Can't receive text messages from most sources, including T-Mobile verification

Hi there, I’m writing just to say my situation was very similar to “blaine_the_train”. I wrote about my experience here, but your recounting is more detailed. Some spots I missed in my recounting, but also happened during my process:

I asked why everyone keeps asking that and how a tower being updated/out of service has anything to do with a mobile phone line. He explained that depending on when the actual tower was taken offline and the status of what my phone was connected to, the networking components can get stuck thinking it only wants to connect to that particular tower. Resetting the location on the network *should* clear it out which he did.

So this was also my experience. An engineer told me the tower closest to my home was under repair of some kind. In the course of my interaction with T-Mobile, my physical SIM was swapped at least twice for a new one, and we also tried activating an eSIM. During the first two swaps, it was at a location away from my home and when more than a couple network resets had been performed.

When I spoke to an engineer some time later—and he was also very nice—I asked specifically if it was possible in a VPN sort of way that my phone may still be connecting to the single tower that had broken down, even when I was traveling around the city or outside of it. In that moment, I had offered to walk somewhere else than my home location to see if my phone would connect to another tower, and if texting would be restored. He said no, it probably wouldn’t make a difference and that I had essentially tried that already by texting elsewhere in the city.

To try to fix, we finally traded in the iPhone for a new one - but even without restoring from back-up the same problem continued. We had stumped both the troubleshooting team members. We then tried switching our plan to Magenta to basically reset the entire phone number - no luck.

I basically declined steps like this because they seemed fraudulent, scammy, and a waste of time. I convinced myself that switching to Magenta was T Mobile’s way of trying to get me off their “One” plan, which was more unlimited in its contract language than Magenta. I declined all attempts to replace my phone or factory wipe it because nothing happened to its software at any point leading up to the malfunction that would have led to a user-side glitch. Once we put a new SIM into a different device and had the same issues with texting, it seemed abundantly clear this was not a problem with my phone.

I’ll add at this point that since writing this, I’ve already jumped to Verizon. And the texting issue immediately resolved. No software changes or factory resets were made to my phone. My phone is an S22 Ultra.

Overall, while being a frustrating situation - this particular employee (and the store staff) were superb customer service and made a frustrating situation more tolerable and I was satisfied the issue was fixed and how to make noise in the future if it happened again. 

I did not wait for my issue to “magically fix itself.” I also thought the engineers—I spoke to two, and the second one was especially nice—went out of their way for a good customer service experience, and didn’t speak to me basically in a dumbed-down sort of way. However, I did not have “superb customer service” from anyone, including the nice engineers. Because kindness is basically all they offered. Several times my calls routed to India. No one had any solutions that worked. The first engineer resolved the ticket even though he acknowledged the problem was ongoing when he hung up. The second engineer just apologized a clean dozen times and did everything possible. And I’m grateful for that, but honestly, how defunct is a service where you basically wipe out everything from the phone number, do all the network resets, put the SIM in a new device, and there is STILL a problem, and the engineer’s reaction is, “I just don’t know what’s happening”?

Not to belabor this, but I actually asked for free months of service if they insisted I switch to Magenta. He said no but that they really wanted to give such things to longtime customers like me. (I was with T-Mobile 8 years.) He said those meetings are on the table but have yet to be implemented. I told him good luck with that. And honestly, this would have changed a lot for me. I’ve never experienced nearly an issue as I did this past week with T Mobile. But in years past, I feel like customer service had a lot more leeway to offer comps or help make right the situation in another way.

Additionally, I don’t think they have enough qualified experts to manage this issue, which is why this complaint zipped to so many lower-level agents who had little ability to address it. So while I’m happy the engineers at least brought more expert eyes to the situation, it sure seems like they should have been on it before 5+ days transpired.

If this is the problem, then why is it that most people posting here (including me) have the problem “solved” (temporarily, of course) simply by rebooting the phone?

you can try these alternates and fixes till issue gets fixed from T-Mobile side.

are there any other peeps around you that also have TMO? if they have no issues but you do then its either account issues or phone issues..if theyre seeing the same thing then its pointing right at a network issue.

I can't receive any text messages.  This is wield. It's actually bad.