Thread: textmessages gets cut?!?

My incomming messages are cut after some 400-500 hundred characters. It is not divided into several messages as you would expect, but I just do not recieve the rest of the message.

Has anyone else encountered this, and maybe found a work around for it. It seems like a major blunder to make a smartphone, that cannot handel long combined messages at all, something even the very old and basic phones handels just fine...

Would love a solution!

Send an email instead. Sms is for short messages. That's why it's called short message system. The official max of an sms is 160 characters or so, if you want to send a complete book over, you'll be better off using email instead, that's what smartphones are made for.

That is a pretty stupid respons. First of all, it is not the text I am sending but the ones that I receive, and second - if the phone could not send long messages, it should not allow you to do so. I have not had any problems sending long messages though.

It's easily mistaken that you were trying to send sms rather than receive. This is a user based discussion and no one is obliged to help another or to respond, but when we do we share and discuss our experiences, while you should point out the mistake of someone's response, please refrain from adding remarks about the nature of the reponse.

Each sms is limited to 160 characters (70 if the message includes double-byte characters, e.g., Chinese) by the extent of the technology (blame it on the Norwegians who invented it for GSM networks). While a small number of phones actually do not allow you to type beyond 160 characters, on others such as Windows Mobile a "long" sms message is sent by splitting into several sms each with 160 characters and reassembled as one on the recipient's phone, which is why you see it as one single sms on your phone and why you think you can send long sms messages, and your sender of the message is charged by the number of sms the message is split into (assuming it's not free service).

Unfortunately I have never received any sms over 480 characters (that's already 3 sms count) so I can't comment on the upper limit (and why should we - sms is meant to be short, thanks to the Norwegians), but I should be able to test it in about 12 hours when I'll have 2 HTC phones operating on the same network.

The technology is also mobile operator dependent, especially if the message is sent inter-operator sms. Have you tested various scenarios, such as receiving the same set of sms'es on the same mobile network (assuming the originator is on a different network) or using a different phone?

Originally Posted by ctholm

That is a pretty stupid respons. First of all, it is not the text I am sending but the ones that I receive, and second - if the phone could not send long messages, it should not allow you to do so. I have not had any problems sending long messages though.

Yes i am stupid. you are the king. I am deeply sorry and beg for forgiveness.

//sarcasm

To clarify myself (and Mesquire). SMS, like the word says, is meant for short messaging. Any character over 160 is a feature. Some providers support up to a 1000 characters, some only 320, as well as certain mobile phones. My reaction was based on that typical "using an iron to fry an egg" theory. People shouldn't complain that the egg takes too long to fry on an iron, because it is simply not made to do that. When it works, fine, have fun, but don't start complaining when it doesn't work.

And to concur (not referring to anyone's IQ or royalty status) I conducted a test by sending a 700 character test sms message to/from one HTC Touch (Enhanced version, w/ double RAM and ROM capacity of its original sibling released months before) and a HTC Touch Pro2 on the same mobile GSM network, both phones on factory stock ROM.

Result: all messages received in full and not a character missing. What smartphone blunder :?: :!:

The whole send process took about 30-60 seconds to complete and so it wasn't quite instantaneous. I ran the test just at dawn so the network isn't heavily utilized with too many sms messages being transmitted.

And I'm sure when I check my next bill, I'll see I sent 5 messages from one number to another with the same time stamp or within one minute (sadly the log does not show seconds) depending on the network's system clock corresponding to each session that the sms was being sent.

I could run a more comprehensive test to/from same and different networks on other phones from different eras in my collection (all still fully operational of course), e.g., (non smartphones) Nokia 8810, Nokia 8850, Motorola P7689, Sony Ericsson T630, (smartphones) O2 XphoneII (aka HTC Feeler), Dopod 818pro (aka HTC Prophet), Dopod D810 (aka HTC Trinity, P3600), but then again, I doubt someone else is paying for my sms bill afterwards :mrgreen:

I am sorry for calling a respons stupid, you are all right, that this is a voluntary site.

I just got disappointet because someone responded, and then he had misunderstood my post. I really am sorry.

I new about the long sms's being really combined sms's, but I was not aware, that different operators could have something to do with it. I will try to look into this.

All the comments on sms having to stay short seems a little off to me. I haven't had the problem before, and depending on culture, I guess, long text messages are not at all uncommon everywhere.

It still perplexes me how this happends, as I assumed the Sms's was sent as individual standard sms's and collected by the phone. Old phones just receive a number of individual sms's, and new phones construct a long sms from the standard sms chain.

On your Touch phones, can you see all 700 characters on one screen, or do you need to tap the sms to see it all? I ask because it seemed on my phone to cut at just the length it could display in the Touchflow smsdisplay, but no further signs appear when entering the conversation.

Thank you both for taking the time.

Apologies accepted.
Anyway, I understand your problem now. There is quite a lot of information about how SMS works on the net, on wikipedia, for example.

I just tested it here on a Kaiser, and my 2000 characters all came in (wonder what bill i get for that)

Maybe it's coincidence, but i will give it a try when i have an Topaz in the shop here.