topic Re: Re: Ported number but SMS still shows original number in SIM cards & Porting

Re: Ported number but SMS still shows original number

Ant586 — Fri, 07 Oct 2022 10:43:49 GMT

I don't suppose you remember what settings you changed? I have the same problem. Or did they do it centrally?

Re: Re: Ported number but SMS still shows original number

Leanne_T — Fri, 07 Oct 2022 12:14:30 GMT

Hi @Ant586

Thanks for coming here.

Which device are you using?

Leanne.

Re: Re: Ported number but SMS still shows original number

Ant586 — Fri, 07 Oct 2022 12:26:56 GMT

It's a Pixel 6 🙂

Re: Re: Ported number but SMS still shows original number

Leanne_T — Fri, 07 Oct 2022 12:31:05 GMT

Thanks @Ant586

When did the number transfer?

Is this affecting your calls and texts?

Leanne.

Re: Re: Ported number but SMS still shows original number

Ant586 — Fri, 07 Oct 2022 14:21:52 GMT

The number ported at 10.26 this morning.

Calls are fine - I get incoming calls to my ported number, and when I call someone it shows as coming from the correct (ported) number.

If I text someone, they receive the text but it shows as coming from the original EE Sim number. If I send myself an SMS from my Skype account, to my ported number, it arrives. If someone texts me from a mobile phone, to my ported number, it doesn't arrive.

I've turned the phone on and off several times. I've put it in airplane mode several times. I've tried to connect to a different network and then back to EE a couple of times. I've checked all the obvious Android/Pixel settings (but I'm not an expert).

Under "About Phone", it shows the original EE Sim number as my phone number, not the ported number.

Baffling, or just a question of time and patience?

Re: Re: Ported number but SMS still shows original number

Leanne_T — Fri, 07 Oct 2022 14:24:07 GMT

Hi @Ant586

The port can take up till midnight to full complete.

If you can restart the phone tomorrow and if this is still the same, please give us a call on 150 and the team will get this looked into for you.

Leanne.

Re: Re: Ported number but SMS still shows original number

Ant586 — Fri, 07 Oct 2022 14:26:06 GMT

p.s. If I send NUMBER to 150, it comes back with the correct ported number

Re: Re: Ported number but SMS still shows original number

Leanne_T — Fri, 07 Oct 2022 14:37:54 GMT

Thanks @Ant586

Please see my advice above on next steps 🙂

Leanne.

Re: Re: Ported number but SMS still shows original number

Ant586 — Fri, 07 Oct 2022 14:42:52 GMT

Thanks Leanne. I will phone 150 if I'm still baffled tomorrow 🙂

Re: Re: Ported number but SMS still shows original number

Leanne_T — Fri, 07 Oct 2022 14:47:44 GMT

Let me know how you get on @Ant586

Leanne.

Re: Re: Ported number but SMS still shows original number

Ant586 — Fri, 07 Oct 2022 16:43:06 GMT

Are you able to advise on what happens to any texts sent to me during the time it takes for the porting to complete? Will they all arrive at once, or will they be lost forever? I'm very concerned that I may be missing valuable communications.

I'm still only able to receive SMS messages from Skype - both my own account and others. I have no idea who else may be trying to contact me using normal mobile phone service, or using business services like delivery notifications, NHS notifications, appointment reminders/cancellations etc, or even just special offers that usually arrive by text. I'm worried that senders won't know that I'm not receiving their texts.

Re: Re: Ported number but SMS still shows original number

Jon_K — Fri, 07 Oct 2022 17:09:25 GMT

Hi @Ant586.

Your texts and notifications should all come through when your number becomes active.

I'd recommend restarting your phone every so often until this completes.

Jon

Re: Re: Ported number but SMS still shows original number

Ant586 — Sat, 08 Oct 2022 07:35:01 GMT

It still wasn't working this morning despite rebooting the phone multiple times.

A friend suggested going to "Chat Features" in the Settings section of the Messages app to see what phone number was showing. It was showing as the original EE SIM number. I then disabled and enabled the "chat features" function. When you do that, it asks you to enter and verify your phone number. I entered my ported number, and the status changed to "verifying" and stayed like that for some time. I rebooted the phone and the status still said "verifying". So I disabled and enabled "chat features" again, and entered my number again for verification. This time the status changed to "connected" , using my ported number.

I've since received one SMS that had been sent to me as a test earlier today before I made that setting change. But none of the ones that I know for certain were sent to me yesterday (test messages from friends) have arrived. So I may never know what SMS's may have been sent to me yesterday. The friends who sent me test SMS's had no indication that they'd failed. As far as they were concerned, from their end it looked as if everything had worked fine.

As soon as more people are up and about this Saturday morning, I'll get them to send me more test messages. But it's looking promising.

Re: Re: Ported number but SMS still shows original number

Ant586 — Sat, 08 Oct 2022 07:44:31 GMT

Yep, all working fine now. I just received a text immediately after it was sent to me.

Still no sign of the missing ones from yesterday.

Re: Re: Ported number but SMS still shows original number

Leanne_T — Sat, 08 Oct 2022 07:49:40 GMT

Thanks for coming back and letting me know @Ant586

This is very helpful advice for anyone else that may have the same happen.

Leanne.

Re: Re: Ported number but SMS still shows original number

Ant586 — Sat, 08 Oct 2022 15:09:36 GMT

And, at the risk of being boring (and confusing), I now know where the missing SMS's went.

On Thursday, after I put the EE sim into my Google Pixel and activated it, I put my old Sky mobile SIM into an old Samsung phone. I wanted to be able to receive calls and texts on my own number on the old phone until the number ported to EE on my new phone.

On Friday, after EE told me that the number had ported, and Sky told me my contract with them had ended, I removed the Sky SIM from my old Samsung phone and turned the phone's power off. The old phone therefore had no SIM and no power. I then realised I wasn't receiving texts on my new phone, with the EE Sim, but that calls were working fine.

Today I did the fix that I've mentioned above, on my Pixel, and new SMS messages started to arrive. But the ones that had been sent before the fix didn't arrive.

I turned the power back on my old Samsung phone this afternoon, and all the texts that people had sent me after the number had ported to EE, and after I'd taken the old Sky SIM out, had arrived on that phone.

I didn't realise that texts can still be received on a phone that doesn't have a SIM in it, and where even if the SIM had still been in it, the number had been ported away.

This probably makes sense to some if not all of you, but it makes no sense to me 🙂

Re: Re: Ported number but SMS still shows original number

Leanne_T — Sat, 08 Oct 2022 15:22:13 GMT

Very strange @Ant586

Glad you got to the bottom of the missing messages, if you used a third-party app and WiFi was connected then they may still have gone to the device.

Leanne.

Re: Re: Ported number but SMS still shows original number

XRaySpeX — Sat, 08 Oct 2022 15:42:59 GMT

@Ant586 : SMS are transmitted on a "Store & Forward" basis (bit like emails). They are 1st stored on a server somewhere ready to be retransmitted when the no. comes online on the network

Re: Re: Ported number but SMS still shows original number

Ant586 — Sat, 08 Oct 2022 16:19:59 GMT

This article explains that I should have disabled the 'Chat Features' in 'Messages by Google' on my old phone.

https://help.republicwireless.com/hc/en-us/articles/360041204053-Messages-Still-Delivered-to-Old-Phone-After-Activating-New-Phone

So the issue I experienced may be specific to those who use this particular app to handle their SMS messages.

To dot the I's and cross the T's, I've not only forced the app to enable Chat Features with the correct number on my new phone, but have disabled it on my old phone.

Re: Re: Ported number but SMS still shows original number

XRaySpeX — Sat, 08 Oct 2022 16:44:06 GMT

Ah, I, as was everyone else, was not talking about Google Messaging but ordinary SMS's. However it will work on the same principle.