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Serious hidden bug with (all?) android phones

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  • 10-08-2011 1:00pm
    #1
    cormie
    Registered Users Posts: 20,790 ✭✭✭✭


    I reported on this before here but now believe it to be a bigger and wider spread issue than first thought. In fact, this was the reason I recently decided to flash a new rom and upgrade to CM7 2.3 Gingerbread from the Leedroid Froyo I had before.

    Well I have a Desire as a back up incase anything happened my main desire so I decided to flash this instead of my main desire, so Desire A (Main) was running Froyo and Desire B, whatever came with emobile about 9 months ago. I was updating Desire B to CM7 Gingerbread. Made the update thanks to Inquitus here :)

    Anyway, all seemed to be going well until I send my group text again today and still problems. I used handscent before, now I'm using go sms on Desire B. It didn't give the same multiple errors it used to Desire A, I have go sms set to split the group texts into separate threads for each recipient and it did, however it didn't split it fully and while most recipients had (1) beside them to signify there was 1 message to/from them, some had 2, so the same text to two recipients is contained in the one thread and then there are some from the group who didn't get their own thread, so these must be messages to these contacts.

    Then the part that could cause a lot of problems in different scenarios, one of the group text me back and I popped them a text back, I deleted the thread and then they popped another back, I wrote them a reply, hit send and the the thread I was on disappeared and I was in a new thread, and the text I just sent to one person was actually sent to another person. This happened before on Desire A aswell so I'm now convinced it's an android wide problem but just hidden away and not many people have experienced it, if any, because sending texts to large group is not a common thing to do.

    The problem is there and it's still there which is very annoying. Has anyone else experienced this. For anyone wanting to test it out, send a full text or two to a group of about 35 different contacts and see what happens with regards threads etc and then see if you can reproduce the other problem too (doesn't always happen but has happened me a few too many times)

    Hopefully this can get some attention and get sorted soon!


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    #2
    Krusty_Clown
    Registered Users Posts: 19,495 ✭✭✭✭Krusty_Clown


    Sounds more like a fringe case than a serious hidden bug. Are you sure it's not down to the roms you have installed on your phones, or the apps you are using to distribute group e-mails? Have you tried to contact the developers of those apps and roms? You will likely get a better response by contacting them directly (and contributing to their respective bodies of work) than posting here on boards.

    Personally, were I to send group sms texts, I would prefer to do it using a supported application on a supported platform, particularly if it is business related. Nothing worse then getting a group text from a business multiple times.


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    #3
    cormie
    Registered Users Posts: 20,790 ✭✭✭✭cormie


    This isn't business related thankfully :)

    when you say a supported application on a supported platform what are you referring to?

    The reason I think it's not down to the apps is because it's the exact same situation on two different roms, using two different sms apps. Would hope it can be fixed with a simply update to the app and not have to reflash any rom, it's taken me about 3 or 4 days to get my phone set up again after flashing!


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    #4
    28064212
    Registered Users Posts: 10,460 ✭✭✭✭28064212


    cormie wrote: »
    Then the part that could cause a lot of problems in different scenarios, one of the group text me back and I popped them a text back, I deleted the thread and then they popped another back, I wrote them a reply, hit send and the the thread I was on disappeared and I was in a new thread, and the text I just sent to one person was actually sent to another person. This happened before on Desire A aswell so I'm now convinced it's an android wide problem but just hidden away and not many people have experienced it, if any, because sending texts to large group is not a common thing to do.
    Sounds far more like it's an app problem, not an Android problem. The app is what's responsible for managing threads etc, and updating the internal SMS database.

    Large group texts are quite complex to manage from an apps point of view, which is why more than one of them could have problems. There is no "group-text" functionality that is part of the Android platform, the apps just attempt to mimic it

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    #5
    cormie
    Registered Users Posts: 20,790 ✭✭✭✭cormie


    Interesting, I've popped an email off to the Go Dev Team with the issue and a link to this thread anyway, hopefully it can be fixed up. Doesn't seem as bad as it was on handscent anyway so hopefully it can be improved to function properly without bugs!


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    #6
    Krusty_Clown
    Registered Users Posts: 19,495 ✭✭✭✭Krusty_Clown


    cormie wrote: »
    This isn't business related thankfully :)
    That's good news. Can you verify it it occurs in the stock rom? All bespoke or third-party roms are completely unsupported, and you will have little hope of getting something like this addressed, if it doesn't occur in the stock rom. If it occurs in the stock rom, you also have little chance of getting this addressed. :)

    If it occurs in a paid app, then at least you can get in contact with the developer, report the issue, and hope that they'll fix it.


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    #7
    Zagato
    Registered Users Posts: 1,775 ✭✭✭Zagato


    Have you considered getting Cabbage app ( or similar) and using your webtexts. This might work better as replies would come back to your other SMS app (unless you use paid cabbage app) and you could keep your threads a bit more practically then.


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    #8
    cormie
    Registered Users Posts: 20,790 ✭✭✭✭cormie


    I use cabbage religiously from my desktop, I guess I could use it to send the group text, but I do like to know my texts deliver and get delivery reports just to know the people got them, this can't be done with cabbage/webtext with Vodafone, I think o2 did state whether a text was delivered or not, I forget.

    I haven't tried a group text from the stock rom at all and I'm not reverting back to check because it has taken so long to set up the current rom. Maybe somebody else could give it a go on stock rom, but it was mentioned above that group texting isn't even available on stock rom?

    I'd hope that this would be serious enough bug for the Go Dev Team to look into and hopefully resolve. It's actually happened before when not even group texting, if I'd be texting a few different people at a time, even after deleting a thread from one, if I'm replying to another, it could go to the person I was previously texting, very annoying.


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    #9
    Zagato
    Registered Users Posts: 1,775 ✭✭✭Zagato


    As our numerical friend was saying above, I think it likely has to do with the complex thread management you are requesting of the app, that's why I thought the webtext might bypass this problem. I personally use textdroid quite a bit, and have never had a text not received, provided it sends successfully


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    #10
    cormie
    Registered Users Posts: 20,790 ✭✭✭✭cormie


    With handscent on froyo it was a lot worse, I'd send the 34 texts and I might get the last 10 or so in the group fail on me and it would say the text didn't send or it would be marked as still pending, I'd try resend and it would go fine, but only after a lot of pressing ok for "handscent is currently sending a large amount of texts" or something like that. Some wouldn't send either but with handscent, at least each recipient got their own thread, each and every time even if the text within was messed up and didn't send. Oh and even if a text was marked as pending, the recipient got it most times, so I'd end up texting them twice!


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    #11
    Zagato
    Registered Users Posts: 1,775 ✭✭✭Zagato


    cormie wrote: »
    Oh and even if a text was marked as pending, the recipient got it most times, so I'd end up texting them twice!

    Yeah, I don't know how useful delivery reports are, used to have that problem with handcent.

    It's a bit like all the threads on Battery life around here, with us all talking about what's draining the battery from the battery usage list -but how accurate is that anyway.

    I remember sending the priest who was celebrating my wedding the same text 8 times because handcent kept telling me it was pending - he had to ring me to ask me to stop :o


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    #12
    cormie
    Registered Users Posts: 20,790 ✭✭✭✭cormie


    Ok, more bugs!

    Just to keep a note of what happened.

    This morning:

    Write text to Mr. A, before sending, decide to add more recipients who it also relates to, Mr. B, Mr. C and Mr. D, all in recipient field now. Send and it doesn't create separate threads at all, the only thread I see is to Mr. A and there is only two copies in this thread of the same text. I get several "message received by" notifications, some more than once for the same person. I delete the thread once it all seems to have sent.

    In the mean time, I text another person. Mr. E, and delete his text after it sends.

    I then message Mr. F from cabbage desktop program. He replies straight away and when I read his reply, the thread is titled with Mr. E's name, I go back to the inbox and then I see it's properly titled Mr. F.

    I then Text Mr. G separately from cabbage again, get a text back quite quickly and it's correctly titled Mr. G. I reply on the phone this time and press send and then the thread that WAS titled Mr. G, has now got the title Mr. A, I go back to the inbox and the thread renames itself Mr. G, but then there is a new thread titled Mr. A, and the text I wrote in reply to the Mr. G thread, has been sent to Mr. A!!! :mad:

    Has anyone experienced similar problems? It seems crazy I seem to be the only one experiencing it and that it's on two separate phones with two separate roms and two separate apps...


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    #13
    Atomic Pineapple
    Registered Users Posts: 18,272 ✭✭✭✭Atomic Pineapple


    Its not an Android problem, it sounds like the apps your using are accessing the sms content provider to split the threads, this content provider is not public and therefore can change between Android versions or even different manufacturer or carrier ROM's.

    It sounds like in accessing this content provider in certain edge cases your third party apps are getting ID's mixed up and therefore sending to the wrong contacts.


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    #14
    cormie
    Registered Users Posts: 20,790 ✭✭✭✭cormie


    Thanks for that reply draffodx, I've just seen my latest vodafone bills and this bug has cost me about €100, whatever way my texts are being sent, there's some sending about 5 times at a go when I send the group texts so that's 34 recipients getting the text about 5 times :mad:


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    #15
    Mr E
    Registered Users Posts: 55,452 ✭✭✭✭Mr E


    Ouch. :(

    Its worth registering for online access to your vodafone bills - you might have caught it sooner (the 'current charges' bill shows any charges since your last bill, and is a day or two behind, but still would have been useful in this situation).


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    #16
    cormie
    Registered Users Posts: 20,790 ✭✭✭✭cormie


    Thanks for the suggestion :)

    Vodafone site is pretty terrible at the best of times, I'll try keep a closer eye on it in future and see if VF can do anything for me too since it's obviously unintentional.


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    #17
    dloob
    Registered Users Posts: 1,831 ✭✭✭dloob


    It sounds like this bug http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=9392 but I think it is supposed to be fixed in 2.3


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    #18
    cormie
    Registered Users Posts: 20,790 ✭✭✭✭cormie


    Thanks for the link, although it's described slightly differently to how the bug happens with me, but maybe that's just the app I'm using handles the same bug differently? I don't see anywhere that it says the bug issue has been resolved though?


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