end" (not to my phone) that corrected the way it was connecting to T-Mo's messaging infrastructure.  He didn't tell me exactly what they did, but he did say that if the problem recurred, I'd need to go into a T-Mo store and either get a new phone or a new SIM card, referencing my ticket number.

I'd suggest that anyone with this problem contact T-Mo support and request that a ticket be opened, and then follow up on it until it gets resolved.  It seems like there is something wrong with the way T-Mo's infrastructure is communicating with certain Android phones.  (This problem has never occurred on my wife's iPhone.)  Mine is a OnePlus 10 Pro 5G, in case that matters.  (I'll never have another OnePlus phone, but that's a topic for another thread…)

Good luck getting this resolved!