Can't get sms to work

[Osem]

Hi guys. Well, being impatient as she is, the wife decided to just remove the TMobile PAYG sim from her new and unlocked LG Optimus phone (see our other thread here) and replace it with her VM sim. Everything seemed OK except that the phone will receive but won't send text messages. Presumably something needs to be set/unset to get it to work.... We checked the phone's message settings and found the message centre number was blank/undefined so we put in the VM centre number from my VM mobile (presumably it's a standard number for all VM mobiles?) but the messages still won't send. We don't know much about these things but could it be that the phone is still linked to TMobile in some way? Anyone got any ideas and that's what's causing the problem?

Cheers as always

[Osem]

Just another thought on this. Could the fact that the wife's VM sim is quite old be part of the problem here? I'm only guessing, but could an old SIM in a new 3G smartphone cause such issues? I don't know if the old SIM is compatible with 3G but the phone seems to be working apart from this issue and she's been able to connect to the web without any problems although I don't know enough about these things to tell if the connection has been via the 3G service or not.

Any ideas anyone?

Cheers as always.

possibly contact vm to get them to text message settings. If the sim is not 3g it may be that but if it can recieve you would have thought it could send

[Osem]

Tks for the feedback Zing. We have just been to the shop and they had the same problem with this card on our phone and another of the same type straight out of the box. They then tried an 02 SIM which they had behind the counter and the relevant message centre no. appeared in the phone automatically. This seems to be the root of the problem - for some reason it seems the phone isn't reading the SMS MC number from our SIM and won't let us enter it manually. Does that make sense?? We've just tried calling VM customer services but, having explained it all to her in some detail, all the operator could do was recite the same CN that we've been trying to use. Anyway, she's kindly arranged for the technical team to call us to try to sort it out so we'll see what happens in due course.

While we wait up to 72 hours (hope that's not WORKING hours!!!) for the call, any more advice or suggestions on this would be very welcome.

does it come with software? any firmware update for the phone?

[oliver1948uk]

Try downloading settings from Virgin Mobile HERE

[Kymmy]

The VM SMS service number is +447958879890 you'll need to find out where the setting for that is on your phone

---------- Post added at 08:47 ---------- Previous post was at 08:42 ----------

I think this is for your phone, the above number needs to be set here

To change the message centre number,

1.Tap the Messaging icon
2.Tap the extra menu key (above the call button)
3.Tap Settings
4.Tap Text message centre
5.Enter +447958879890
6.Tap OK.


If that doesn;t work then it's gonna be a case of ringing up VM and they should be able to send you a config update

[Osem]

Thanks for the replies guys. Yes Kymmy that's the process and the correct MC number. We enter the number via message settings and it appears in the little box but as soon as we navigate away from the settings section the number disappears. When we go back into settings the MC number shows as "must be defined" again.

The VM technical people are due to call us sometime soon hopefully so being thick and not understanding too much about firmware updates etc. it'd probably be best to wait and see what they have to say.

[Kymmy]

They should be able to "service update" the SIM which means that they'll send out an update (might come as a text) you just read it, delete it then power off then on the phone and all the settings should be there

[Osem]

Originally Posted by oliver1948uk

Try downloading settings from Virgin Mobile HERE

Thanks Oliver - we'd already found this page but not gone any further as it doesn't mention sms settings (just e.mail, internet and picture messaging) and our phone isn't listed.

[Osem]

Just an update guys. The VM tecchie people called yesterday and went through everything we'd already done with exactly the same result. They finally directed us to the LG website to check/update the firmware version we had (if required) and told us to get back to them if that didn't work. Not wanting to risk that just yet, we later went to another Carphone Warehouse outlet and the guy there was able to put one of their VM SIMs into our phone and the MC number appeared in the phone automatically - which didn't happen with our SIM. Problem solved hopefully! He suggested we get VM to send us a new SIM with the same number and we've requested that today via our nearest VM store as they couldn't do it in-store. It'll take 3-4 days but we'll report back when we get it.

Thanks for the assistance everyone.

---------- Post added at 13:47 ---------- Previous post was at 13:44 ----------

Originally Posted by Kymmy

They should be able to "service update" the SIM which means that they'll send out an update (might come as a text) you just read it, delete it then power off then on the phone and all the settings should be there

Hmmm.... Interesting..... No mention of that either by VM customer services, the tech guy or the staff in the VM shop we went to this morning to see if we could get a new SIM from them.

[Osem]

Well we're still waiting for our new SIM which was ordered on the 18th! Rang VM this afternoon (having waitied for the post to come first) to report no SIM. All they could suggest was sending out another which means another week's wait...

[Osem]

Well blow me down - the second SIM we ordered actually arrived today and the phone's working fine now. She's really happy with it and has been playing away like a child with a new toy bless her...

Anyway, I expect I'll be back with more questions as she explores the phone's capabilities but thanks for all the help for now everyone!