In January I purchased a Galaxy A15 phone and I am really happy with it except for one thing. Starting from the first week I had it, it will randomly stop receiving SMS text messages. When I notice the problem is happening I can usually resolve it by restarting the phone, but it's very frustrating as sometimes I miss important messages if I don't catch the problem right away. I have gotten into the habit of checking an online account several times a day just to check if I received the security text message.
I have spent several hours trying to troubleshoot this both with my carrier and Samsung, and have followed the steps from Samsung chat support which included:
-turned off RCS chats
-reset network settings
-factory reset of phone
-cleared cache/updated messages app (many many times)
-unistall and reinstall messages app
-tried Samsung messages app instead of Google messages (no difference)
-purchased new SIM card from my carrier, made sure carrier has correct IMEI for this phone
-Turned off mobile data
-Leave mobile data on
-Probably a bunch of other things I can't remember right now - have tried almost everything I could find online before ever asking for help.
Nothing is working. I also visited the Samsung authorized repair person in my area. They did a scan and said the phone is losing connection sometimes, but there didn't appear to be a hardware problem. This person suggested I should try using a SIM card from a different mobile carrier. That's not really practical for me, both because I don't have a second account with a different cell provider, and there are often 3-4 days of things working fine in between this problem happening so I can't really borrow someone else's number for this amount of time as the repair place suggested I should do.
When I got the phone I had a prepaid plan that just had talk and text, no data, and it operates on the Bell network. I have had this service for about 10 years and it has worked perfectly on all other phones over that time, both different Android phones and Iphones. The service person at the repair place stated that I should change to a different provider and that will fix the problem but I am skeptical, both because the problem never occurred for me until I got this phone, and also 4 other people in my household are with the same provider and have never had this problem either, (some have Iphone and some different Android phones- none Samsung though).
I have added some data to my plan just to see if this helps, although I really didn't want it. Am trying leaving the data on all the time to see if this somehow helps.
I don't want to switch providers and then still have the same problem. Does anyone have any other suggestions for me?
I really love the phone other than this, but I don't know if I can continue without that basic SMS function. I have spoken to a few friends who say this is just a Samsung ongoing problem. I really hope not! Thanks for reading and somehow it's helpful just putting it out there as it has been very frustrating and time consuming! I feel like there is just one little setting that is not right that's causing this but I can't figure out what.
UPDATE June 24
After 6 months of this happening every 3-4 days I am cautiously optimistic that I have figured out the problem, so posting in case it's ever helpful to someone else.
Things actually got worse after I added the mobile data, but that gave me a hint that it might be related to a 3rd party anti virus app I had on the phone, as the app was connecting to a VPN all the time. This didn't cause problems on my old LG phone but I think it might have been the culprit here (& probably not needed as Samsung has built in security). I deleted the anti-virus and it hasn't happened since.
The same day I did that I also was able to get the Android 15 update as well so it's possible that the update fixed whatever was going wrong.
Either way, I have had a full week with no problem which is the longest I've gone since I got the phone.
Hope it's helpful to someone else in the same boat.
Thank you for taking the time to provide such a detailed and thoughtful post, we know how frustrating this kind of issue can be, especially when you've done so much troubleshooting on your own already.
Since it started with the Galaxy A15 and not previous phones, it may be a compatibility issue between the device and Bell’s SMS handling on prepaid plans. Trying a different SIM (even short-term) is a good way to confirm if the issue is network-related. Also, ensure Bell has the correct SMSC settings for your device.
We really appreciate you sharing your experience and we'll definitely forward this internally.
