Why Can't I Send SMS Unless I receive one first?
BackwardsCire
Newbie

I have an iPhone 6 with an interesting issue that after doing a bunch of research haven't seen solutions elsewhere. I recently did a full wipe and reinstall of the latest iOS 10 and setup the phone as a new device (did not restore from a backup).  Since then I cannot send SMS messages to contacts unless they have previously sent me a message. I also cannot send SMS to things like "text 'blah blah blah" to 123456" type numbers.  When I send the SMS, I just get a message send failure.

I also recently tested with my brother. I tried to send a SMS to his number (a Samsung android phone) and could not send. I had him send me a SMS first, which came in properly and linked to his contact with no issue (name showed up on my phone) and I was then able to reply and send SMS to him.

iMessage, internet, phone calls, etc. have not been affected and work fine.  Prior to the refresh, everything worked fine with SMS as well, but now is broken.

For solutions, I've tried:

- hard rebooting

- resetting network settings

- disabling LTE

- being on WiFi vs off WiFi

Anything else I can try?

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Re: Unable to send SMS unless contact has sent me SMS first - iPhone 6, fresh iOS 10 install
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

BackwardsCire All I do is message. If my text messaging didn’t work, I may as well have no phone. I understand how important this is to you. Have you tried restarting the imessage application?  This can be done by navigating into Settings>Messages> toggle the imessage switch off/on.

EdwardL_VZW

Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport

If my response answered your question please click the  Correct Answer  button under my response. This ensures others can benefit from our conversation. Thanks in advance for your help with this!!

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Re: Unable to send SMS unless contact has sent me SMS first - iPhone 6, fresh iOS 10 install
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

BackwardsCire All I do is message. If my text messaging didn’t work, I may as well have no phone. I understand how important this is to you. Have you tried restarting the imessage application?  This can be done by navigating into Settings>Messages> toggle the imessage switch off/on.

EdwardL_VZW

Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport

If my response answered your question please click the  Correct Answer  button under my response. This ensures others can benefit from our conversation. Thanks in advance for your help with this!!

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Re: Unable to send SMS unless contact has sent me SMS first - iPhone 6, fresh iOS 10 install
BackwardsCire
Newbie

I am almost embarrassed to admit that I didn't try that, but it worked! Thank you for that tip.

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