Forum Discussion
Texting issues when connected to WiFi
I've been having an issue for about a week now where as soon as my phone connects to Wifi, I begin having issues sending and receiving text messages. I've been having the same issue as well as my Girlfriend, her Mom, and her Daughter all having the exact same issues when on WiFi. This includes 4 different phones, 3 different Samsung models and an iPhone. All T-Mobile devices. This issue seems to only be with text messaging. No issues with calls or any type of Data or internet related App. Just sending and receiving text messages.
I called support last week because I was certain this was a known issue for many people, but was told it was not. I went through all the trouble shooting steps with the team and nothing they could do seemed to fix the issue. I cleared my cache, checked my data to ensure it was all setup correctly, I'm even now using a brand new Note 9 and still having the same issues. When I called originally I was using my s7 Edge.
I've taken a few photos where you can see the change.
When you're not on WiFi you can see the 4gLTE symbol next to the service indicator and it seems to work fine.
https://postimg.cc/image/xsv6evu2v/
As soon as I connect to WiFi, that 4gLTE symbol goes away. I'm pretty sure it never did this before.
https://postimg.cc/image/r2ep5gemv/
Then when sending I get these errors..
https://postimg.cc/image/nisrfmwhj/
On top of the issue with sending failures, sometimes after taking minutes to send, the person who is receiving the message will get up to 4 copies of the same message. I will also receive up to 4 copies of a message when getting texts. So it's an issue with incoming and outgoing.
This seems to be something that change with an update/service. Not the device or anything. When I got my note 9, the 1st thing it had me do was connect to WiFi and I immediately noticed this same issue (no 4gLTE symbol) before installing a single APP or anything.
I'd like to point out, this is not always an issue. Most time it works pretty well, however it's a daily occurrence for the last week. Happens while I have full cell and 500MB+ WiFi service.
Please advise how this is to be resolved.
Gracias,
Matthew
If the messages are only failing when the phone is using the Wi-Fi calling, this is going to be something that we will need to open an engineering support ticket for. Please gather a few examples/date/time/numbers of the failures and contáctanos so our tech care folks can get a ticket opened up for you.
Happy to report that this is STILL a problem.
I’ve had a Pixel 6, which has very poor phone connectivity at my house, so I was stuck with these problems.
I also had problems making phone calls. Would dial, nothing would happen. Sometimes the other person would receive a call and my phone would be convinced it hadn't even started dialing.
I changed SIMs, updated all kinds of settings, factory reset phone... Nothing.
Plus it’s intermittent, so couldn’t reliably troubleshoot since SOME messages got through.
I just upgraded to a new phone (Pixel 9) which must have a better modem, because I’m getting decent coverage over cellular at my house.
On account of this, I just turned off wifi calling entirely.
This appears to have resolved the problem. Calls and SMS are going through instantly without trouble.
Just going to have to remember to turn wifi calling back on if I ever need it. And suffer through the reliability while I do.
I'm curious what other ISPs and routers people might be using. I'm on Xfinity Xfi and I know they lock down a lot of things on their network and routers. Wondering if that might contribute, because it seemed like I had okay reliability on some other networks. (Although I work at home, so I don't try a lot of other ones.)
This happens to my wife (I just bought he a brand new Samsung 23 through t-mobile). It also happened to me today (Asus Rog7). I have corporate level WiFi at home and in my office and have never previously has this issue (Cisco-Meraki). My wife is required to have her cell phone (Car Dealership), and she is getting extremely frustrated. The problem does appear to be switching between cell and WiFi signals which causes a delay on connectivity and the message times out. The error is frustrating because it does not specify which message(s) failed to send...
developer options still working in December 2023. called something else now, though. check your phone info.
CS and tech support still don’t know how to troubleshoot properly. try this before calling.
kalayelak wrote:
Matthew this is kaleya call me
please hand someone else your phone or computer..no one has a clue who Mathew is in here.
Matthew this is kaleya call me
It seems in 5 years tmobile has refused to solve this issue. Not surprising really. I started with Sprint, which was decent. It had its moments, however they always at least tried to make things right. Discounts for healthcare workers, discounts for length of service with them, etc.
But tmobile just simply doesn't care. Exorbitant prices for absolutely horrible cell service and even worse customer service.
DTinSF wrote:
Joined T-Mobile for the first time last month, and have been having the same issue the entire time (on a Samsung Galaxy S22 with up-to-date software). SMS messages and pics do not come through when I'm connected to any WIFI network. I've chatted with TM tech support, called TM tech support, called Samsung tech support, chatted with Samsung tech support, who remotely logged in to my phone to have a look around and change some settings, etc. I've changed so many settings, I don't even remember where I started. Nothing has worked. Was thinking of dropping TM altogether.
Today I found a setting CONNECTIONS > DATA USAGE > MOBILE DATA ONLY APPS that I hadn't previously seen (or been directed to by any tech support). This is described as "Sets apps to always use mobile data, even when your phone is connected to Wi-Fi". I selected it, scrolled down to and selected Messenger. All SMS messages - text and pics - have been coming thorough in real time, even as my phone's wi-fi is turned on. It's only been a few hours, but that's longer than any other "fix" I've tried.
And yes, this seems like an obvious solution; like I should have known to do this. But in all my years of owning a smart phone I've never had to change such a setting. And if it's so obviously easy, why wouldn't TM or Samsung have suggested it?
Mine's greyed out. They're literally preventing me from using Messenger on mobile data when connected to wifi. That's it, I'm outta here. F TMO
I can't believe this is still an issue four years on. No wonder people are leaving this service in droves. I'm about to be one of them, since you obviously don't care about your customers. And no, I will not go into further details - you have plenty after four effing years.
I suspect that every 24 hours you're allowed a certain number of SMS over WIFI. I suspect that after that's exceeded, you'll have to wait until the next day and you'll see that magically you can text again.
Let’s just say I have a strong suspicion that the carrier makes money with each text over cellular and makes nothing over WIFI.
Hypothetically were this true, the APN settings point to servers where these limits would be enforced.
Joined T-Mobile for the first time last month, and have been having the same issue the entire time (on a Samsung Galaxy S22 with up-to-date software). SMS messages and pics do not come through when I'm connected to any WIFI network. I've chatted with TM tech support, called TM tech support, called Samsung tech support, chatted with Samsung tech support, who remotely logged in to my phone to have a look around and change some settings, etc. I've changed so many settings, I don't even remember where I started. Nothing has worked. Was thinking of dropping TM altogether.
Today I found a setting CONNECTIONS > DATA USAGE > MOBILE DATA ONLY APPS that I hadn't previously seen (or been directed to by any tech support). This is described as "Sets apps to always use mobile data, even when your phone is connected to Wi-Fi". I selected it, scrolled down to and selected Messenger. All SMS messages - text and pics - have been coming thorough in real time, even as my phone's wi-fi is turned on. It's only been a few hours, but that's longer than any other "fix" I've tried.
And yes, this seems like an obvious solution; like I should have known to do this. But in all my years of owning a smart phone I've never had to change such a setting. And if it's so obviously easy, why wouldn't TM or Samsung have suggested it?
