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Wednesday November 11, 2009 3:41 pm

How to fix the Motorola DROID MMS bug

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Posted by Dan Hughes Categories: Cell Phones, Google, Handhelds

Motorola DroidWe recently reported an issue regarding the Motorola DROID and it’s MMS problem, and it looks like we’ve tracked down the issue.

After some hefty research (read: lots of Googling and failed MMS messages,) we finally stumbled upon a post over on Howard Forums from a user who seemed to identify this issue.  We have tested it successfully, both purposefully breaking and then fixing our ability to send MMS.

The culprit: parentheses around your contact’s area code.  If your contacts have parentheses around them when they are synced to the phone, the Droid faithfully preserves that.  However, when the address is used for an MMS transmission (and ONLY MMS, for some reason), it glitches out and fails. [Ed. note: What an absolutely ridiculous bug!]

Here’s how to fix the DROID MMS issue, if you are experiencing it:

  1. Delete any open threads containing the user you want to MMS, including any text message threads.  Otherwise, it will pull the address form the thread instead of using the new one.
  2. Edit the contact, removing the phone number and retyping it in.  Notice the Droid will type the hyphens in itself, but will not place parentheses.  Make sure to do this on EACH form of data this may synchronize from (e.g. Corporate AND Google contacts, if this person is in both.  Haven’t figured out if parentheses coming from Facebook can cause a problem.)
  3. Soft reset the phone.
  4. Attempt the MMS.

This worked for us.  Drop us a comment and let us know if it worked for you.  There have been some reports of the problems reoccurring, and so we’d like to know your circumstances.

Personal note: Make sure you edit the information that syncs to your phone so it has no parentheses.  I know I exported my contacts from Outlook, and imported them into Google, and Outlook puts parentheses by default, so that is why none of my contacts worked in the first place, but we COULD send to the guy at Verizon Wireless (because we typed in his number directly.)  I’m wondering if somehow the parentheses data is somehow being synced back to the phone.

We’ve reported the situation to Verizon’s Wireless Data Technical Support team, who thanked us for the information. (Direct quote: “Awesome.”)



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Comments:

I tried to follow this advice- but the contact already had NO parenthesis so that wasn’t the problem :( At the verizon store, the sales guy was able to send a pic from my droid to his storm, but a pic will not send to env2 or env3.. I’m wondering if it can’t send to phones other than smartphones till this bug is fixed?? Hope to find an answer soon !

Interesting: Your Droid, is it specifically getting the “You have entered an invalid address” error message, even without parentheses?

Fred von Graf Fred von Graf 11/11/09 9:52 pm

Yeah my wife and I have had a ticket open with VZW and ran across the fix as well.  Now the odd thing was that we were able to MMS to anyone except each other.  Worst thing was that my wifes MMS messages to me were being sent to someone else with the same area code as her droid but with my number.

You can read up more here: http://blog.vongraf.com/2009/11/10/is-this-the-droid-youre-looking-for/

I managed to figure out this solution on my own the other day, but I have another little hint…
Another problem I had was even after I removed the parentheses, I still had the (1) in front of my numbers: 1-xxx-xxx-xxxx. That seemed to still cause the Droid to not know what to do. Once I removed the 1- from in front of the area code, it has been working on contacts I wasn’t able to send to previously.

You can test this also to see if it is a true issue, but it worked for me. smile

I did this and it worked for a day before giving me the invalid address error again. However, everytime I delete a message thread and reboot, it works again for a little while but eventually errors out. I can get by until a fix comes next month by just emailing pics to MMS systems (ex. Number@vzwpix.com) but it’s really annoying. This is where I miss hotfixes on HTC phones….you don’t have to wait for a new software update to correct problems like this.

I have no 1-  or parentheses   and always get the invalid address nessage,,,,,,

Verizon has identified the issue, pointing at the parentheses, and apparently have a patch in the works to correct it.  We hear you saying that this is not always the case, and that the invalid message is coming up even without the parentheses.  My sincerest hope that this patch, when it fixes the one problem, will knock out whatever is causing the glitch regardless of the contact.  Rumored release is December 11th, will probably post about it later.

Michael Saladino Michael Saladino 11/17/09 2:51 pm

Just want to let you guys know that with the () in i am still able to send MMS with no issues. I did read about a bunch of issues that are happening with the phone though. The camera and its auto-focus… this is being fix with a silent push of software to your phone which means you wont even know its happeneing. Also the next one is the speaker phone. sometime when you get a call or you make the call you can hear the person talking to you but they cant hear a word you say. i think they are going to release an offical update for this to fix the firm ware. if you guys find anything let me know….

MarksIncredible MarksIncredible 11/18/09 7:45 pm

No parentheses, no 1 in front of area code, and no error message! Just won’t send, there’s a symbol beside the message of an envelope and a little red clock

PROBLEM SOLVED!
I spent a few days working with a tech from Verizon, and he fixed the mms problem! Though I had made sure there were no parentheses or a 1 before the area code, my phone still would not send pictures to one contact in particular~ all other contacts were having no problems.. 
What he advised me to do ~ Erase the contacts phone #, re enter it with just the 10 digit number.. (dashes will be automatically entered by the phone).. erase all message threads . restart phone..  we actually had to do this a few times ..
what was happening was a little over my head, but he said that my phone was sending text to this number as 123.456.7890 instead of 123-456-7890 and this contacts phone number was in his words “being stubborn” in the way it was being sent..

Followed Gina’s post and my picture messages are working great.  Make sure when you delete your contact, add the phone number as “cell” or your contact will not show up when trying to send a MMS or SMS message.

I had similar problem with error message hen i was trying to send text, but then realized i had to change # from home (default) to mobile. After reading these articles i realized i was the only one creating this problem for myself. Anyhow, i do have a couple of questions, the first one is in my contacts list with no pic caller i.d. how come the little droid icon is sometimes left sometimes right and sometimes upside down? Does this mean anything, does anyone know? My second question is how do i send a video? Any help would be appreciated thanks.

I went through all of my contacts (all 350+ of them) and replaced all of the phone numbers in gmail so the sync would be fixed too and i still get the error message but only with Verizon customers.  I can send to any other carriers except other Verizon.  Any other ideas?

I was having trouble sending MMS, but could receive them fine.  I was not getting teh “invalid address” message, just a message that the message failed.  My problem with either the VNC app, or the “my location” app.  uninstalled both and everything works fine.  Just an fyi.

Jesse James Jesse James 12/12/09 12:55 am

Thanks for discovering and solving this problem.

Hopefully more and more of these defects get worked out by Motorola quickly.

I Have a question i dont know if its just me or the phone doesnt send music messages unless u record while your going to send the message

I had a problem where I couldn’t save pictures sent by text message. I downloaded an application called Save MMS by Andrew Schwinner and all is well. You will need an SD card but the app is free.

Miss Motiv8 Miss Motiv8 2/6/10 12:21 am

YES!!! it works, thanks guys - saved me a trip to the store


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