Help Old text messages reappearing???

[scudder]

Hello...

Asking a question for my father in law who is having problems with his EVO (I have an EVO but can't replicate this problem to help).

During the past week, the EVO with the problem was not downloading MMS messages onto the phone. The download process would start but would result in an error that said something like "generic network failure." We thought it was a temporary network connection issue. This started with the stock "Messaging" app installed on the EVO.

What then happened is VERY ODD. All of a sudden literally HUNDREDS of old previously deleted messages dating back to June of this year (yes, it is now NOVEMBER) were being downloaded and loaded into the messaging app. This happened not only with the thread that could not receive the recent MMS message but essentially ALL THREADS from whomever might have contacted my father in law since June! This happened once, we totally cleared out the messaging app threads and even deleted the cache information and data through the Manage Applications options on the phone and, once again, receipt of a few current messages would again trigger this FLOOD of text message data from MONTHS ago!!

Has anyone heard of this problem?? It seems to me to be related to the Sprint Network because there should be no remnants of any of the old text messages once deleted from the phone itself.

We went to a local Sprint store this morning and even did a hard reset BUT upon testing the text apps again, the problem recurred!!

This problem occurred first with the stock Messaging app and, thinking that the Messaging app was the problem, we installed ChompSMS with the hope of fixing the issue but the problem occurred with Chomp as well.

Again, I am posting this for my father in law's EVO...I have an EVO too, running ChompSMS with NO PROBLEMS...matter of fact I have NEVER heard of or seen this issue with many-month-old text REAPPEARING on the phone.

Any suggestions or thoughts??

THANKS!!

 

[Mr. Ed]

What did sprint say when the hard reset resulted in the same behavior? was it a repair center?

Someone at sprint needs to start a trouble ticket on this specific behavior of his phone. For whatever reason his phone is not deleting messages on the sprint server...thus a network issue of some kind whether it be the phone is not sending the proper information or the network isn't processing the info.

 

[scudder]

What did sprint say when the hard reset resulted in the same behavior? was it a repair center?

Someone at sprint needs to start a trouble ticket on this specific behavior of his phone. For whatever reason his phone is not deleting messages on the sprint server...thus a network issue of some kind whether it be the phone is not sending the proper information or the network isn't processing the info.

It was a Sprint repair center. What happened was this...my father in law went to the repair center. They "diagnosed" it as a problem with MyBackupPro...some corruption issue or something. They did a hard reset and sent him on his way. In the car he texts me and then has the SAME PROBLEMS with the backlog of month-plus-old text messages!! Turns around and goes BACK to the repair center. They "update" their diagnosis as a conflict with old MyBackupPro backup files. Old backups are deleted...send him on his way. Gets home and SAME PROBLEM with the old text messages!!

We have NOT contacted Sprint directly with this issue...as he hoped that the problem was fixed at the repair center...TWICE Upon hearing the issue he was having as he explained it to me last night before going to the repair center I told him I have a FEELING that this was a NETWORK issue...because where else would these old messages come from. Once downloaded to the phone, the messages are simply data and once deleted they are GONE (unless backed up to the SD card or otherwise, which they weren't) so the ONLY place these could have come from was the SPRINT NETWORK servers.

When he told me the SECOND time that the text came back and that the repair center said, "oh it was the extra backup copies from MyBackUp Pro that caused the problem" I became suspicious...

What we did before calling Sprint was to REFORMAT THE SD CARD (backed it up first) then RE-HARD RESET the phone one more time just in the oft-chance that there was some sort of corrupted app somewhere during the restore.

I'm with you...I DO think it is network related...we'll see...thanks!!

 

[Mr. Ed]

good luck! I actually have issues like that with my techs here sometimes...it's so hard to get people to refrain from the blame game and listen to the customer and actually fix the problem

 

[Frogbone]

I actually experienced this very behavior twice now, earlier this week was teh second time. I have no idea what caused this. The only thing I know was that Handcent updated itself. Next thing I know is that I get about 1800 old text messages, neatly coming in as they were received in chronological order (even across different threads).
Needless to say it took a few hours to get all messages and then to delete them again.
When this happened the first time I was already curious where these messages come from. Where are they stored ? Where are they deleted from ? Since it took forever to finish downloading the messages I am tempted to assume that they come from some server at Sprint and that these messages never really got DELETED !
Are carriers keeping our messages archived and could this redownload have been a mishap on their end ?

 

[scudder]

Since it took forever to finish downloading the messages I am tempted to assume that they come from some server at Sprint and that these messages never really got DELETED !
Are carriers keeping our messages archived and could this redownload have been a mishap on their end ?

I have that assumption too as I had heard in the past that although perhaps deleted on the phone, the texts associated with your phone ARE KEPT...SOMEWHERE. Don't know for how long. There has been discussion about this issue with regard to subpoenas trying to get copies of text that have "long since been deleted" From the PHONES at least but kept elsewhere...

By the way, the FIX (so far!!!) for my father in law was a hard reset and a WIPE of the SD card. The original suggestion by the Sprint retail store rep was that the "trigger" for the message dump/backlog was a corrupted app. The specific thought was the backup program files from MyBackup Pro, although, as we have discussed above, the actual text message COULD NOT be on the phone (MyBackUp pro NEVER backed up the SMS/MMS messages..only the apps) so the dump HAD TO occur through the Sprint servers themselves...so says me.

Anyway, the phone was hard reset TWICE at the store and the old backup files deleted. However, the messages came back TWICE. Once home, I suggested making a backup of the SD card and then WIPING the SD card. Long story short (or finally over) the phone has not had a problem SINCE THE SD WIPE.

Good luck!!

 

[sydkat]

I have had this happen on 3 different phones. In my case every time it was due to an app call Miq by best buy. It is a backup application. For some reason after a period of time it floods your phone with old texts. I contacted them and was told they are aware of the problem but don't know how to fix it. Once I removed the app my phones work fine.

 

[Frogbone]

MIQ from Best Buy it is !!

Here is the email response I got from miq :

This is occurring on some Android phones and we're not sure why.

We're aware of the issue and unfortunately don't have a fix for this at the
moment.

If you'd like to disable text syncing, go to Settings withing the mIQ
application on your phone. Then go to the Sync Items menu and uncheck Messages.

The reason you keep seeing more messages show up after deleting them online is
because we only display a small number of your backed up messages. Though ALL
messages are stored on our servers and can be loaded back onto your phone, only
the most recent 100 are visible at a time. Deleting those on the site will
cause older ones to appear to replace them. If you would like ALL messages
cleared at once, we can have our engineer do that from our end.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Sincerely,

mIQ Customer Care

 

[scudder]

MIQ from Best Buy it is !!

Here is the email response I got from miq :

This is occurring on some Android phones and we're not sure why.

We're aware of the issue and unfortunately don't have a fix for this at the
moment.

VERY interesting...thanks for sharing the Best Buy response!! As we were looking through my father-in-law's phone after the hard resets, we were doing some "spring cleaning" to start anew nice and fresh. We both got our EVOs at Best Buy and I recall being solicited with info to install MIQ but I passed. My father in law installed it but never used it. As I wrote above, we did NUMEROUS hard resets but with the last one we threw away a bunch of unused apps...INCLUDING MIQ!!! And guess what??....working GREAT since!!

Probably did NOT even need the hard reset(s) but good that, even without knowing, the "spring cleaning" cleared out some stuff as well as the likely culprit, MIQ