SMS responses not coming to InReach mini

I sent test text to Garmin. Worked. I send messages too two different people. They received and responded. I never received even though checked messages many times. Upon return to cell coverage, those responses were in my. cell phone regular text inbox. Late Saturday (other problems were 6/4, 6/5 Fri Sat), I finally received one response of the 5 sent, the latest (Sat night). This wrecked an otherwise great trip. What possibly happened? System down for that time?

0 twolpert over 4 years ago

There hasn't been any recorded downtime for SMS since May 29. You can check the current status here:

https://status.inreach.garmin.com/

This is directly accessible from the colored status dot right below your login info on explore.garmin.com. The page also allows you to sign up for email updates to status.

There are a lot of moving parts involved in getting the reply from the phone back to your device. There are periodic problems with responses from AT&T cell phones (due to AT&T's excessively aggressive anti-spam policies). I am not aware of any recent instances, though.

I am puzzled by the fact that the reply showed up on your cell phone. This makes we wonder if the recipients actually replied to the SMS from the iR device - or if, perhaps, they sent the reply on an existing thread for your CELL phone? To get the reply back to the iR device, the recipient of the SMS (from the iR device) must reply directly to that message.

Although it does not apply in this case, do note that the ability to reply has a limited lifetime. Nobody knows exactly how long, but it's measured in weeks, not days or hours. To be sure that a particular party has the ability to reach you, you should consider sending them a message at the beginning of the trip to "prime the pump" for subsequent replies.