topic Re: TCL Flip 3 does not receive SMS & microSD cards not recognised in Other phones & Devices

TCL Flip 3 does not receive SMS & microSD cards not recognised

John5710 — Sun, 23 Feb 2025 21:18:20 GMT

I bought the TCL Flip 3 from https://ee.co.uk/products/tcl-flip-3-sim-free a couple weeks ago - it arrived on Feb 11th and I've been using it since. It did a quick software update as soon as I turned it on and has the features I want out of a phone and more (like Internet radio). The phone works generally okay except:

1. It does not receive SMS messages. I called 150 and was given the SMS sending centre as +447958879879 but I can't find anywhere to set this configuration on the phone. Neither could the gentleman on the phone. I can send SMS just fine - they get received instantly by my friends and family. But I do not receive any responses (which I know have been sent by friends and family). I sent a text with just the word NUMBER in it to 150. Did not receive a response.

2. The microSD card port appears to be dead - the manual says it supports microSD cards of up to 512GB - I've tried with three different cards of capacities up to 64GB and none are recognised by the phone.

I don't mind the microSD fault so much as I don't plan on exhausting the 1GB built-in storage, but inability to receive SMS is a dealbreaker due to MFA requirements - including on EE's website!

Does anyone know how to resolve this issue? This is a brand new phone sold by EE so surely there is a solution.

Thanks!

Alex

Re: TCL Flip 3 does not receive SMS & microSD cards not recognised

Chris_B — Sun, 23 Feb 2025 21:22:25 GMT

@John5710 click HERE to see the user manual

Re: TCL Flip 3 does not receive SMS & microSD cards not recognised

John5710 — Sun, 23 Feb 2025 21:40:08 GMT

Thank you. I have already checked out the manual and can't see anything that addresses my issues.

Re: TCL Flip 3 does not receive SMS & microSD cards not recognised

Chris_B — Sun, 23 Feb 2025 21:52:03 GMT

@John5710 You might find this useful

Re: TCL Flip 3 does not receive SMS & microSD cards not recognised

John5710 — Sun, 23 Feb 2025 22:06:03 GMT

Thank you, but I can't find the SMSC field anywhere. As per p.43 of the manual, the closest configuration menu I can find is Settings -> Device -> Device Information but there is no SMSC or similar field there, or in either of the submenus ("More Information" and "Legal Information").

Re: TCL Flip 3 does not receive SMS & microSD cards not recognised

Rach_H — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 08:13:25 GMT

Hi @John5710

Welcome to the Community!

Are you able to take your phone into your local EE store, so the team can take a look into this, and see what they can do to get your texts working?

Rach

Re: TCL Flip 3 does not receive SMS & microSD cards not recognised

bristolian — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 08:44:21 GMT

If you can send SMS, then your message settings are self-evidently correct - it's only sending where these matter.

Receiving SMS is a push-service from network-side, rather than pushing from device-end. A good test would be to send an SMS to yourself, the hindrance on sending is the SMSC, while the network pushes the "receipt" to your phone. If you're able to try your SIM in a known working phone, repeat the test - to eliminate the phone. An EE store should be able to assist with this, if necessary.

The SD card issue sounds like a faulty reader, but just try those same cards in another known working device to prove it.

Re: TCL Flip 3 does not receive SMS & microSD cards not recognised

John5710 — Sat, 01 Mar 2025 17:03:17 GMT

Hello! I took the phone to my local EE store on Monday. The lady there had no idea what to do about the SMS delivery issue as "this is not a smartphone". Similarly unable to help with the MicroSD issue, although in the process of powering the phone off and on again to swap MicroSD cards, the phone suddenly received all ~20 SMS messages I had not been receiving. So it appears they had been queued somewhere, patiently awaiting delivery. The lady at the shop recommended I go to a "we fix any phone/tablet/laptop" corner shop for someone to look at the phone as "they are more technical". Hummm, okay. Not the level of assistance I expected at the EE store.

I was content with the situation because since Monday I have been receiving text messages (so, main problem solved, yay), but then again today I was expecting text messages from a few folks that never arrived, so I restarted the phone again and lo! A minute later, 5 messages arrived all at once.

So there is definitely some issue that is preventing delivery of SMS messages to my phone, which is not happening all the time. @Rach_H - does this give you a hint regarding what could possibly be going on here?

Re: TCL Flip 3 does not receive SMS & microSD cards not recognised

John5710 — Sat, 01 Mar 2025 17:06:01 GMT

Hi, and thanks for the troubleshooting ideas. The same SIM card works flawlessly in an iPhone - SMS delivery works right every time. Therefore, this is either an issue on the phone itself or with the way the phone talks to the GSM network or something like that.

I agree on the MicroSD card issue - as I've tried the same cards (using a MicroSD to SD card adaptor) on my computer and they're recognised as expected.

Re: TCL Flip 3 does not receive SMS & microSD cards not recognised

Leanne_T — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 08:19:55 GMT

Hi there @John5710

Thanks for coming back to us and for the extra details.

If the SIM card is receiving texts in another device, the SIM is working as it should.

I would advise getting back in touch with our technical support guides on 150, they will run some further troubleshooting to see if they can suggest anything else for you to try or any updates that are needed at our end.

Let us know how you get on.

Leanne.

Re: TCL Flip 3 does not receive SMS & microSD cards not recognised

bristolian — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 09:30:46 GMT

@John5710 wrote:

Therefore, this is either an issue on the phone itself or with the way the phone talks to the GSM network or something like that.

Does the phone have any menu options enabling selection of 2G, 3G, 4G or automatic?

EE's 3G network has been switched off, but testing between 2G & 4G may give further clues. Can you receive calls when SMS are not arriving? Anything network-side is likely to affect both.

Re: TCL Flip 3 does not receive SMS & microSD cards not recognised

John5710 — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 09:47:45 GMT

Yes, I can receive calls when SMS are not arriving. I can't easily check for the 2G/3G/4G settings now as I have the phone now wiped and packaged for return. I do remember that operator selection was automatic, and that 4G was definitely enabled - as it was displayed on the home screen.

My sin was that I purchased a SIM-free phone, and put my business account SIM in it, which seems to be a use case EE is struggling to deal with, as:
1. The business account people will not talk to me about a SIM-free phone I purchased as an individual - not their problem

2. The "other" helpdesk can't look me up as my (business) phone number does not appear on their systems, therefore repeatedly proclaiming "oh, you're not an EE subscriber".
3. There seems to be no department that deals with device issues for the SIM-free devices sold via ee.co.uk
4. When I follow the order link included in the order confirmation email, the link doesn't work:

After 35 minutes on the phone with 150 and three transfers, someone figured out how to initiate a return. So I'm hoping for a return and refund at some point in the near future.

Re: TCL Flip 3 does not receive SMS & microSD cards not recognised

John5710 — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 09:50:29 GMT

Hi Leanne,

Thanks for the advice. Indeed there is nothing wrong with the SIM, which I've been using for many years and at least two other devices with no issues.

150 was unable to help as I bought a SIM-free phone and put my business account SIM in it - which means the folks at 150 can't look up my account therefore can't really do anything. A kind soul helped initiate a return, and I'm hoping that the next phone is less buggy.

Kind regards.

Re: TCL Flip 3 does not receive SMS & microSD cards not recognised

Peter_W — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 12:42:16 GMT

Thanks for the update here @John5710.

Just as one last thing to try before sending the phone back, I can see you mentioned using an iPhone previously.

Have you had the chance to de-register from iMessage?

Often if you switch from an iPhone to a different handset, you'll fail to receive regular texts as people will still be associating your number with iMessage.

Peter

Re: TCL Flip 3 does not receive SMS & microSD cards not recognised

bristolian — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 13:32:53 GMT

The whole basis of a SIM-only plan/SIM-free phone setup is that EE are providing the network coverage & account support. But device choice & support must come from the retailer &/or manufacturer.

This will be the same regardless of who your network operator is.

Re: TCL Flip 3 does not receive SMS & microSD cards not recognised

John5710 — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 14:35:43 GMT

Yes sir. The issue is not that people have been inadvertently sending me iMessages instead of SMS - it's that SMS-only services (e.g. receiving the MFA code over SMS required to log into this very EE community portal) and people who send me SMS send messages that are queued and only received when I reboot the phone, once it's gone into its "I won't have more SMS" state (the trigger for which is unclear to me). As soon as I stick the SIM back into the iPhone, or restart the TCL handset, a batch of SMS messages arrive, from my bank to tell me something happened to my account, to friends replying to my SMS messages. Sadly, this is not an iMessage issue. I don't know if KaiOS (the OS of this TCL model) has a known issue with SMS handling, some buffer gets full or whathaveyou, but I can't have a phone that can't reliably receive SMS, so I'll be returning this. Which is a shame as this TCL handset gave me a very good balance between a dumb phone that can't do basic things (e.g. Bluetooth calls in the car) and the iPhone that has me glued to its screen for 8h/day.

Re: TCL Flip 3 does not receive SMS & microSD cards not recognised

John5710 — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 14:40:15 GMT

Hi - I'm not exactly sure what your point is, but in case you're implying my request to EE is unreasonable: the very first sentence of this thread explains I bought this handset from https://ee.co.uk/products/tcl-flip-3-sim-free ; therefore: EE is the retailer. So I think it's fair to be requesting a return and refund from EE. If I missed your point I apologise, and please do clarify.