I’m an analog guy in a digital world, but my sons have to have the latest and greatest of everything. That of course means that my one son has an X iPhone.

We have been texting quite a bit over the last two days due to the arrival of my second granddaughter (Harper).

His messages arrive on my phone parsed. I’ll get four or five tones indicating the receipt of a like number of messages. When I open it, it really is only one message broken down into multiple parts – and usually not in the correct order. Part 3 might be the opening, followed by part 1 and then part 4 and finally part 2. The breaks occur randomly, mid-word.

I told my son how I was receiving these and he quipped that my ancient phone wasn’t fast enough to process the messages incoming from his X-phone. I do tend to keep a phone to the point where the provider no longer supports it, but I just got a new phone this past June. Admittedly a low-end Samsung Galaxy J3, but I use my phone for….errr…a phone (and texting).

Has anybody run into this? Any techno-whiz want to posit a reason? I’m appealing to the collective electronic wisdom of the forum, because this is way out of my league. Thanks for any help.

Adios,

Pizza Bob

I remember seeing that a long time ago, on a Galaxy but it was from a far far away...

Q: “Hi. My phone is the new Galaxy and there was an update I downloaded recently and that’s when this problem started. Prior to the update, whenever people text me with long messages, I receive them as is but after the update, my phone splits them up and the worse thing is they’re not in order.

I found this on google for Samsung Galaxy it referred to the S7, but sounds like it's a setting and/or cache issue.

A: It seems like the update reset the settings in the Messages app.

So, here’s what you need to do; go to Settings > Applications > Messages > More settings > Text messages.

In this page you can find the Auto combination option that allows you to group parts of long text messages into one. If it’s already enabled yet you’re getting text messages in parts, then the problem is simple–the system cache may have been corrupted.

To address this, all you need to do is wipe the cache partition:

Turn off your Samsung Galaxy .

Press and then hold the Home and Volume UP keys, then press and hold the Power key.

When the Samsung Galaxy shows on the screen, release the Power key but continue holding the Home and Volume Up keys.

When the Android logo shows, you may release both keys and leave the phone be for about 30 to 60 seconds.

Using the Volume Down key, navigate through the options and highlight ‘wipe cache partition.’

Once highlighted, you may press the Power key to select it.

Now highlight the option ‘Yes’ using the Volume Down key and press the Power button to select it.

Wait until your phone is finished wiping the cache partition. Once completed, highlight ‘Reboot system now’ and press the Power key.
The phone will now reboot longer than usual.

I hope this helps.

In my experience that is usually due to having MMS turned off or having an older phone. Here is some info on it.

quote:

Is there a maximum SMS message length?
Yes. The maximum length of text message that you can send is 918 characters. However, if you send more than 160 characters then your message will be broken down in to chunks of 153 characters before being sent to the recipient’s handset.

The good news is that the vast majority of handsets nowadays will join the multiple message parts together and present a single, extra-length message for the recipient to view.

From here

Wow, that was quick. I'll give it a try, but I think I'll wait until my other son (the computer whiz) is present, so that when I screw up, he can bail me out. Thanks for your help.

Adios,

Pizza Bob

Happens on my Pixel 2 (and the Pixel and Nexus 6P that preceded it) when receiving texts from some iPhone users. I'm on Verizon and it's been mostly Sprint customers. Texts that are under 160 chars get parsed into a bunch of little messages and end up out of order. I've found many forum threads online about it with no resolution.

Well, I've seen that on occasion as well on my tablet. No idea why it sometimes does it or how to stop it.

My wife and I have noticed this lately on our iPhones (both version 6, I believe). One will send the other consecutive texts, and the second will be above the first on the recipients phone.

Happens to me too and I'm using $750 flagship phone. Almost exclusively from people with iPhones.

Timecube...

I'm interested to read this as well... This same thing happens to me on my Galaxy S4, but only from one sender, my son who is using an iphone!

Don

I text a LOT of people all the time for work, social, school, etc.
SMS (short message service) texts are limited to a certain number of characters. MMS (media message service) are pictures, videos, or bigger texts.

Some people's longer SMS texts come through as multiple messages, some are sent as media messages.

my phone receives whatever the other person's phone sends. I don't know for sure, but I've always assumed it's their phone or plan, and not mine.


if the sender's phone can only send SMS-forced long-texts, it splits it up in 1/3, 2/3, 3/3.

I know my wife and I can send long texts (which, again, send as MMS) and they all come to our phones as one long MMS message - she has an Iphone and I have an android. It has more to do with the carrier/plan than the phone, it seems to me.