Sending SMS Problem

This sounds awfully similar to the problems with iPhones and iMessage. Some iPhone owner switches to a non-iPhone and forgets to disable his iMessage account. He then stop receiving texts because his friends' iPhones keep sending iMessages - which very much appear as SMS, but aren't.

But I can't wrap my head around how this should ever affect a Garmin device. Just wanted to mention it, in case it could inspire you in your search for an explanation.

OK thanks.. I know his imessage worked because I sent him one during our testing... I'll ask him to disable imessage and we'll try again later today...

Thanks for the pointer...

Cheers,

I can't see any relationship, either. Even with iMessage enabled (whether or not the account is correctly linked), the phone ought to receive SMS messages addressed to it. I am pretty sure that Garmin has no idea what kind of phone it is and would never try to send via iMessage.

You need to be absolutely certain the the number to which you are sending the message is both correct AND correctly formatted. If the message is to a stored contact (as set up on the inreach.garmin.com site), be sure that you have sync-d the device with the web site since the last change you made to any contact. For the specific contact, be sure that the number is correct and contains no punctuation (dashes, parens, etc.) Most importantly, be sure that the country code is correct.

If it's via a preset message, be sure that the number stored on the web site is correct, includes + and the country code, contains no other punctuation, and that multiple addresses are separated by commas.

I don't normally type phone numbers into the inReach directly, but I think they must follow the same rules as above - include + and the country code, no other punctuation.

AFAIK, there is no way to tell whether or not an SMS message sent from the inReach which appears in your Inbox has actually been sent to the phone, let alone delivered. The Garmin servers hand off to an SMS gateway, which in turn ships the message out over the cellular network.

Note that the phone number which appears as the source of the SMS on any given phone is randomly selected from a pool available to the SMS gateway. There is no guarantee that the same message sent to two different numbers will have the same "from" number when received on the respective phones. My point is that checking for a blocked number using the "from" number from a different phone isn't going to help.

This is very disappointing. We have now done several tests with this one AT&T iPhone, it consistently fails to receive an inReach generated SMS, but works for all other senders. The phone number is correct, the number is properly loaded in the inReach account which was sync'd with the inReach.

This morning I tried some tests with my AT&T iPhone, one test sat for 6 minutes spinning the phone's icon before it finally went thru, the 2nd test took about 2 minutes. I also tried sending SMS from the inReach handset to the failing ATT phone, that also failed to arrive. We have a clear view of the sky from this location.

Not to be dramatic, but I'd hate to be in a life threatening situation and have to depend on this Garmin / SMS capability. I bought a sat phone for emergency communications, Garmin / SMS seems too unpredictable. There is absolutely no mobile phone coverage at our project's destination.

Thanks,

I would call tech support about the single number to which you cannot send SMS.

I believe you are using a contact in the inReach to send the message. The only other thing I can suggest is that you try sending to the failing number by entering the number directly into the inReach, rather than by sending to the contact. Although I've never seen it myself, I have seen anecdotal reports of situations where sync-ing changes to the contact list does not resolve issues with incorrect mapping between contacts and their phone numbers. If sending directly to the number works, that's almost certainly the problem. Which is a really compelling reason to call tech support.

I am not sure what you mean by "...6 minutes spinning the phone icon...". Are you sending SMS messages from a paired phone using the Earthmate app, or does this mean something else? If you ARE using the app to send to a contact, try cutting the app out of the loop. Use the device directly to send to the contact, then to the number directly as outlined above. This may tell you something about the source of the problem.

Note that the actual delivery time for an SMS message sent from the inReach is highly variable. It should certainly not be hours or days (at least, not with a reasonable sky view), but it almost certainly will not be as fast as exchanging texts between phones. A few minutes up to 10 minutes or so is not out of the ordinary, assuming a clear view of the sky.

I am using a Samsug S5 Active mobile phone via Bluetooth to the inReach.

I have tried the failing number directly from the inReach = failed
Tried it from the Samsung Earthmate app = failed

I deleted and reentered the contact information in both the Samsung's contacts app and on my Garmin inReach account, did a Sync , and verified it in the inReach contact list, all = failed.

When pressing "Send" - the Earthmate app presents the user with a spinning icon. When the SMS is accepted by the server the spinning icon changes to SMS. At that time it is assumed the message is handed off to ATT for delivery.

I understand the actual time to receive the text is variable, but "never" is probably unacceptable.

At this point I'm not planning to open a ticket. The ATT phone that fails will be with us on the project, so it's not critical. However, I will send test SMS messages to everyone else that expects to communicate with us while at sea.

Thanks,

I found out a few months back that my wife's Iphone is not receiving my Inreach messages, email yes but not text messages. After several phone calls to Garmin I finally was able to talk to a tech and was told Garmin is aware of this issue with ATT phones but had no clue of how or why only some phonies are being affected. They put me on a notification list once they resolve the problem, but no idea how long it was going to take. I sure do not like paying for a emergency service that at any point in time can just stop working and be unaware of it. I used to be a big fan of my Inreach but I feel like Garmin is just taking my money and I am packing a piece of unreliable equipment. I'm going back to SPOT, at least it worked.

I experienced this issue yesterday and I'm interested in knowing if it's an ongoing or sporadic problem and whether anyone has been given a solution.

I've used InReach SE+ for over a year without issue. Yesterday I sent an SMS to my wife's AT&T iPhone as usual to give her my starting position on a back country fishing trip. All indications on the InReach and from Earthmate on my iPhone were that the message was received. However, throughout the day I received five increasingly frantic SMS messages from her phone sent to the InReach saying she had not heard from me. I tried sending additional preset messages and messages created in Earthmate from my phone, none were received. Checking when I got home my sent messages show as normal in the Inbox of my Garmin account and on the map, but not on her phone. I spent 30 minutes on hold with Garmin support but had to finally give up. I'll try again.

I'm about to start a 12 week backpacking trip and bought the InReach specifically to make sure family is comfortable when I'm out of reach for extended periods. I'm now unsure about relying on it unless there is a known fix to the problem.

Would appreciate other's experience with the issue.

The status board does not show any recent outages for SMS. This is not conclusive since the status board sometimes fails to show short, intermittent, or localized outages.

The conventional wisdom on this appears earlier in this thread. First, call tech support. Failing that - If you have changed your contact list lately, try a wired sync to be sure it's up to date on the device. (Might try that even if you have no recent changes.) If you are using the Earthmate app to send the message, try cutting the app out of the loop - send directly from the device. If you are using a contact to establish the address (phone number), try typing the phone number directly instead of using the contact. All of those assume that the problem is somewhere on the Garmin side. None of those will help if the problem is with the SMS gateway or with the cell phone provider itself.

Finally, and most important, send the message to an email address in addition to the SMS phone number. The email channel has a lot fewer moving parts than the SMS channel. Although there may be some additional delay in delivery, email is inherently more reliable simply because there are fewer third parties involved.

Got a status email:
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[h=2]inReach SMS Delivery to AT&T Outage[/h] [TABLE="border: 0, cellpadding: 0, cellspacing: 0"]
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SMS messages sent from an inReach to AT&T customers are not being delivered. It appears to have begun on March 9th or 10th. Updates will be provided. [TABLE="border: 0, cellpadding: 0, cellspacing: 0"]
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