Really Annoying Cell Phone Issue

[Marilyn Manson]

SWMBO works in a fairly rural area, right outside our metropolitan area. More farmland than buildings.

As a family, we share lots of texts and images. When she comes home from work we often talk about the pictures or videos that were shared and she often says "I didn't get any pictures/videos." She's not very tech savvy, so I'll ask her for her phone, open the text app and show her the images. She'll say "They weren't there before" and I'll just shake my head.

This happened the other night so I asked her for her phone, looked for the images and, sure enough, they were not there. WTF? About 2 hours later she says to me "The pictures just came in." Yep, there they are, right in the middle of the thread where they belong.

The best I can determine is that the reception where she works is borderline. She'll get all texts, she get some images, she can make phone calls, but some images and videos are delayed. I'm guessing that sometimes they arrive while she's driving home, which would explain why I find them when I look at her phone. However, she doesn't get a text notification, because the text has already been read.

It's very annoying. Of course, being the nice guy that I am I apologized for doubting her techiness every time I found the images after she told me that she didn't get them. I hate it when she's right. ;-)

[Dean Hoffman]

I'm a lifelong bachelor but I've heard rumors. A diamond is forever just like a woman's memory.

[Marilyn Manson]

I don't have to worry about "forever". When we got married we made a deal.

99 years. If we didn't still like each other after 99 years, either one was free to walk away, no questions asked.

We've got 62 years left to see if it's going to work out.

[trader_4]

What phone and what carrier? The phone may not be well suited to the carrier bands. Is she on wifi at work?

[Wade Garrett]

What model phone, which carrier, what phone plan?

[Marilyn Manson]

It's the same phone and carrier that other members of my family have, including me until just a few weeks ago. I've never experienced that issue and neither have family members that live in varying parts of the country's.

Ofttimes, she is outside of the main building and wifi is not available. In essence, she works in a county park, although she is not a park employee. I guess we could keep track of when this happens and take note of whether the images arrive when she is in the building vs. out in the field.

[trader_4]

And apparently a secret too.

including

[Marilyn Manson]

What frigging difference does it make what phone or carrier it is when I specifically said that the phone and carrier are identical to other combinations used across the country that don't exhibit the issue that I'm describing?

Here ya go: Pixel 2 on Verizon, unlimited data plan.

Millions of that combination are in use. The phone was bought from Verizon. I pretty sure Verizon doesn't sell phones that aren't well suited with their own bands. I could be wrong.

(Yes, you will find posts about images not being sent/received on Pixel 2 phones. All of the solutions I've seen are based on specific settings and impact *all* image sending/receiving, not intermittent, location based issues like I am describing.)

She just came home. No images are attached to the texts I sent her this morning. Just the text. I sent a text with images just now. They showed up immediately. I turned off wifi. I sent her another text with images. They showed up immediately. The images from this morning have still not arrived. Maybe they will later. Hard to say.

She's had the phone for 4 years. Her work location is the only place that this issue occurs.

[Ed Pawlowski]

What matters is proximity to cell towers. There is far from 100% coverage from any of the carriers. I've been in locations where Carrier A was good but Carrier B won't work but another place, just the opposite.

Only solution is another tower.

[Ralph Mowery]

Or you could get a phone that works on wifi. My phone will go to wifi if needed.

At one time I had a service that the primary service was wifi and if it could not find a wifi it would then look for a cell tower.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Assuming wifi is available.

[hubops]

Ah Ha ...

Perhaps her cell restricts < large > data attachments <?>

but when connected to a familar wifi - no problem .. .. it seeks & downloads .. Makes sense to me ... who still misses his flip phone .. John T.

[Marilyn Manson]

Nope. We can be standing next to each in just about every other location and we will both receive the texts and images at the same time. wifi is not the issue. We hike, we drive, we are very often out of range of any wifi. Texts and images still arrive.

The real test would be for me to go to her work location and see how my phone acts. Or she could ask her workmates.

[Marilyn Manson]

Just about all phones these days will either connect to saved wifi's (password already entered) or at a minimum ask if you want to join the network that the phone found.

You can even set up many (most? all?) phones to connect to open wifi's when found. Not recommended, but it can be done.

Most (all?) phones have a setting to allow that. It's basically standard operation.

[trader_4]

The better question is what's the big secret? If I make a post complaining about cell phone service and/or phone, I include the obvious info. Otherwise, what's the point? Just to hear yourself whine?

Yes, that phone is compatible and has almost all the Verizon bands. If it's Verizon prepaid instead of postpaid, then it may not have roaming in the problem location, which could be a factor.

It's still possible it's a problem with the phone. Try switching phones, swap the sim from her phone into yours and see if the problem is the same or if it's the phone.

[trader_4]

Like I suggested in the other post, swap phones, put her sim into your phone for a day and see what happens. Also you can load Cell Info Lite which shows which tower the phone is connected to, where it is, signal strength and also the next tower alternative in range.

[invalid unparseable]

My Tracfone flip phone was becoming antiquated by higher G so I went to a smart phone. Nicer to use but often a real PITA often beeping with inane shit like asking me to sign up for Tik Tok.

[trader_4]

A large part of that problem is that if you buy a phone from the carriers they load it with bloatware that you can't even delete. If you buy a phone directly from the manufacturer, you can generally avoid that. And then a couple Android companies, eg Google and Oneplus, stick very close to stock Android, so you don't have to deal with some of the things others put on there that they think make them better, but that many people don't like.

I'm trying to figure out what phone to get right now and it sure isn't trivial.

[Marilyn Manson]

If you buy a phone from the manufacturer, you get *their* bloatware plus their business partners' bloatware. I just bought a S21 5G directly from Samsung. Some stuff you can turn off, other stuff you can't. There's a Samsung folder with 7 apps. There's another folder for Microsoft (3 apps), Google (9). Many other stand-alone apps that apparently don't deserve their own folders. ("Crap" would be a good name for the folder.)

Biggest issue with S21: The Phone goes dark while making phone calls, even if you are not holding the phone to your ear. Supposedly to save battery. If goes dark so fast that you don't even have time to get through some "Press 1 for Sales, 2 for Customer Service" IVR systems. I had to download an app (KinScreen) to keep the phone on so I use it on speaker phone or headset during meetings and have access to the Mute button, etc.

They also made the notification bar so small that you need a magnifying glass to see what time it is. There's a bizzare workaround to enlarge it that requires enabling Developer Option mode (7 taps of the Build Number field in Settings) then setting the display cutout to Waterfall mode, rebooting and then going back in and setting the display back to Default. WTF? It works, but why should users have to do that?

[Dean Hoffman]

If it helps, Consumer Reports has the OnePlus 8 Pro rated as a Best Buy. $700. A OnePlus 8 is also a Best Buy. $450. There are higher rated phones but for a thousand dollars and/or iPhones.