Hello and welcome to another troubleshooting article for the Galaxy S9 (#GalaxyS9). In today’s episode, we bring you some text messaging and calling issues that were reported to us for the past few days. If you have trouble with your own S9 when it comes to text messaging or calling, this post might help.
Problem #1: How to fix Galaxy S9 text messaging issue: only receives messages after getting “failed to send” error
Hi. I’ve been having an issue with my Samsung S9. A lot of the times, I send out a message only to have a failed to send message pop up instead. I know for a fact that the recipients of these failed messages never get the texts whenever this happens. On the other hand, there are also many occurrences where I fail to receive messages from other people until much later. Then I realized that I don’t receive the message unless I send out a text that fails to send out almost every time. In other words, texts from other people arrive only after getting that failed message notice. Once I get that failed to send message, messages from other people pop up almost instantly. It’s happening more and more often, almost 20-30 times a day. If I don’t constantly send out messages to see if my texts are actually sending, I never know if I’m not getting texts on time or not, because I have had times where I receive someone’s message hours later when they actually replied 2 minutes after my last text. I’ve tried rebooting my phone and clearing the cache and data on the app, but nothing works. I’m not sure if it’s my phone or my carrier that’s the issue, but if there’s a solution to this problem, I’d really appreciate any help at all. Thanks!
Solution: For this type of issue, the most likely reason lies on the network side. We still recommend that you do three things before you start working with your network operator on this one.
Reset network settings
This is going to be the first troubleshooting step that you want to do. Clearing a device’s network settings sometimes help in fixing all sorts of networking ills. To reset your S9’s network settings, follow these steps:
- Open Settings app.
- Tap General management.
- Tap Reset.
- Tap Reset Network settings.
- Tap RESET SETTINGS button to confirm.
- Restart your S9 and check for the problem.
Observe in safe mode
There may be a third party app that interferes with the operating system or with the text messaging function on your device. To see if that’s the case, you want to boot the device to safe mode. Once the device has been booted to safe mode, observe it for at least a day or two (without restarting to regular mode) and see if the problem occurs.
When your S9 is on safe mode, all third party apps will be suspended. If text messages work as expected and won’t become problematic, there must be a third party app behind the trouble.
To restart your phone to safe mode:
- Turn the device off.
- Press and hold the Power key past the model name screen.
- When “SAMSUNG” appears on the screen, release the Power key.
- Immediately after releasing the Power key, press and hold the Volume down key.
- Continue to hold the Volume down key until the device finishes restarting.
- Safe mode will display in the bottom left corner of the screen.
- Release the Volume down key when you see Safe Mode.
- Observe the phone for a day.
Remember, you want to know if text messaging works properly or not in this mode. If there’s no problem at all, it means that one of the added apps must be causing it. Use the process of elimination to determine which of the apps is problematic. Here’s what you need to do exactly:
- Boot to safe mode.
- Check for the problem.
- Once you’ve confirmed that a third party app is to blame, you can start uninstalling apps individually. We suggest that you begin with the most recent ones you added.
- After you uninstall an app, restart the phone to normal mode and check for the problem.
- If your S9 is still problematic, repeat steps 1-4.
Factory reset
In the event that nothing changes when the device is on safe mode, you should consider wiping the phone and returning all software information to their defaults. At times, issues can persist after doing the basic troubleshooting stuff simply because the problem is with the operating system itself. If you’re lucky and the bug is a temporary coding issue with Android OS, factory reset may help in fixing it. Here are the steps that you need to do to fix it:
- Create a backup of your data.
- Turn off the device.
- Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Bixby key, then press and hold the Power key.
- When the green Android logo displays, release all keys (‘Installing system update’ will show for about 30 – 60 seconds before showing the Android system recovery menu options).
- Press the Volume down key several times to highlight ‘wipe data / factory reset’.
- Press Power button to select.
- Press the Volume down key until ‘Yes — delete all user data’ is highlighted.
- Press Power button to select and start the master reset.
- When the master reset is complete, ‘Reboot system now’ is highlighted.
- Press the Power key to restart the device.
Get help from your carrier
As mentioned above, you may have to ultimately need to talk to your network operator about this issue. The three suggestions above are meant to address possible device issues only. If the concerns remain after doing them, it means that the reason for them are not fixable on your level. In this case, it’s best if you continue troubleshooting with help from someone who has access to your account logs and details. There may be some issues with the services in your area lately so it’s good if you can get firsthand information from your carrier.
Problem #2: Galaxy S9 text messages showing incorrect date and time
Some Messenger Timestamps to posts are incorrect and repetitive but only with certain contacts. I thought it may be an At&t network problem and I called them but they said it was Samsung S9 product issue which I’ve already called to address. Some resolve was achieved regarding the present time and zone in phone settings which was also wrong but did not change the timestamps on the text posts. Example: in one group of texts, it registered 6:19am and the same time in subsequent texts and continues the same time owr text. I expect restoration to dysfunction please. Thank you!
Solution: First of all, timestamps in text messaging apps are based on the device’s system time and date. If your S9 has incorrect date and time during the time when it receives new messages, posts will reflect whatever date and time your phone uses.
Secondly, post timestamps are not changed to correct ones after correcting your phone’s date and time. So, you can’t expect posts to reflect the newly changed date and time if they were received prior to changing the system date and time.
Thirdly, if you’re concerned about not having correct date and time on your messages, then make sure that your S9 is set to use the correct date and time in the first place. This is the main issue. If you can’t keep the correct date and time on your device for some reason, then you have to accept whatever inconsistencies your messaging app shows as regards the date and time reflected.
Problem #3: How to fix Galaxy S9 calling issues: won’t receive or send phone calls
I have at&t service, on 08/17/2018. My cell phone won’t receive or send phone calls. I can access Internet games facebook and other things, including text messages. But no calls. I have pulled the sim and SD card, blew out compartments, replaced everything again making sure all is in complete and secure. Closed it up and restarted, still I get everything else but no phone. I keep getting a pop up saying network or SIM card error. I am at a loss as my phone is the home, cell, and emergency phone. We do have my husbands phone, daughters phone and my son has an Ipad. Please help me asap!
Solution: We suggest that you do a factory reset to know if the problem is due to a software bug and temporary. If you’ve already did that, or if nothing positive happens after doing it, consider having getting help from your network operator. There’s a chance that your account may not be properly provisioned, or there’s an on-going network problems you’re not aware of. They are the best people who can help you in this situation so don’t waste your time looking for other solutions if factory reset won’t help.
Problem #4: Galaxy S9 Plus won’t display long text messages
Hi there. I just recently upgraded to a Samsung S9 Plus. It is brand new phone, and now when i receive text messages in the default messaging app, if they are very long, they do not fully display as one text bubble. Rather, they show the first part of the message, with a button on the bottom to “view all”. Clicking on that allows you to read the full message. My.old phone was a samsung s5, and i never needed to change any settings, etc, to receive large messages as one bubble. Do you have any tips or suggestions? Thanks!
Solution: This may be a carrier-specific feature. Some carriers may modify default Samsung apps or add their own text messaging app in an effort to promote their brand. If your Galaxy S9 Plus came from your carrier as part of your subscription, or if you got this phone as a carrier-branded one, you can either just accept how the text messaging app works, or replace it with another app. If you want to consider using another text messaging app, we suggest that you start by using Google’s own Android Messages. You can get it for free from the Play Store by following this link.
There are many other similar text messaging apps so it’s up to you if you want to try out other ones.
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