can't text on cell phone: ideas?

[teachinator]

Hi,

Every new text message I try to send on my China Mobile cell phone fails with "Message is unable to send" I seem to be able to reply to text messages but not send new ones. Any ideas? I still have money in my phone.

[imron]

Check out this thread. In particular, the part about message centres, and message centre numbers.

[teachinator]

In a fit of neatness, I deleted several number I didn't recognize from my phone book. Undoubtedly I deleted the message center number somehow.

Could someone post the Chinese mobile message center number for Beijing, and the menu steps to enter it? Unfortunately, the steps given in the other thread don't work for me as I don't have a "Messages Setting" item under my Messages menu. I haven't found anything obvious to try under Settings or Messages and am a little afraid to go back to the China Mobile store for fear of ending up with a menu set back to Chinese, or worse, losing all my phone book numbers. I have a 136 number, if that matters.

Thanks again.

[roddy]

You actual make and model might be helpful. On my SE800 you have to go to text messages, settings, text messages and then enter the service center number - I'm also a 136 number, and mine is +8613800100500

[teachinator]

I don't see a settings option under Text Messages either, so if anyone knows the menu pattern for Motorola C118, please post ... well, if I end up having to go to the China Mobile store I'll write down the phone book numbers first and hope for the best

BTW, even though I can't create a text message, I can reply to a text message with another text message. Perhaps the same message center as the orginal sender's is automatically used in that case.

[roddy]

Try adding +86 to the start of the phone number - I seem to remember having to do that on a Motorola previously (before I swore a solemn oath to never use another Motorola phone . . .)

[imron]

There is a setting under some phones to "use the same message centre as sender", which might explain why that works.

[teachinator]

Try adding +86 to the start of the phone number - I seem to remember having to do that on a Motorola previously (before I swore a solemn oath to never use another Motorola phone . . .)

Ha ha ... but I'm pretty sure that isn't the problem, because I was able to send text messages last week, before I went and deleted a few phone numbers, and also, as it happens, before I added another money card to the phone (but I can't imagine how that would have an effect). Lucky I can still reply to text messages, which is probably as imron says, because it piggybacks on the previous message's center. Oh well, I expect it's off to the China Mobile store for me. Thanks for all the replies.

[mr.stinky]

i gots a motorola and am able to reply to messages. if i use the feature to save the

number to my phone memory or sim, i get the same message. you have to delete

the leading 086 or 087 or whatever from mobile numbers. so when you send a text,

the number you send to should be 13888........

[teachinator]

before I posted my original number, but I just tried texting to one number without the prefix, using just the 11 digits of the phone number, and it worked. Then I tried the number as stored in the phone book, and it failed. As I said, I would have sworn that I tried that last night before I posted my question in the first place.

All the numbers in my phone book now have 12593 in front of them because when I bought the phone the salesman told me that calls would cost 2.5 fen/minute instead of 4.3 fen if I always used that prefix. Last week only SOME of the phone number in the book had the prefix (when I bought the new card I "tidied up" my phone book by deleting numbers and adding prefixes to those without them).

Wow, this is getting complicated -- must use the prefix to call, must not use it to text. Store every number twice? Hmmph.

[adrianlondon]

Never store prefixes as part of the phone number.

Sending sms's? They'll fail.

Change SIM? They'll probably fail.

Routing company goes bust? They'll fail.

Go abroad? They'll fail.

Just store the numbers as normal and add the 12-thingy in your phone as a "prefix" or "calling card number". Most phones have this functionality.