1

For the record... I called Samsung and they wanted nothing to do with me.

I think I've found a fairly critical bug for (at least) Samsung Galaxy S7 devices.

Let's say that:

  • I'm a user who has been using Samsung's default text messaging app "Messages"(important*, ew I know, why would anyone use stock messages), and I started texting before August 2016.
  • I have a constant number of texts on the device from when I started through now
  • Now I want to use an app that accesses my text messages

I tested this with three apps, Textra (a texting app), SMS Backup & Restore, and my own new application that I am beta testing (I ran into this issue on 3 Samsung S7s).

These applications that access text messages are simply unable to pick up large portions of these messages, specifically ones SENT by the device.. Now, some do show up, but a large portion don't, and in some cases it can be up to 90% of sent texts are missing!

Isolating the problem:

If I change the default texting application to Textra, and send some texts with it, apps will now be able to access texts correctly (like my app, and SMS Backup & Restore).

Texts seem to be retrieved OKAY on one particular device that was tested UP UNTIL August 2016. Perhaps there was an update.

The issue only happens when texts are sent with the default Samsung texting app.

How I retrieve texts off the user's device:

I use READ_SMS permission and reading through URI "content://sms/" 

ContentResolver contentResolver = getActivity().getContentResolver();
Uri uri = Uri.parse("content://sms/");
Cursor cursor = contentResolver.query(uri, new String[]{"address", "date", "body","type"}, null, null, null);

And it works on all devices so far, except for Samsung Galaxy S7 6.0.1(the newest version - active and edge versions alike).

Messages from the other user are 100% included, but only a tiny percentage of device's user's texts are coming through the cursor.

I have tested that this technique gets the texts in most other cases (based on the fact that only Samsung Galaxy S7 testers have complained...)

Is anyone else having this problem?

Note: I totally agree that they should "just switch to another texting app" and it be fine. But I'm just calling out this bug on Samsung Messages

My goal? I want my app to work on all devices where users "text"... This seems obsurd to be that standard SMS texting is improperly done by Samsung.

benzabill
  • 259
  • 1
  • 8
  • 21
  • 1
    Are you absolutely certain that they're actually SMS? Who's your carrier? – Mike M. Jan 25 '17 at 15:45
  • All three devices were AT&T, but I didn't test on other carriers. Can anyone with an S7 confirm this issue on another carrier? – benzabill Jan 25 '17 at 15:47
  • 1
    Do you have Advanced Messaging? The S7 is a [supported device](https://m.att.com/shopmobile/wireless/features/advanced-messaging-tab2.html) on AT&T. If so, have a look here: [SMS missing from content provider results on Android Marshmallow](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/38044406/sms-missing-from-content-provider-results-on-android-marshmallow). – Mike M. Jan 25 '17 at 15:54
  • That seems like the answer, some sort of other texting protocol RCS. Mike feel free to post that as answer – benzabill Jan 25 '17 at 15:57
  • 1
    Actually, I'll just mark it as a duplicate, since I don't really have any new information beyond what I posted there. I'm myself on AT&T, but I've not been lucky enough yet to be able to get a device that supports RCS, to play around with it. I've not really been keeping up on any news on that front, either, so an answer here would just be echoing that one. Thanks, though. Cheers! – Mike M. Jan 25 '17 at 16:05

0 Answers0