Receiving Blank Texts

[Comma-lay]

I have a LG Cosmos VN250; today, a friend with a smartphone replied to a text I sent, and the received messages came in blank. I can view the first few words of the message via the preview screen, but when I open the full message, it shows up "empty". I even had him resend it...no luck- this happened when in conversation with one other person, once before, too. I tried forwarding the text to my email, but get the "Messages with enhanced features cannot be sent to email" error message. Not sure how to remedy this. Help, please?

[SuzyQ]

Comma-lay wrote:

...  I tried forwarding the text to my email, but get the "Messages with enhanced features cannot be sent to email" error message. Not sure how to remedy this. Help, please?

"Enhanced features" may be that your friend is using a signature, or special characters in their text message to you.  It may be colored fonts, or fonts other than the "standard", or emoticons, and your phone can't interpret the message so it comes through as blank, and your text to email won't work with the "enhanced" features either.

Does any of this sound like what may be happening?

[Comma-lay]

That's what I originally thought might be the case when I saw "enhanced features", but this doesn't happen consistently; it'll occur with one message mid-conversation, but if they immediately send another text with different content, it'll show up with no problems. So, I'm not totally sure what's going on.
This actually happened again with someone else, last night...even re-sending with changes to the original text doesn't work. I really don't want to upgrade my device right now, but I can foresee this issue becoming a bit of a problem, if it persists...

[SuzyQ]

What kind of smartphone are they using to send the text?  Is it an iPhone?  Are they using a texting app to send/receive texts rather than just the native texting on the phone?  An app may "enhance" the message without them doing anything or realizing that it is being enhanced.  If I use an emoticon, some people get it and others just get squares.  If I type in the  keyboard characters of : and ) it is fine, but choosing form my little picture emoticons doesn't work for everyone.

[vzw_customer_support]

This sound like a text mystery I'm ready to solve for you, Comma-lay. A message with "enhanced features" can be anything from a message with more than 160 characters, a special character that only certain phone types can read, or even a small graphic. Sometimes a person may not even realize they're sending anything special because they have the special character in their signature. Many smartphones are capable of sending messages much more detailed than a basic phone can read, causing the blank messages you've described or the error trying to forward to an email address. To find out more about text with these enhancements, also known as EMS, please visit http://vz.to/1alSRCb and take a special look at #19 & #20.


Thank you
JenniferH_VZW

Please follow us on Twitter @vzwsupport

[Comma-lay]

Thank you for referring me to that article, it really does clear things up. However, my overarching question is, how might I be able to read these messages on my Cosmos? I can't really afford the data plan for, nor am I in any great need of a device upgrade; is upgrading to a smartphone the only way to fix this issue? Thank you!

[vzw_customer_support]

Comma-lay, you're very welcome. We're here to help you! Some multi-media messages are accessable online at http://vz.to/15QAhcH when it cannot be retrieved on your basic device. You will be required to register your mobile number with a username and password to access multi-media messages and saved media for your line at this website.

LasinaH_VZW
VZW Support
Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport