How to fix delayed texts messages on your mobile phone.

Have you noticed that it takes an extra long time for your friend’s family or colleagues to get the text and picture messages your sending them? Or noticed a delay when receiving messages? Well it’s kind of hard to have a conversation if there’s a big gap between your texts. Let’s see if we can’t get your phone working correctly again.

Test the messaging feature after each step

As we are performing the tasks below, don’t forget to check your devices functionality and ability to send or receive a message after each step. The simplest way to check your messaging feature is by sending a message to your own phone number. It sounds strange but should work; if it doesn’t for some reason then your mobile phones messaging is still acting up and you should proceed to the next step in troubleshooting. You can also test its functionality by sending a message to another mobile phone number other than your own.

Apps and recent changes

Sometimes these issues happen right away all at once or gradually get worse over time. Try and remember when you first noticed a delay on either end, whether it be sending or receiving, then try to remember if you had downloaded any apps (applications) or wallpapers ringtones etc around that time. I am going to talk from an android smart phone perspective throughout the article, but the steps to take throughout this post should solve this delay on almost any type of phone.

If you remember downloading anything around or before that time I recommend you write the name of it down and then un-install it. Send some test messages and see if that cleared it up. If you are using a messaging app (other than the one that came on your phone), I recommend you remove it or check for updates to make sure that it isn’t that app causing the problem. The phone might have done an update to its OS (Operating System) that doesn’t get along with that app and is there for causing issues, if that’s the case the app might just require an update.

If you turn off that app and the mobile is still giving you issues then I recommend you remove that app all together.

Power cycle every so often

Sometimes when your phone has been powered on for a long time (which is very common) it can get tired and need a rest. If you don’t power your phone off every few days for a few minutes then that might help your issue as well, and when I say power off I don’t just mean plugging it into the charger. Many of us take our phones off the charger hop in our car to go to work or school, plug it into our car charger, get to our designation, plug it in there, plug it back into our car charger on the way home, plug it in to charge during bed, rinse and repeat. Try to set aside a few min every couple or few days to just turn it off and let it sit for a few min.

Soft reset

Perform a soft reset on your phone just for good measure. A soft reset is simply cutting all power from your phone, preferably for 10 or more seconds. If your phone allows you to remove the battery then go ahead and remove the battery from your mobile phone, count to 10, reinsert the battery and power the phone back on. If your phone isn’t designed to allow you to remove the battery than simply manually power your phone off count to ten and then turn it back on.

Once you pull the battery or power cycle (turn off and on) your mobile phone you might have texts come flooding in BUT it might just be a temporary fix. Let’s not just put a band aid on the issue, let’s fix it permanently. Note: a second level reset, basically pulling the battery while the phone is powered on and not plugged into a charger can temporarily fix many smart phone issues not just messaging.

SMS Clean-up

If you’re anything like me then you hate getting rid of things, well these things can add up over time and text messages are no exception. If you like to save your SMS (Short Message Service) more commonly known as text messages, you’re not alone. I have seen where too many text messages can cause issues like this though. Go through the texts that you don’t NEED to have and delete them from your mobile.

Note: you’re going to want to back up those needed texts to a place other than your cell phone; you don’t want something to happen to your phone which causes you to lose that important information. Backing up texts can be a challenge I recommend, that if you have texts you NEED saved you read how to save text messages from an android smart phone. If you want to you can do it now, just don’t forget to come right back to fix your messaging.

After removing the unnecessary messages send some test messages and see if cleaning your inbox helped. If there is still a delay then proceed to the next step. 

Hard issues sometimes require Hard Resets

If you keep an eye on your apps, power cycle fairly often, and have few saved messages then it might have been something picked up online or just a corrupted file or something in its software. What we need to do is referred to as a Hard Reset (also known as a Factory Data Reset, Master Reset, Master Clear, etc). Basically we are going to need to backup everything from your device and then clear everything from the mobile phone.

This clears any software issues from the phone whether it be a glitch, a virus, a bad file, you name it. The downside of a Hard Reset is that it not only wipes out whatever is causing the issue but it erases everything else on the phone as well. After we do the Hard Reset the phone will be as it was when it was brand new, we’ll have to re-setup the phone just like you did when you first got it and you’ll once again have a working messaging system.

For detailed step-by-step instructions on how to perform a hard reset I recommend reading how to fully backup and reset an Android phone.

Once you perform the reset and then setup your mobile phone you shouldn’t have any more issues. If that’s the case, enjoy.

Otherwise proceed with the instructions that follow.

Contact your service provider

Doing a reset is kind of a last resort for phone related issues. If you wiped everything off the phone and it’s still not sending or receiving text messages properly then I would most definitely recommend that you contact your Service Provider, whether it be AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-mobile, Net 10, etc, and let them know your having issues sending and receiving SMS so that they can run some diagnostics on their end.  Now if no one else in your area is experiencing network related issues such as delayed text messaging, dropped calls, no service etc then it’s probably not an issue with the towers.  It can however be an issue with the provisioning of your specific phone on their network, and again I would recommend giving your service provider a call and asking them to check and make sure that all the features on your account are provisioned correctly, make sure the features on the account are compatible with your specific phones make and model, also checking to make sure that nothing might have changed recently on your account that could be causing this problem, including holds blocks hotlines or restrictions.

There are many things out of your control that can happen on your account or network which can affect the phones functionality, especially if you have recently done a cross upgrade, or have done an exchange through the warranty or insurance.  So contact your service provider let them know the problem that you are experiencing and just request a diagnostic, they should also be able to connect your phone or reconnect your phone to the network to make a stronger connection and that should help as well. 

Depending on the service provider they might even recommend that you replace the SIM card in your phone, which they can usually send to you in the mail or you can often just go down to one of their stores and pick one up.  If someone else that you know has a phone with the same service provider as you then I would also recommend that you take your SIM card out of your phone that is experiencing problems and try it in their phone. If their mobile start experiencing the same or similar technical problems when your SIM is inserted into it then it’s most likely the SIM card causing the issues, and requires replacing, you can definitely mention that when you give your service provider a call. This should also save you a lot of time and gas money, as opposed to wasting a trip to the store. If your SIM works fine in another phone (must be the same provider, I cannot stress that enough) and then you place it back in your phone and the problem continues then it might in fact be a defective phone (rare for this issue, but happens).

Your service provider should help you reach a solution one way or another, either by repair, insurance, coaching, troubleshooting, upgrade, early upgrade, or simply replacing the unit. If you have had your phone for less than a year I also recommend you inquire about your manufacturer’s warranty, which covers phones against manufacturer defects, which this would fall under. As long as your mobile phone is less than a year old and has no physical damage or liquid damage it is usually covered under warranty.

Thank you for reading

I hope I was able to assist you with the issue you were having and hope that you can now send and receiving texts just as good, if not better, then when you first got your phone. If you liked the article, have any suggestions or would just like to leave a comment, then don’t hesitate to do so below.

Also don’t forget to check out some of the other articles on the site, many are written to help use your phone to its full potential and get the most you can out of it. Enjoy.