[Nexus 4 General] bmoke:
Re: Straight Talk Internet and MMS Issues

Thanks for the previous couple responses on my issues. Yes, there are a lot of stories about the ST issues, but even here, the number of posts with problems is light. So, I really hope a solution is easy to implement. Also, my wife has AT&T; my son also. I chose ST AT&T over T-Mobile because I know the AT&T signal, at my house, is great. With the old Verizon phone, there were no cell towers in my immediate area.

OK. Maybe I should start another thread just for a N4 start up procedure. At work, we never put a new piece of equipment into service without a written start up and test procedure. Maybe if someone reads this they can either think about this idea, or point me to the right post.

Maybe if you have a phone that works correctly, right out of the box, then everything falls into place, automatically. This did not happen to me. And, I still do not have mms connectivity. I thought I did have Internet connectivity and for the first 48 hours of having the phone in hand, I was chasing ghosts. I did Not realize that the problem included Both mms and internet connectivity. I had to work Saturday and Sunday and could only chase the problem for 16 hours a day, not 24 hours. LOL. I was not laughing when I pulled an all-nighter Friday night into Saturday morning.

Each time I changed an APN, I would send two text messages to my wife's cell phone. One was a simple text and the other an mms text. I did not know better, This was my freelance troubleshooting procedure. Simple texts always worked. MMS texts never worked. And, I never checked for Internet connectivity (with my WiFi turned Off).

INTERNET. My internet connection was lightning quick. It worked. Well, I thought it worked. But, it did not work. I had my WiFi enabled, for my informal Internet connectivity checks, and I did not appreciate what I was seeing, or what service was providing internet access. At least I did not realize the correlations between WiFi, Internet, Simple text, and SMS Text. Now, the picture is becoming less muddy. But I am learning this through a series of trial and error troubleshooting and repair type actions. At work, we call this approach Easter Egg Hunting. It is a disparaging, unflattering term. I admit guilty.

At some point, I read a post, somewhere, that people were having trouble when they lost 3G service, after leaving a WiFi hot spot. So, I turned off my WiFi, trying to ensure I am isolating the problem I am having with ST and the N4. When I turned off the home WiFi access, I did notice that my signal strength meter which was full 4 bars AND blue in color, is now still full 4 bars BUT white in color. What does that mean? I do not know, but I am curious. Too, my old HTC Incredible would display 3G when accessing internet or data communication. On the N4, I never saw the same "3G" icon, when I was connected to the internet (via WiFi). I am not a noob, but maybe I am.

So, about 1 AM this morning, I am paging through system settings and I go to About Phone. then to Status, then to Mobile Network State. In the field for Mobile Network State, it says "Disconnected". Disconnected? Yes, "Disconnected".

This seems like a big deal. Mobile Network State: Disconnected. Previously I have sent a hundred mms texts and waited at least 4 or 5 minutes for the texts to complete sending the message. They never completed sending. I always had to deleted the message. All sent mms text messages simply displayed the status message "sending". Never once did a message complete the sending cycle. I thought maybe the system was too slow, or maybe the message size was too large, or etc. I could imagine a lot of reasons why messages just froze in the sending status.

If I knew about this Mobile Network State, I would have abandoned fruitlessly sending and monitoring mms test mesaages, for 4 to 5 minute spans, always hoping a modified APN would give me a Eureka moment.

Immediately above, HyperM3 switched to a T-Mo sim and reported great results. In the same way though, I saw two other posts about hardware solutions. In one, the user requested a Sim Card Reset. That user said a customer service rep, out of Florida, reset the existing sim card, and Viola, all was good afterwards. Another user, on a Windows Phone Forum reported my same type of futility with a ST AT&T sim. That user spent days and days and days, without success. So, he simply gave up and ordered a new, second, identical ST AT&T sim. The user inserted the new sim and Whammo, every phone, text, internet, data feature subsequently worked like Gangbusters. That user is now a very happy ST AT&T user.

Either one of those two scenarios would work for me. But gosh, it took me so long to get here. So many posts about the magic APN settings. As I wind this post down, I saw response, somewhere, where a user said that only two APNs, with only one field per APN were actually required. It made me think. The first APN is att.mvno for general internet and data. The second was att.mvno for mms. I had never realized that the first or main APN was Not working since all of my simple text messages were sent promptly, consistently, reliably. I thought the simple text messages were being sent through the first and primary APN. So thinking this, then, to get the mms working all I needed was a good APN for mms. It led me away from thinking there was a hardware issue, or a larger APN software issue, which is what I am leaning towards, at this moment, and subject to change.

Even now, if I did get a new sim card, from ST. I still do not know whether I should do a Hot sim card swap. Take out the old sim first, then power up, then power down. Then insert a new card, then power up. The list goes on and on.

Above, Clockcycle suggests "You can open a ticket on facebook. Its the fastest reply you can get". That's why I am here - looking for advice. I have a Facebook account, but have never used it and have no idea how to open a ticket. I was going to try a call to customer service at ST and ask how to proceed. So, I will take a detour to Facebook and learn another programming language (Facebook) that I didn't know I can't live without. LOL. I spent $100 per month for Verizon and the phone worked. So far, I am into a good 20 hours of troubleshooting, with no good answer.

When one is mostly retired, you look for challenges to keep you busy. This one has been exhausting. Every time I see a light at the end of the tunnel, I worry it is a train approaching.

Hoping to get my already well worn N4 into full service,

Bill M