[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] net-cat:
You know, as long as I've been using this site, you'd think I would have registered at some point before now. Oh well.

I wanted to give my feedback, as I've been playing around with this problem all day. I'm using a Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III (SCH-I535), and it seems I'm not the only one in this thread. I'm using my phone in Northern Virginia and have a Western Maryland (301) area code.

The problem started last week, exactly as described. Receiving text messages is okay, but I'm unable to send them. Rebooting the phone would allow me to send one text message, but nothing else. I was running CM10.2 when the problem asserted itself. (So the problem is neither limited to the S4 nor the CM11 nightlies.)

During the initial troubleshooting, I noted that my radio was not fully up to date. I applied the latest version (VRBMF1) of the radio and that seemed to resolve the issue. I was able to send and receive text messages once again.

Today, the problem reasserted itself. (At least, this is the first I've noticed. It might have happened earlier.) After some poking around and upgrading to CM11 M3, I could not make the problem go away. (But it was consistent. The same problem as on CM10.2.) At some point, I happened onto this thread and tried some of the suggestions contained within. Below is the procedure I came up with as a workaround. Note that this is not a solution to the problem.

The Workaround - The part you probably care about.

If you haven't done an nvbackup, then this is unlikely to work for you. (And it might actually make things worse.) Also, go do an nvbackup right now. It probably won't save you from your current issue, but it could save you from other issues down the road.

If you had the foresight to do a nvbackup, then continue reading.

1. Run "reboot nvrestore" as root.

2. If your device is put into an endless reboot loop as a result of this, flash your ROM again.

3. If you had to do step 2, flash the gapps over your ROM again, if you use them.

(Thanks to Dex954 for this. The only thing that kind of sort of worked so far.)

NOTE: I've only tried this with CM11 M3 and a Verizon S3. I'd imagine it works fine for CM10.2, since the CM teams does a pretty good job with upgrades, so no need to wipe. With other ROMs or phones, your mileage may vary.

Once your phone reboots, you should be able to send text messages. If it does, then it worked. Do not reboot your phone! As Dex954 points out, this only works for one boot. If your phone is rebooted, you will have to run the procedure again.

I've been running with full text messaging for several hours at this point and will post updates if it stops working without a reboot.

Lessons Learned - Hopefully helpful for those tasked with fixing the problem.

SMSC Updates didn't change anything. "+19037029920" is the value I'm currently using and "+316540951000" didn't work at all. I suggest leaving whatever your phone had before the problem started.

Wiping the cache partition and the dalvik cache never seemed to make any difference.

Power cycling the radio always allowed me to send one text. It didn't matter if it was power cycle, battery pull, airplane mode, or "turn radio off" in *#*#4636#*#*. It always allowed one text.

Whatever is happening seems to relate to the radio's nvram. I am assuming that that is why the initial radio flash fixed the problem, since whatever was in the nvram probably got rewritten as a result of the flashing process. Since doing an nvbackup requires a reboot, I am hesitant to try it to see if I can avoid having to reflash the OS.

Wild Theories

On a final note, I doubt this was intentional on Verizon's part. If they wanted to crack down on modified handsets, there are far more effective ways of doing it that would cause far less of a burden on their support staff. ("Your phone is flagged in our system as having unauthorized software. Please take it to your nearest Verizon store to have it reset to its factory state." would be a lot less labor intensive than "Uh... weird. I have no idea. I'll look into it and get back to you in a couple of days.") If I had to guess, this is a change the pushed out that they've probably been preparing for for several software releases now. Unfortunately, since the modding community doesn't have access to Verizon's internal documentation, we were left scrambling to play catch up when it went live.