Having problems receiving texts but you can send them just fine? Here is the Fix.

If people are getting your text messages but you’re not getting theirs then it’s kind of a one way conversation and that doesn’t work very well, or if you’re not receiving texts at all then that can be even more frustrating. You’re in luck though because there is a fix.

First of all the best news is that your phone is not broken. The chances that you need a replacement are slim to none. It’s just locating the actual cause of your issue that might take a little effort. It’s going to be either something on the phone itself causing issues or something on your wireless network provider’s end. First we’ll start with what you can do before getting into contacting your service provider.

Clean up your texts

Texts can add up pretty fast, if you save most of your text messages instead of deleting them then your phone might just be getting a little clogged up. Go through your SMS messages (Short Message Service, also referred to as text messages) and delete the ones you don’t need. After you clean up your messages power cycle (power off count to 10 then power it back on) and see if any texts start coming through (if texts don’t get delivered they can often be stored on your service providers network for a couple of days before getting deleted, that’s how you get texts even if your phone is powered off). Note: I recommend that you power off your phone at least once every couple of days for a healthier happier phone, plugging in your phone to charge for the night doesn’t count as being off. Think about the last time you powered your phone off and just let it rest for 5 min, if it’s been a while try to make it a habit.

Checking your apps

Applications can cause funny problems on smart phones; if you downloaded or installed an app for texting then it could certainly be that app causing issues. Especially if your phones software just got updated, your operating system might now be up to date but the app might not be. Check and see if there is a new version of the application available. If there is go ahead and update it and see if that helped. Note: you should be able to send a message to yourself in order for you to test your device and make sure it’s now both sending and receiving texts correctly.

If updating your apps didn’t help then I recommend you remove them. Start with any third party apps (applications that you downloaded yourself) that have to do with messaging then start removing any apps you downloaded around the time that your problem started.

Perform a reset

Once you have cleaned up your texts and your apps and if you’re still having issues then it might be something in the phone itself causing problems. This can be a number of things, a bug, a glitch, a virus (viruses are not too common on phones yet, but they can and do happen), or most likely something just picked up online.

As a sort of last resort to determine if it is an issue on the device itself you need to perform a Factory Data Reset. Don’t Panic it’s not as bad as it sounds, and chances are extremely high that it WILL fix your issue, you just need to backup all your information before actually proceeding with the reset. There are quite a few articles on this site that will walk you through how to backup and reset your type of phone (click here for specific instructions if you have an Android Smartphone). Most smart phones have automatic backups these days so the process of saving your information shouldn’t be too bad at all.

Looking at the Service

If you perform a factory data reset and wiped everything from your phone and you still cannot receive text messages then the issue is going to be to be something network related. This might include a bad SIM card or simply something on your service provider’s end. Not necessarily a down tower or anything like that, it could just be something related to your specific phone or account, something like a provisioning error. Note: if this started happening after an exchange or cross upgrade or regular upgrade then your information might just not be correct in their system.

Give your service provider (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, etc) a call and ask them if there is anything that they can see on their end that would be causing problems, such as any changes to the account, any holds, routing changes, forwarding options etc. also have them check and make sure that their system is communicating correctly with your specific phone.

If you get a good rep they should be able to locate the issue pretty quickly. I don’t want to get into too many details as to what they can do on their end, because you really have little to no control over it but let me advise that if/when you do call your Wireless Provider DON’T call them on the phone that’s having the issues, and make sure you have that phone with you in case they need to grab any important information from it. Depending on your service provider, they should be able to basically disconnect you and then reconnect you to their network to get a stronger connection and get your problem fixed. Note: I know that I mentioned power cycling earlier but, powering off your phone then powering it back on often connects you to the closest tower as well, and power cycling can be a good temp fix in many situations.

Recap

In any case you shouldn’t need to do an exchange or buy a replacement, if it was the antenna on the phone or a hardware issue like a physical piece on the phone that was malfunctioning then you wouldn’t be able to make or receive calls or do any texting for that matter. Do the backup then reset first and if that doesn’t work contact your wireless service provider and try and get a representative that knows what they are doing, not just a sales agent (they should be able to transfer you accordingly), so your wireless provider can get you up and running correctly again from their end, and then you should be good to go.

Enjoy your ability to receive messages again and of course to text properly. Remember not to text and drive, and don’t hesitate to leave a comment below or check out the rest of the site for other phone tips and information.

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14 thoughts on “Having problems receiving texts but you can send them just fine? Here is the Fix.”

  1. Problem solved!
    I tried disconnecting from my network and registering with another. Once this attempted connection failed, I then re-registered with my own network and, hey presto, all my missing text messages appeared! Problem solved! It must have refreshed my connection and pushed the missing texts through. No factory reset needed, phew!

    1. Missing text messages
      How do you disconnect from your network? Please help, I have the same situation as yours 🙁

    2. I had tried everything
      I had tried everything I could to fix this. I even called my phone company and nothing. Just when I was about to give up and was getting really desperate I ran into your comment and decided to try what you did. Like you said “presto” it worked!!!! Thank you so much Veronica!!!!

    3. Thanks a lot
      Thanks a lot. Out of the blue I noticed I wasn’t getting bank SMSes. Re-registering with network worked for me!

    4. How did you register to the network?
      Hi, how did you register to the network? I really want to get all my missed messages back too. Thanks!

    5. This is actually what fixed it for me…
      This is actually what fixed it for me and I suspect would save a call to the carrier.

  2. Thanks a lot! This was very helpful.
    Thanks a lot! This was very helpful. I also disabled messages and then enabled them again and it worked!

  3. varun bhardwaj

    Unspammed…
    Unspammed. I didn’t know that option existed on long press.
    Thanks.

  4. Don’t reset yet!
    I followed all steps except contacting service provider, and none of these worked, so before you reset, contact the service provider and see what they can do to help you.

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