Unlocked iphone 4, not receiving texts, or texts disappearing

Inkstaind1 · Jan 30, 2014

Hello, and thanks in advance for any advice/help you can lend.

My buddy gave this iPhone 4, his daughters, and had it unlocked by AT&T, I use T-Mobile. So I had my sim cut down, backed up my, and don't laugh, old iPhone 1, put the sim in, and restored to this newer phone from my iTunes. This is an iPhone 4, version 7.0.4, 4.12.09 firmware, etc..

The phone calls and receives call fine, but there's a problem with the texting. It doesn't notify me of incoming texts, but when I notice there is one, once I reply, the original text disappears, just leaving my response. Any ideas on what's causing that?

Also, I keep getting some random message about "carrier settings", could this be the issue, should I allow it to do what it's asking?

Plus a couple other odd ball things, like the calculator opens then closes before I can use it. This is actually happening with a few of the apps.

Thanks again

bear7962 · Jan 30, 2014

You are not done setting the phone up as per T-Mobile. Check out what they say on their site:
T-Mobile Internet and MMS settings: Apple iPhone | T-Mobile Support

I found that with a quick Google search, you can probably find a more up to date instructions on the T-Mobile site

Inkstaind1 · Feb 5, 2014

bear7962 said:
You are not done setting the phone up as per T-Mobile. Check out what they say on their site:
T-Mobile Internet and MMS settings: Apple iPhone | T-Mobile Support

I found that with a quick Google search, you can probably find a more up to date instructions on the T-Mobile site

Thanks for the help, and the link. I do think now that when I activated this phone, I did not follow the correct procedures that T-Mobile lists there.

So, now that I'm trying to "erase all contents..", and start over and do it like the way the link you showed says, the phone will not erase everything, lol. I'm going crazy. I've tried twice, and it just looks like it's deleting everything for hours on end. The first time, it went 7 hours before I finally stopped it. The second time, I just let it do it's thing all night, and when I woke up the phone was dead, battery ran out.

I'm going to try again tonight with the charger plugged in, and just figure it's takes longer to erase everything than I thought. Hopefully that works, and I can start the process of restoring from scratch, follow those instructions.

Inkstaind1 · Feb 9, 2014

Inkstaind1 said:
Thanks for the help, and the link. I do think now that when I activated this phone, I did not follow the correct procedures that T-Mobile lists there.

So, now that I'm trying to "erase all contents..", and start over and do it like the way the link you showed says, the phone will not erase everything, lol. I'm going crazy. I've tried twice, and it just looks like it's deleting everything for hours on end. The first time, it went 7 hours before I finally stopped it. The second time, I just let it do it's thing all night, and when I woke up the phone was dead, battery ran out.

I'm going to try again tonight with the charger plugged in, and just figure it's takes longer to erase everything than I thought. Hopefully that works, and I can start the process of restoring from scratch, follow those instructions.

Still unable to "erase all contents", and re-start this process. It just acts like it's deleting everything for hours on end, until the phone dies. Was going to try it with the phone plugged in and charging, but haven't yet. Do you think the problem is that I just haven't let it reset completely?

Also, this phone was unlocked by AT&T, I'm using T-Mobile. Is this still considered jailbroken? I'm reading how "erase all contents" does not work with jailbroken phones.

It's still receiving, then not receiving texts, or sending them. It's weird. Sometimes texting works, sometimes it doesn't. Aside from that, and some apps not working, like google, or square, etc.. it works pretty good as far as calls go.

Thanks for any more help anyone can lend

bear7962 · Feb 9, 2014

Unlocked and jailbroken are two different things. Because it is unlocked, you are able to use the t-mobile sim and access that network (it is no longer locked to AT&T). Jailbreaking is about the operating system of the phone, so to speak. I think you should contact tmobile and tell them you have this issue with the unlocked iphone you are trying to use on their network, they should be able to help you make it work or tell you if that is a feature not available to you on their network.

Inkstaind1 · Feb 16, 2014

bear7962 said:
Unlocked and jailbroken are two different things. Because it is unlocked, you are able to use the t-mobile sim and access that network (it is no longer locked to AT&T). Jailbreaking is about the operating system of the phone, so to speak. I think you should contact tmobile and tell them you have this issue with the unlocked iphone you are trying to use on their network, they should be able to help you make it work or tell you if that is a feature not available to you on their network.

So I go to AT&T, and T-Mobile, neither can figure out why I'm not getting notifications of new text messages, or sometimes no texts at all.

They both said to do an "erase all contents..", but I can't. The phone just won't do it. I tried again last night with the phone charging, and it went 10 hours, still just the spiral symbol spinning, no progress. Hard reboot, and all my stuff is still there, lol. I was hoping to erase everything, then try to restore again from iTunes the way T-Mobile indicates to do, but can't get to that point. Guess the phone is just got some issues.

Inkstaind1 · Feb 16, 2014

Bear, something just occured to me. My last iPhone I had was jailbroken, and that's the iTunes I restored from, the only one I have set up. Could that have something to do with the problem of "erasing" and starting over with this unlocked iphone 4 I have now?

willerz2 · Feb 16, 2014

Inkstaind1 said:
Bear, something just occured to me. My last iPhone I had was jailbroken, and that's the iTunes I restored from, the only one I have set up. Could that have something to do with the problem of "erasing" and starting over with this unlocked iphone 4 I have now?

Tapping on Erase All Contents and Settings will net you a one-way trip to a full iTunes restore, so you may as well restore your phone. Restore the device fresh in DFU or Recovery Mode, and see if the issue persists. Make a backup of your device as well prior to restoring and see if that resolves the issue.

bear7962 · Feb 16, 2014

Very probably and I would do what Willez told you to do in his post at 4:02pm. If after that you have issues, go to Tmobile, no point in talking to AT&T about what is happening on another company's network, they wil just tell you to come back to them.

Inkstaind1 · Feb 17, 2014

willerz2 said:
Tapping on Erase All Contents and Settings will net you a one-way trip to a full iTunes restore, so you may as well restore your phone. Restore the device fresh in DFU or Recovery Mode, and see if the issue persists. Make a backup of your device as well prior to restoring and see if that resolves the issue.

Ok, it worked, finally!! I did the "restore iphone", then "restore from itunes", which got rid of Cydia, etc..

Thanks for the help guys, was ready to throw in the towel.