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Single text reply split into 4 "messages".

I sent a custom text to wife. She replied in a single text that got split into 4 messages. Looks like her single message was about 200 characters, so I'm surprised it didn't break it into two messages. The 4 split reply messages were about 60 characters each. Seems like a way for Garmin to charge for more messages? (My wife now knows to keep her replies to under 160 characters.)

When I called Garmin on this, they said that on their end, they see I'm running old firmware. But I checked the mini, and is says 2.2.0. They told me to do a soft reset, which I did, but of course the firmware remained the same. I hooked it up to Garmin Express, and it of course said no updates required.

Anything I'm doing wrong?

Thanks in advance.

0 twolpert over 6 years ago

Might also be the phone itself. If it's travelling by SMS (as opposed to the iMessage option if both phones are signed into Apple accounts), the phone cannot send a single 200 character message to the cell network. So it's going to break it up. Then the gateway gets to take a run at the result. There are too many moving parts to know exactly where it sent sideways. But it certainly does not have to be the Garmin servers.

0 WD over 6 years ago

Might also be the phone itself. If it's travelling by SMS (as opposed to the iMessage option if both phones are signed into Apple accounts), the phone cannot send a single 200 character message to the cell network. So it's going to break it up. Then the gateway gets to take a run at the result. There are too many moving parts to know exactly where it sent sideways. But it certainly does not have to be the Garmin servers.

You are absolutely correct. It's probably my carrier SMS.

0 CowboySlim over 6 years ago

IIRC, I did run a test previously, counting all characters and spaces including the address, and it got through when I left it just short of the 160 limit.

0 akrabu139 over 5 years ago

Pro-tip: Emoji and special characters often count as more than one character.

I sent several test messages from my inReach Mini and discovered emoji (especially custom emoji with different skin colors, etc) used more than one character. I don't have enough messages a month to test exactly how many characters the emojis use, though. Also things like ¯\_(?)_/¯ apparently count as more than the 9 characters it should be, as well. I *know* that certain emoji count as more than one character because if you send it to an older phone you'll see at least two unknown characters - the second being some type of modifier for skin color, etc. I'll make a bug request and let Garmin know that the app isn't counting characters properly.

0 akrabu139 over 5 years ago

Guys! Someone beat me to the punch and I realized it while I was chatting with the Garmin rep because his app counted emojis as more than 1 character (as it should, to avoid this bug) haha. Update your iPhone app and test again! Now it will subtract the appropriate amount of characters for an emoji and NOT split your messages.

I also made a feature request for us to be able to type out longer messages than 160 characters and have it split them like the bug did - because clearly the system is capable of it LOL

0 akrabu139 over 5 years ago

Update: The agent was able to find a few cases where it'd still split messages (possibly having to do with including location or signature), but regardless, the app update helps, and Garmin is fully aware of the problem now and working on it. I also learned that Garmin support is pretty great too, and that's good to know! :)

0 BK over 4 years ago

Some the messages that I have been receiving from family have been getting split up into multiple messages? Has a solution been found on this issue? And, is each message being counted as separate message on my IR plan? Thank you.

0 Garmin-Andrew over 4 years ago in reply to BK

This article has more info: Character Limits of Messages Sent and Received by an inReach SE/SE+/Explorer/Explorer+/Mini.

Note: I'm closing this old thread; please start a new post if you have other questions.