[Q] MMS send/receive issue on AT&T

[blkhwkz]

So while I wait for AT&T level 3 support to look into this and get back to me, thought I would see if anyone else has seen this issue. I had my original S4 stock rooted since it came out and never had an issue. Night before I was traveling it starts rebooting randomly and when I wake up the next morning it was dead. I was sent a refurb S4 (MF3) and again rooted it, did my usual Titanium freeze of same bloat as previous phone. Things were fine for a week and then I found out I could no longer send or receive MMS. I get an error that it is expired or not available. Spent a few hours on the phone with support, they had me change sim card (I just used my sim with replacement phone instead of the one they sent with it.) That did not fix it. If I power the phone off and back on I can usually get 1 MMS before it fails again. Did a factory reset, it worked for a few test MMS they sent and then stopped working. So they sent another refurb phone. I get it yesterday (MF3 again lucky me) and root it, didn't freeze anything and test it. Everything is working good for a few hours, sent and received like 20 pics to verify it. Then after a few hours, I can no longer send/receive them again. Internet/data works fine on the phone when the MMS issues happen. The MMS issue occurs whether sending or receiving from/to all 4 main US providers so it's not provider specific either.

APN is the default. They say my account is fine. The other 2 phones (S4 and S3 both not rooted) on my account work fine, though they are in a different state than I am. I tested while I was out running errands to make sure it wasn't a tower issue. Tech support provisioned my phone again several times. At this point I am out of ideas. Multiple sim cards and phones and the same issue. Doesn't make sense to me that power cycling or factory reset usually fixes it for a few minutes to an hour and then it stops again. So far they haven't made me go to a service center. Have a feeling if I go there they will try and blame it on being rooted when that isn't the issue.

Any ideas of what else I can try while I wait?

 

[FourPointedFreak]

So while I wait for AT&T level 3 support to look into this and get back to me, thought I would see if anyone else has seen this issue. I had my original S4 stock rooted since it came out and never had an issue. Night before I was traveling it starts rebooting randomly and when I wake up the next morning it was dead. I was sent a refurb S4 (MF3) and again rooted it, did my usual Titanium freeze of same bloat as previous phone. Things were fine for a week and then I found out I could no longer send or receive MMS. I get an error that it is expired or not available. Spent a few hours on the phone with support, they had me change sim card (I just used my sim with replacement phone instead of the one they sent with it.) That did not fix it. If I power the phone off and back on I can usually get 1 MMS before it fails again. Did a factory reset, it worked for a few test MMS they sent and then stopped working. So they sent another refurb phone. I get it yesterday (MF3 again lucky me) and root it, didn't freeze anything and test it. Everything is working good for a few hours, sent and received like 20 pics to verify it. Then after a few hours, I can no longer send/receive them again. Internet/data works fine on the phone when the MMS issues happen. The MMS issue occurs whether sending or receiving from/to all 4 main US providers so it's not provider specific either.

APN is the default. They say my account is fine. The other 2 phones (S4 and S3 both not rooted) on my account work fine, though they are in a different state than I am. I tested while I was out running errands to make sure it wasn't a tower issue. Tech support provisioned my phone again several times. At this point I am out of ideas. Multiple sim cards and phones and the same issue. Doesn't make sense to me that power cycling or factory reset usually fixes it for a few minutes to an hour and then it stops again. So far they haven't made me go to a service center. Have a feeling if I go there they will try and blame it on being rooted when that isn't the issue.

Any ideas of what else I can try while I wait?

Well it's certainly good you've troubleshooted many different possibilities. Sounds odd to me under the circumstances that the issue persists. I assume you have tried different content when testing these MMs? (i.e. not sending the same picture or message, but different variations or pictures)?

It makes no viable sense why this would be occurring especially based on all of your testing. Does this issue occur only on cellular connection and/or wifi?

 

[WoodburyMan]

Bad SIM card?

 

[blkhwkz]

Well it's certainly good you've troubleshooted many different possibilities. Sounds odd to me under the circumstances that the issue persists. I assume you have tried different content when testing these MMs? (i.e. not sending the same picture or message, but different variations or pictures)?

It makes no viable sense why this would be occurring especially based on all of your testing. Does this issue occur only on cellular connection and/or wifi?

With Wifi on or off. Different pictures, different people. Definitely an odd issue.

 

[blkhwkz]

Bad SIM card?

Tried 2 sim cards so far, have a third here that came with the refurb yesterday so I could always try that next.

 

[FourPointedFreak]

With Wifi on or off. Different pictures, different people. Definitely an odd issue.

Well, i'm certainly intrigued to know how you fix it. Keep us updated.

 

[blkhwkz]

So I am still waiting on AT&T to actually do something to resolve this. They claim level 3 is looking into it and claim they can't update my case to have level 3 support call me. In the meantime it looks like I have found a workaround to resolve my issue. Currently my phone has the default phone APN. I added a 2nd APN with the following values:

Name: Cingular MMS
APN: wap.cingular
Proxy: wireless.cingular.com
Port: 80
MMSC: http://mmsc.cingular.com
MMS proxy: wireless.cingular.com
MMS port: 80
MMS protocol: WAP 2.0
MCC: 310
MNC: 410
APN type: mms

I saved it and so far I have been able to send/receive MMS again for the last 11 hours. That is the longest it has worked since I started having issues. Now if level 3 support ever calls me I can tell them what I did so they can try and figure out why the normal APN is not working for me.

 

[TraJiK]

I had quite similar issues sending and receiving MMS messages this week, turned out to be Adblock Plus stopping pictures from being sent/received through port 80. Disabled Adblock temporarily, and MMS worked perfectly. Perhaps you are in the same boat? Or maybe another application blocking the ports? Complete shot in the dark here, as I am a very new owner of the S4.

 

[blkhwkz]

I had quite similar issues sending and receiving MMS messages this week, turned out to be Adblock Plus stopping pictures from being sent/received through port 80. Disabled Adblock temporarily, and MMS worked perfectly. Perhaps you are in the same boat? Or maybe another application blocking the ports? Complete shot in the dark here, as I am a very new owner of the S4.

I do (well did) have Adblock Plus installed. Just deleted my workaround APN and uninstalled Adblock Plus for now to test. So far it works, but I will give it a few hours to test some more.

Thanks

Checked out the forums for adblock plus and there are reports of this issue going back to November 2012. Looks like this was definitely my issue.

 

[mlkemac]

adblock causes problems on port 80 for MMS, your provider should have a few ports to chose from. Mine being with Rogers, i chose port 8080 in APN settings.
This fixed my issue permanently.

(Rogers had replaced the phone twice thinking it was a hardware issue)