Compatibility with Canadian Carriers? Can't text photos or group chat

Hi there!

I bought a Fair Phone 3+ loaded up with /e/ OS a couple of years ago. Everything was working well, but earlier this past year my carrier (Koodo / Telus) changed some of their protocols and I haven’t been able to send or receive group texts or photos over SMS ever since.

I did receive an email saying I needed to update my APN settings, which I did, but this did not resolve my issues. I have also updated to the latest version of /e/, but that hasn’t helped either.

I am debating weather to move over to Android, but I really don’t want to. I have thought about importing a newer Fair Phone, but I don’t want to go through the trouble if I am going to have the same issues. Would changing carriers help, or is there some other fix I have overlooked?

Thanks =)

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I wonder, did this improve the behaviour at all, perhaps for a time ?

Maybe you know already that this service is called Multimedia Message Service (MMS) and works differently from SMS, both for the carrier and on the device.

Looking at carrier issue only it seems often reported for fp3 that apn get reset at update / upgrade, so is it possible that the changes you made got overwritten at an update ?

I include below the APN settings that come with /e/OS-t, does your plan have an exact match with any one line ?

apns-conf.xml Koodo + Telus

  <apn carrier="TELUS SP" mcc="302" mnc="220" apn="sp.telus.com" type="default,mms,supl,hipri,ia" mmsc="http://aliasredirect.net/proxy/mmsc" mmsproxy="mmscproxy.mobility.ca" mmsport="8799" protocol="IP" roaming_protocol="IP" mvno_match_data="5455" mvno_type="gid" />
  <apn carrier="TELUS ISP" mcc="302" mnc="220" apn="isp.telus.com" server="*" type="dun" protocol="IP" mvno_match_data="5455" mvno_type="gid" />
  <apn carrier="TELUS IMS" mcc="302" mnc="220" apn="ims" type="ims" protocol="IP" mvno_match_data="5455" mvno_type="gid" user_visible="false" />
  <apn carrier="Koodo SP" mcc="302" mnc="220" apn="sp.koodo.com" type="*" mmsc="http://aliasredirect.net/proxy/koodo/mmsc" mmsproxy="mmscproxy.mobility.ca" mmsport="8799" protocol="IP" roaming_protocol="IP" mvno_match_data="4B4F" mvno_type="gid" />
  <apn carrier="Koodo IMS" mcc="302" mnc="220" apn="ims" type="ims" protocol="IPV6" mvno_match_data="4B4F" mvno_type="gid" />

  <apn carrier="TELUS SP" mcc="302" mnc="221" apn="sp.telus.com" type="default,mms,supl,hipri,ia" mmsc="http://aliasredirect.net/proxy/mmsc" mmsproxy="mmscproxy.mobility.ca" mmsport="8799" protocol="IP" roaming_protocol="IP" mvno_match_data="5455" mvno_type="gid" />
  <apn carrier="TELUS ISP" mcc="302" mnc="221" apn="isp.telus.com" server="*" type="dun" protocol="IP" mvno_match_data="5455" mvno_type="gid" />
  <apn carrier="TELUS IMS" mcc="302" mnc="221" apn="ims" type="ims" protocol="IP" mvno_match_data="5455" mvno_type="gid" user_visible="false" />
  <apn carrier="Koodo SP" mcc="302" mnc="221" apn="sp.koodo.com" type="*" mmsc="http://aliasredirect.net/proxy/koodo/mmsc" mmsproxy="mmscproxy.mobility.ca" mmsport="8799" protocol="IP" roaming_protocol="IP" mvno_match_data="4B4F" mvno_type="gid" />
  <apn carrier="Koodo IMS" mcc="302" mnc="221" apn="ims" type="ims" protocol="IPV6" mvno_match_data="4B4F" mvno_type="gid" />

In the Moto phones and also Pixels and I am sure the Fairphone, go to messaging app and tough settings, look for switch that says: Send long messages as MMS and turn it on. See if it helps.

If you continue to have issues try in Signal Private Messenger see if it works there, it’s cross platform and was a solution for our family chat as most are on eye_phone (eye like looking at your business LOL).

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I tried switching to “send long messages as MMS”, but it didn’t help.

My APN setting have been preserved, even after updates, but I will try some of those suggested settings when I have the time.

Thanks for your help thus far.

I have a Teracube and had this problem too and though I lived without mms for a couple months I did eventually fix it. Problem is I can’t remember for sure how I did it but I’m fairly sure it was this: https://community.koodomobile.com/tips-tricks-troubleshooting-232914/mms-no-longer-working-how-i-fixed-it-on-my-phone-7823686
What I can remember was I made a new APN as instructed by Koodo and that didnt work, but after deleting the old duplicate one (APN), my mms started working again. So the main thing is to have no duplicates

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Those are not “suggested settings” for you to try. I provided the “source” so that you could check them and report if an error exists in the code. :slight_smile: Edit [1]

The significant thing is that your plan must find an exact match with one of those lines (each line represents a different plan).

I included the source in the case that

  1. manually entered settings were being overwritten by update / upgrade or
  2. that you do not have an exact match with carrier published APN, but you say this is not the case.

[1] [LIST] Carriers that work or do not work with /e/OS country-wise

from the sideline, because I looked at canadian carriers today: there was a wholesale update to them in A14 / U - https://review.lineageos.org/c/LineageOS/android_vendor_lineage/+/406819 - referencing Koodo/Telus with https://android-review.googlesource.com/c/device/sample/+/3191370

the existing mms type entry didn’t change much though (+dun +protocol entries), aosp cannot do rcs, sms certainly cannot send images - not sure if this helps you in your chat woes

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Hi,

CrypticMaple what version of eOS are you running on the Fairphone?

I am currently using the official 2.6.3 version.

and you did a fresh install, formatting the phone?