Technipages

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Android: Can’t Send Text Message to One Person

Android: Can’t Send Text Message to One Person

By Mitch Bartlett 78 Comments

A common problem for any Android user may be that they cannot send a text message to a single person. They can send and receive text messages from others, but for some reason, messages sent to this one person just aren’t getting through.

Here is a list of things to check to troubleshoot this issue.

Restart the Phone

A simple restart might do the trick. Hold down the “Power” button, then select “Restart“.

Check Blocking

Sometimes blocking happens accidentally. Check to be sure that you didn’t accidentally end up on a block list either with the message recipient’s carrier or on the block list of the recipient’s phone.

Check Contact Number

Open the “Contacts” app and ensure the phone number is correct. Also try the phone number with or without the “1” before the area code. I have seen it both work and not work in either configuration. Personally, I just fixed a problem texting where the “1” was missing.

Disable iMessage

If the recipient or sender has used or is currently using an iPhone, it can cause problems for Android users since the iPhone utilizes the iMessage network. Have the iPhone user disable iMessage by going to “Settings” > “Messages” and setting “iMessage” to “Off“.

In some cases, the iPhone user will need to perform these steps:

  1. Power off your smartphone.
  2. Power the iPhone off and insert the SIM card you used with the device before.
  3. Power on the iPhone.
  4. Ensure you are connected to a Wi-Fi network.
  5. Open “Settings” > “Messages“.
  6. Slide “iMessage” to “Off“.
  7. Leave the iPhone powered on for about an hour. iMessage should eventually deactivate.
  8. Power on your device.

If you cannot perform this process, or you are still experiencing this problem, try the following steps to deactivate iMessage online:

Note: These steps will remove access to the appstore. You can always reactivate the device to gain access again if  you wish.

  1. Visit the Apple Support Profile website, and login with your Apple credentials.
  2. Select your iPhone device on the site.
  3. Select “Unregister“, then select “Unregister” again.

iMessage should now be deactivated. Check to see if you can receive text messages from an iPhone user.

If things still aren’t working for you, or you cannot perform the above steps, contact Apple Support. They can usually send a code to your new phone and deactivate iMessage on their end. It usually takes a period of 24 hours for the deactivation to complete.

This process has fixed this issue on multiple occasions. On one occasion, we contacted Apple Support via email. The Support department said that the person sending the text message may need to change how they are sending text messages. They will need to use an account with that shows “name”(Mobile Phone) instead of “name”(iPhone). These instructions didn’t make sense to us, but I figured I would include that information in case it helps anybody.

FAQ

I have an iPad registered to the same phone number I am using with my Android. What do I do?

You will have to deactivate iMessage on the iPad and any other Apple devices that are linked to the phone number you are using if you wish to receive text messages on the Android.

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Comments

  1. Chase Yeomans says

    Thank you so much. It turns out it was the “1” in front of the number problem. Thank you so much. I text over 1,000 people every day with Bible verses and some of them weren’t going through. Now I know why (I just tested it). Again, thank you so much

  2. Katie says

    had the same non texting problem with a contact–called technical–they were not helpful. read on this and tried all–put 1 in front, removed area code–restarted phone–removed contact—–THEN when I DELETED CONTACT as WELL AS DELETED ALL TEXTS I HAD TRIED TO SEND TO THAT CONTACT–RE ENTERED CONTACTS INFORMATION—-WOW!!! IT WORKED– THANKS FOR THE HELP

  3. John says

    I have a Samsung J3v and have Verizon. Cannot text to AT&T phones, have had 8 sessions with tech support, gotten a new SIM card , then a new phone, same problem. I’m about to get a new phone and number, bummer.

  5. Mary says

    Thank you!!!!! Out of the blue I couldn’t text my son anymore. Every other person was no problem. I could text a picture though. Very strange! I tried restarting a few times but then I read your post. I added a 1 to the phone number and it worked! I have an LG G6 he has a Pixel 3.

  6. Silvia says

    Thank Goodness for Stevens post. My Samsung Galaxy 9 mysteriously stopped texting my daughter. I could text dozens of other contacts, but not her. I tried it all. 1, no 1, phone resart and more. His method worked. I called ATT support and they were no help. Someone is supposed to call me back in a few days. Meanwhile my DD is far away and lots going on. So happy I can text her again. Yay Steven!!

  7. Hayley A says

    Thankyou Fan Tao!!!!! Adding a 1 fixed it all :) Tried everything else I had found. Now I can text my girlfriend. Life Saver!

  8. Dave K. says

    I could text everyone in my contacts except my son. Could always text him but suddenly could not.
    Kept getting the error 96 message plus encoding problem.. I use an android LG Rebel 4.
    I first made sure I had his proper phone number in my contacts. That was correct. I then tried to send him another text by simply typing in his phone number and it when right to him. Now when I text him using the old method of applying his contact it works every time. Hope this helps someone.

  9. Kata says

    Same problem started for me a week ago when sending texts from myLG Stylo 3 android to one of my friends who uses an iPhone 7plus.. Spent 1.5 hrs on phone with my service provider (Boost Mobile) who helped us identify that it was something that had changed in the dialing protocol interface. for sending text messages from Android to iPhone. I could call her, receive incoming calls and texts from her, but my texts to her failed to send and returned error code 104. We checked that I was blocked by mistake. We deleted existing message strings. Deleted contacts from both phones and re-entered. I had to terminate call. Frustrated I turned to Google search and voila, found others with exact same problem and this wonderful page with solution. I added +1 to her phone number and we were back in business. Thank you soooo much!!!

  10. Donna says

    Put a 1 in front of number worked! Suddenly couldn’t sent to one number. That worked
    … yay

  11. Wayne Burns says

    I tried everything on my Samsung S10e, changed the message APP to on by google LLC & solved my problem of not being able to send message to one specific contact.

  12. JayDub says

    Number that suddenly started acting up did NOT have a “1” in front of it. The number was in the format (XXX) XXX-XXXX. I changed the format to XXX.XXX.XXXX (separated by periods, no “1” in front, and no other separtators/punctuation) and it started working again. Wondering if just changing the format at all does something.

  13. Fan Tao says

    Yes, adding a “1” in front of this one person’s phone number contact allowed texts to go through finally. What doesn’t make sense is that texting this person worked before (the message app or Android may have been updated since then) and f0r other people who don’t have the “1” in the contacts text messaging works fine! Perhaps it has to do with that particular phone number or that person’s carrier??? Sounds like a bug! My phone is a LG Stylo 4, Android 8..1.0.

  15. ChristinaG says

    I have a note 10 and tried all steps listed by Mitch and in the comments, still won’t work. So frustrating!

  16. Brian B says

    I had this same problem. I cleared cache, restarted phone. Nothing! Finally added a 1 to number and deleted conversation and started a new one. And no new problems. It’s weird only one contact my girlfriend and we text everyday. So not sure why it happened, but it’s fixed.

  17. Mel says

    I had this problem as well and tried all of your suggestions, finally I noticed that some of my contacts had a + in front of the 1. I tried just the one still didn’t work. Only after I added the + sign in front if the 1 did it begin working. Also noted was that my number had the +1 on the contact doe the person I was trying to text so it may be that the two contacts have to match each other.

  19. Peggy B. says

    I initially tried the basics: restarting my phone and deleting & then adding the contact back. I then spent two sessions with a Verizon Tech Coach who was unable to fix the problem. I didn’t have the “1” in front of the number, but was told it shouldn’t matter. Nothing they recommended worked. Finally I Googled my problem & found this website. I put the “1” in front of the number and, voila! I am now able to send a text!! Thanks soooo much!!!

  20. Greg Solomon says

    If you can’t send a text to one person…it’s a very easy fix.
    Simply go into your contacts and click on the person you can’t send a text to. Then edit their phone number and add a “1” in front of it.
    In other words, instead of 555-555-5555.
    Add a “1” so that it’s 1-555-555-5555.
    Don’t forget to click “save” in the upper right hand corner after you edit it.
    Your problem will now be solved and you’ll be able to send texts to the person with no problem.

    Regards,
    -Greg

  21. Karen says

    I had one person I could receive from but not send to. Soon, it was two people. The suggestion of clearing the cache and storage with a Force Stop and reboot worked for me. Thank you!

  26. Anton says

    I fixed this on my Android Nexus 6 by a) going to My Contacts and selecting the contact I couldn’t text, b) going into SMS messages, as if I were about to try again and text them, c) tapping the 3 dots at the top right, and selecting “Details”, and finally d) flipping to on, the “Only send SMS and MMS Messages” option. Suddenly my contact could receive text messages again. Bizarrely this option isn’t even there for my other contacts, and the ‘Only’ at the front of it would seem to suggest that I would now no longer be able to call her. But I can, so the ‘Only’ appears to be extraneous, and more importantly, we are now connected again and therefore happy bunnies!

  27. Denia says

    My bf has a iphone and i have a andriod. Lately i haven’t been able to receive his texts or phone calls, and he hasn’t been able to receive mine either. We checked everything and everything is the same. It’s just not working. Idk what to do. Please helpp

  28. Arlene says

    I also couldn’t send to just one particular person so I followed Steven’s advice and it worked so thanks Steven. My text was sent and the person responded.

  29. Sophie says

    I have a Samsung galaxy j6 plus and I have been trying to message my girlfriend but its saying its sent but it’s not going through to her I received her messages and I can message other people fine I dont know what to do

  30. Gail Dytrych says

    Gail D.
    I suddenly started getting error 96 messages whenever I texted one friend. Never happened before.
    Got to your technipages, added the 1 and it worked. Weird

  31. Jackie Patchitt says

    I followed Steven’s instructions from his post dated 25th August. Messages, storage, clear data/cache and it worked straightaway with all previously undelivered texts being sent as soon as I switched the phone back on

    Thank you for the tip

  32. J says

    Tried it all….last two things I tried, not sure which one worked. But one worked.

    1. Making sure the message center number is correct / is in the spot that requires it.

    Or

    2. Making sure that under Sim settings the SMS messages option is set to home.

    I was ready to give up but there was hope. Just have to keep searching until you stumble on the right solution.

  33. Steven says

    Could not text to only one person on a brand new Galaxy S10E. Tried all of the above and also got a new SIM Card and nothing worked.
    Luke, a T-mobile tech support saved the day.

    Open ‘Settings’
    Scroll down and tap on ‘Apps’
    In the ‘Apps’ window scroll down and tap on ‘Messages’
    In the ‘Messages’ window tap on ‘Storage’
    In the ‘Storage’ window there are two buttons. Tap on the ‘Clear data’ and the ‘Clear cache’.
    Go back to the ‘Messages’ window and hit the ‘Force stop’ button
    Exit ‘Settings’ and turn off phone
    Turn phone back on and try texting the person

    This worked for me and I can now text this one person.

  34. John says

    I had the same problem……I could get my friends texts but she couldn’t see mine.
    Tried everything……..finally found a solution.
    I had previously converted to Handcent Next SMS as it enables me to send up to six pictures at a time. Messages used to reduce photos but I can’t find that facility any more. Anyway, my friend also downloaded Next SMS and problem solved. Seems it was a bug in her version of Messages. Android doesn’t allow me to delete it and readd……..so I was stuck with it.

  35. Hannah Stern says

    Wow, this worked. After months of trying to find info online to figure out why I couldn’t message only one of my contacts who I do the school run with, and had to keep calling her instead of texting her. It was getting annoying. Thank you so much! Really appreciate it.

  36. Ken S says

    I took the 1 off and that worked. Weird since I haven’t changed that in years., to MY WIFE no less. Everyone else works with the 1.

  39. Am says

    Yes Katie thank you. Adding a. “1” in front of the contact’s number worked! Happy 4th!

  42. Carl says

    Problem: Android phone can not send txt to one specific iPhone.
    Solution: Adding “1” in front of the area code.

    Go figure…. it worked

  43. Sherry says

    Thank you! My daughter is leaving for a world tour tomorrow and I was getting worried. No idea why all of a sudden I couldn’t text her… She could text me however and I could call her. Adding a 1 worked perfectly! ????

  44. Galaxy angel says

    Thank you Katie I have done what you said and my contact works thank you so much your awesome

  45. Katie says

    I had deleted our text conversation in the past. Didn’t work. Today, I deleted the contact, tried to just text my friend’s number with a “1”. Didn’t work. Deleted THAT failed conversation (so she’s no where in my phone). Then restarted my phone. Added her as a contact with the “1” and it worked!!

  46. Maria says

    Yes! Adding the “1” in front of the number solved the issue for two contacts I wasn’t able to text too. I spent HOURS on tech support with Verizon and nobody had been able to solve it. I am SO GRATEFUL!!!

  47. Sarah says

    I tried adding adding the 1. Did not work.

    Deleted the contact and re-added them. Worked like a charm :)

  48. Elaine says

    No. I’ve done everything except factory reset. And still can’t send or even see conversation in my messaging app. So I can’t delete the conversation. I deleted him in contacts, but when I go to messaging I see phone number, but not texts, then screen goes black and I get “messaging not responding” notice

  49. Stephanie says

    I can text everybody except for my friend. Pictures and texts don’t go through. I tried everything, including putting a 1 in front and re-entering the number and nothing worked.

  50. Priscilla Collette says

    I had this happen before, at that time when I deleted the person and re-entered them that worked.
    This time it didn’t, I even tried turning off and restarting my phone.
    I read Bess Bauman’s hint from March 17, 2019 about adding a 1 in front of the number and low and
    behold that worked!! So thank you Bess Bauman :)

  51. Bess Bauman says

    I had this happen to me today. Suddenly I couldn’t text my brother. I went into his contact and added a 1 in front of the number and it worked!

  52. Deborah D Jones says

    My husband couldn’t receive my texts though I could receive his. We could call each other and my messages always showed delivered. Not blocked. Same type of samsung 9 phone on the same At&t family plan. We both had to redo the contacts and threads to finally get it to work again.

  53. Georgia Savoy says

    I’ve been having this problems for weeks. I’m on a Note8. I can’t not receive the messages from one person. I’m trying to download a different message app to see if this will resolved my problem since other fixes listed here didn’t do anything for me.

  54. Erin says

    This issue started for me last month with one friend, and now hopped on to a second. So annoying. deleting and re-adding contacts does not work for me. They are not blocked, we’ve both checked out phones in every way possible. I had to switch to Facebook Messenger for now because of this.

  55. Misach says

    All the high-flying technical solutions posed on this website and elsewhere failed me.
    I then followed the low-tech solution mentioned above: I delleted the contact and then added it back and it fixed the problem.

  56. Rob says

    I have tried all of these suggestions still cant send or receive to only one contact in my samsung phone and its fustrating bc i think i tried everything and dont know what it could be

  60. Abhinav says

    I m not receiving text messeges from one number. Although i can receieve calls from that number. I m able to send messeges and they are being received at this contacts’s end too. I m able to send and receive sms from all other contacts

  61. Michael Cockrell says

    This happened to me today with no explanation. All of a sudden I couldn’t text my wife. MMS would go through but not SMS. And I could text anyone else with no problem. Ended up using someone else’s suggestion of putting a 1 in front of the number in the contact and it worked. Thank you whoever suggested that!

  62. Sean says

    Found this thread and tried Richard’s solution. I went to “messages”, clicked “Start chat”, then typed in the phone number. It pulled up my contact as a suggestion, but i clicked the phone number instead. That pulled up the same messaging thread that I’ve used for a year.. Worked instantly

  63. Kenneth Graham says

    I had this problem with 2 of my contacts. I had to take out the 1 and the prefix to be able to send them messages.

  65. Cheri says

    Thank you, Richard Costello! I was going crazy over this…I was able to send/receive texts from EVERYBODY but my husband…I tried your suggestion and manually typed his number in instead of tapping on his name… IT WORKED!!!

  67. Pam says

    I had this happen…I deleted the contact, then re-entered the information. The change that WORKED for me was putting a 1 in from of the area code, which I had not done before

  68. Lana says

    Same thing has happened to me. My friend has AT&T and they said it must be my straighttalk phone…I only have problems with texting her. I can receive hers….could it be AT&T??

  69. Tanya says

    Great ideas but none worked for me. My sister isn’t receiving my texts only pics but I can see everything she sends me. I have to screenshot what I texted her and send it as a pic. No clue what to do next. She contacted her provider (at&t) and they said it must be something in my settings. I haven’t contacted my carrier (sprint) yet. Any ideas or empathizers?

  70. Lana says

    i’ve been googling this to no avail, my landlord tried texting me from his iphone (tmobile) for the first time, i was not in his contacts, he entered my number with and without the leading 1, every time, he got this message => free msg: unable to send message – message blocking is active. so i tried texting him from my android (tracfone/safelink wireless) and got the same free msg! he never blocked me, i never blocked him, we are not on each others contacts. i can’t find the answer to this, help! thanks in advance :)

  71. Leanne says

    I had the same problem with texting my mom. I finally tried disabling the message app and then enabling it again and this fixed the problem.

  72. Mark says

    Had this issue also with my mom’s “contact”. I could not get her messenger window to come up. I fixed it by completely DELETING her from my contacts. Then, brought up the phone keypad, punched in her phone number, then, at the top where it says “ad new contact”, I added her as a new contact. All is working now. It is possible it somehow became corrupted. Hope this helps.

  73. Someone says

    On my android phone, the contact was set to “voice” instead of “mobile”. I changed it and it worked.

  74. D Davison says

    Richard Costello’s suggestion worked for me! All of a sudden couldn’t text my daughter. Found this thread a tried entering the phone number instead of clicking on her contact name. It worked!

  75. Richard Costello says

    Another possible solution from Google that worked on my pixel was to enter the person’s phone number not name in address field. I don’t know why but it fix the problem.

  78. PatriciaJ says

    I tried deleting the thread, the cashe, restarting the phone multiple times, sending on and off WIFI and nothing worked. Finally asked the other person to restart their phone and that worked. Doesn’t make any sense. This is not something we should be dealing with in today’s society. Seriously,

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