My Garmin Inreach Mini sent messages to the wrong person. Am I the only one this has happened to?

Using the Android earthmate app, I sent messages to, let's say, He didn't get them. Instead, a few days later, Mary was sitting next to me with her in reach, turned it on, and my messages to John showed up on her device. My own in reach device's screen claimed they had been sent to John, but here was Mary receiving them.

I've been talking about this to Garmin customer support and they have been nice but their responses are like, update/refresh/resync/reboot, but I won't them to say something like, "Oh yeah, that is a bug and we fixed it", or "That's a bug and we are going to fix it", because I want the device to be dependable for me and others in the future.

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twolpert over 2 years ago +1

Typically, this occurs when sending to contacts. The problem usually arises because changes were made to the contact list (on the web site) without a subsequent sync.

Each contact has an associated small…

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0 seilogramp over 2 years ago

Moved thread.

0 twolpert over 2 years ago

Typically, this occurs when sending to contacts. The problem usually arises because changes were made to the contact list (on the web site) without a subsequent sync.

Each contact has an associated small "code number". The number is not fixed. It is subject to change each time you add or remove a contact. When the unit sends a message to a contact, it does NOT use the full address (email address, phone number, iR device address, or whatever). Instead, it uses the code number. The point is to save space for message text. The server translates the code number into the proper address and forwards the message accordingly.

In order for this to work, the server and the device must agree on the meaning of each code number. If they do not agree, the message will go to the wrong recipient. In the worst case, it might not be delivered at all.

The moral is to sync EVERY time anything, including your contact list, changes.

That said, the whole contact addressing thing is (always) a work in progress. In addition, the app (Explore or Earthmate, whatever works for the device) is also in flux. I would not doubt that there have been (and may well still be) bugs. But most of the time, it's failure to sync.

The only way I know to protect yourself entirely is to type the full address of every recipient manually. That is, don't send to contacts. Enter the address each time. This is incredibly painful on the Mini itself. Slightly less painful in the app. But no matter what, it takes up space in the message. If the address is 25 characters long, that only leaves about 115 characters (140-25) for the message.