iOS™, iPhone™ and iPad™

[Suse]

Hi there

I sent a text to my brother yesterday morning (approx. 8:30am Melbourne time). I sent him a total of five text messages at around the same time. One of those five text messages is being sent to him repeatedly. The intervals at which it is sent vary - sometimes he receives it every 15 minutes, and at other times it is once in an hour. Also, whenever I send him a text message, that one text message gets sent again as well.

He has received it approx. 70 - 80 times now. As you can imagine, this is extremely frustrating.

I called Vodafone Support yesterday and got put through to technical support. The person told me to turn my phone off, remove the SIM and the battery, put them back and then turn the phone back on. She said this would stop the message being sent.

I have turned my phone off, removed the SIM, put the SIM back and turned my phone back on. I have an iPhone 4S and, from what I understand, removing the battery would void my Apple warranty so I am perplexed as to why she would tell me to do this (please correct me if I am wrong about the warranty but, even if I am wrong, I understand that the iPhone battery is not designed to be removed). After doing this (turning the phone off and removing the SIM), the message continues to be sent. 

I turned my phone off overnight but the message continued to be sent.

My brother has turned his phone off, removed his SIM and his battery (he is not using an iPhone) but the message continued to be sent. 

Please help!! This is urgent as I feel we have done everything we can do and it is an EXTREMELY frustrating situation.

[Nick]

Hey Suse,

Suse wrote:

I sent a text to my brother yesterday morning (approx. 8:30am Melbourne time). I sent him a total of five text messages at around the same time. One of those five text messages is being sent to him repeatedly. The intervals at which it is sent vary - sometimes he receives it every 15 minutes, and at other times it is once in an hour. Also, whenever I send him a text message, that one text message gets sent again as well.

Before we can suggest a solution, we need to get a better idea of which end this issue is coming from. To help work out a solution as quickly as possible, it would be a good idea for your brother to let his carrier know as well.

To help give me a better idea of how I can help, can you please have a look at your usage through My Vodafone and let me know if it lists each instance of the TXT message being sent? If the issue is at this end, you would expect to see each TXT listed separately under your usage.

Additionally, can you please let me know if you have the same problem when sending TXT to other numbers? Do other recipients report receiving the same TXT from you, multiple times?

Can you also find out from your brother if he receives duplicate TXTs from any numbers, other than your own?

Please let me know how you go. I am keen to get to the bottom of this and to provide a solution to this frustrating issue.

Thanks,

Nick

[Suse]

Hi Nick

I have checked my usage and each TXT isn't being listed.

I have never had anyone report this problem to me before, but my brother has never had the problem before either.

My brother has let me know that another text has started coming through multiple times.

Please let me know what you can do as this is driving us both crazy.

Thanks 

Susannah

[Nick]

Hey Suse,

Suse wrote:

I have checked my usage and each TXT isn't being listed.

Thanks for checking that for me. Whilst this doesn't necessarily confirm that the issue is not at your end, it least assures us that your aren't being charged for the extra messages.

If you haven't already, I would suggest testing your SIM in a different phone, to see if you have the same issues. I understand this may not be possible though, as you're using a micro SIM, but it would be great if you get the chance. This can help us work out if the issue is specific to your phone or not.

Did this start happening after you made any changes or updates to your phone? I am just wondering if this is being caused by a particular app or setting that has been changed recently.

To help ensure this is not the case, I would recommend doing a factory restore of your phone. This will erase everything on your phone and set it up again like it's new, out of the box. Make sure to backup all the data on your phone first, otherwise you will lose it when you do the restore.

Is it possible that your brother has made changes to his phone that are causing this? As I mentioned previously, at this stage it isn't obvious which end is causing this. It would be great if your brother could run through some troubleshooting as well, to ensure we have all bases covered.

It would be also great if you could provide some more details around how often this happens, if it only happens when sending TXTs from particular locations or when your brother receives them in certain areas. Any other information that you think is relevant would be great- even if it's just minor.

Please let me know how you go. I'm sure we can find a solution, and help to stop you and your brother going crazy!

Thanks,

Nick