Poor message check system

Have a question or problem with your Fongo Mobile App? This forum is the place to get help from both staff and fellow community members.
Visit The Fongo Mobile Support Knowledge-base for more.
droidnut
Just Passing Thru
Posts: 8
Joined: 07/25/2013
Computer OS: Windows 7

Poor message check system

Post by droidnut »

Here's some bad experiences I've had with the Fongo txt system that should not happen if a proper messaging check system were implemented.

A message I send once is being received on the other end multiple times (mostly when I have an unstable internet connection [still should not happen!]).
Note for this one: When I sent the message it's a green check mark immediately, then later it's a red x for failed, I never resent it either.

A long message split into more than one txt sent to me isn't received fully, I only received the first part. I had to ask for the rest of the message again, very awkward.

These are serious issues for a txt messaging system. If I were programming the check system I would hash the messages with a time parameter and make sure the client responds with that hash to know the message was received, and a similar check on the server-side to send messages not more than once.

Please do something to fix this,
Thank you.
User avatar
FONGO_jeff
Site Moderator
Posts: 43
Joined: 08/29/2013

Re: Poor message check system

Post by FONGO_jeff »

Hey droidnut, as you may have noticed we experienced a service interruption for a few hours yesterday (October 16th), between about 1:00PM and 5:30PM. We believe that the issue that ultimately caused the problem may have been present and building for a while and it would have affected messaging as well as delays when you initiate or receive a call.

While we were troubleshooting the issue, I personally observed the multiple message problem which I had not encountered before (although I don't do a huge amount of SMS) and made it a lot easier to isolate what was happening, those logs are rotated very quickly so usually when the issue is reported, the logs are already gone. When the problem was eventually identified and corrected, the multiple message issue immediately stopped and call delays disappeared.

One thing to note is that the messages are SIP/UDP so certain checks that you might like are not possible. Also, we do not receive any delivery receipt from the destination carrier as they do not send them so it is not possible to tell you if the SMS was delivered or read. The 'D" means that our SMS gateway sent the message, that's all we know for sure. For Fongo to Fongo messages, you will get a D for delivered and and R for read because we built this into our system.

If you are still experiencing SMS issues as of today, please let us know and perhaps we can open a support ticket to investigate further.

Cheers,
Jeff.