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Android: Can’t Send Text Message to One Person

Android: Can’t Send Text Message to One Person

By 45 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

m>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. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

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

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

    Go figure…. it worked

  10. 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! 👍🏼👍🏼

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

  12. 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!!

  13. 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!!!

  14. I tried adding adding the 1. Did not work.

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

  15. 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

  16. 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.

  17. 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 :)

  18. 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!

  19. 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.

  20. 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.

  21. 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.

  22. 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.

  23. 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

  27. 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

  28. 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!

  29. 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

  30. 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.

  32. 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!!!

  34. 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

  35. 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??

  36. 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?

  37. 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 :)

  38. 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.

  39. 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.

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

  41. 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!

  42. 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.

  45. 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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