SMS Irregularities receiving/reading texts

[Steve757]

I've searched these forums with no luck finding an answer to this situation and would appreciate any advice. When I get a text message, sometimes it works fine. Other times, the entire header/footer is read along with the message buried in the middle of the stream of text. I have an android phone, my wife has the same phone, some friends also have android, some iphone. Some are on Verizon, others on AT&T. I can't seem to find a pattern. One day, I sent my wife a text and it worked fine. That same day, about 15 minutes later, it didn't, reading the long header/footer.

If anyone has fixed this problem, I'd love to hear how you did it.

Thanks in advance!

 

[DDotJ]

What type of phone do you have?
RCS messages are not reading properly on Tesla vehicles. I have the same issue.

 

[Steve757]

I have a One Plus 7 pro. I use the standard android texting app. What are rcs messages?

Appreciate the help .

 

[DDotJ]

I have a One Plus 7 pro. I use the standard android texting app. What are rcs messages?

Appreciate the help .

RCS is the updated messaging protocol that is replacing SMS, kind of like iMessage but standardized across Android (and hopefully iOS eventually). Google rolled it out a few months ago.

It looks like Tesla is not parsing these messages properly, since they have a different format. I believe that is what is causing the car to read a the header and footer of the message instead of filtering that out. Tesla has not fixed this issue, nut hopefully they are working on a fix.

If it really bothers you, you can disable RCS messaging by going into settings, chat features, and disabling chat features. Although you would lose out on a lot of the new features such as read receipts, high res images and video, and chat through wifi/data. You can tell which messages are RCS messages because the chat bubbles will be dark blue instead of light blue.

 

[Steve757]

Thank you for taking the time to explain, hopefully this can help others like us as well!

 

[DDotJ]

I just got 2020.8.1 on my Model 3 and it looks like Tesla may have fixed the issue with RCS messages. I'm able to receive RCS messages now without issue.

Hopefully it fixes it for you as well.

 

[ahehen]

My husband and I have the same phones, and he has a 2022 M3 and I just got a 2023 MY. We have the same software version. He doesn't have the header problems, but I do on every Android text I receive.

 

[danwale]

I have a 2022 M3 RWD and when I receive an RCS message it reads me all the headers and footers which is really annoying, I'm running the car firmware 2023.2.12 and I use a Google Pixel 4a running the latest firmware and patch available for it (Android 13 and currently the March Security Update).

 

[beachsideev]

My new m3 is doing this as well. Never saw it with my old m3. Very annoying.

 

[2003MarionSSS]

Anybody have any updates to this problem? Super annoying. I have a Google Pixel 7 Pro on the Verizon network and use the Verizon messaging app. Always reads the header and footer information. Has anybody tried using the Tesla app service function to report this problem?

 

[Jason D.]

Hey all. Here's the root issue: as of May 2023, Tesla software does not understand RCS messages. That's why instead of the car reading the text message, it reads the date/time/etc. effectively making it useless. This info is part of the header in the RCS message (think of it like an email).

Until Tesla supports RCS messages in their software, the only workaround is for the sender to turn off RCS messages to the phone number you as the Tesla driver are getting your messages on. This is done in the person's messaging app, usually in the details of the individual person's details.

For example, my wife uses Messages, Google's texting app on her Android phone. If she looks at our texting entries in the app, goes into Details then selects "Only send SMS and MMS messages" and toggles that on, it will force "old" style texting and not RCS. This 100% solved the problem for us.

 

[2003MarionSSS]

Hey all. Here's the root issue: as of May 2023, Tesla software does not understand RCS messages. That's why instead of the car reading the text message, it reads the date/time/etc. effectively making it useless. This info is part of the header in the RCS message (think of it like an email).

Until Tesla supports RCS messages in their software, the only workaround is for the sender to turn off RCS messages to the phone number you as the Tesla driver are getting your messages on. This is done in the person's messaging app, usually in the details of the individual person's details.

For example, my wife uses Messages, Google's texting app on her Android phone. If she looks at our texting entries in the app, goes into Details then selects "Only send SMS and MMS messages" and toggles that on, it will force "old" style texting and not RCS. This 100% solved the problem for us.

Interesting. Yesterday I submitted a service request to Tesla and they have been messaging me for more detail. I went out to the car and did some test messaging in a family group. Interestingly test messages that were done under wifi were fine. When on LTE I had two messages that showed the header/footer/code information along with the actual message. The car also read all the extraneous stuff. One was from an iPhone user and the other from a Google Pixel 6. BUT it seemed to be random - the rest of the messages from these two were fine. There were 8 people in the group and only two messages exhibited this behavior. All the rest of the messages displayed and readback fine. I'm not sure what conclusions can be drawn from this test. It was pretty brief. The tech I'm working with claims they can't find any information from others having this problem. I think this is likely incorrect. While I haven't seen a lot of folks complaining of this problem I know some do. Also it is interesting to me that a few months ago every single message I received would have this problem and now it is random. ALSO my wife does not have this problem on her brand new Samsung S23. Another variable is that I opted into FSD beta and she did not. Probably doesn't matter but........

 

[beachsideev]

I get the header too but I don't have fsd. Lately it has only been when my wife texts me (rcs) but I have gotten the header when an iphone user texted me in a group text. That hasn't happened in a while though.

 

[av8er]

I have a 21 M3 and a 23 MY and I don't get the headers problem on the M3 same firmware. It also does not matter which phone is used, both work fine on the M3 and both read the headers on the MY. Both Pixel phones. The only difference is that the M3 is Atom and the Mt is the Nvidia processors.

 

[WAMorris]

The problem is in fact RCS messaging. Someone said that the SENDER needs to turnoff RCS -- that is not true. I turned off RCS messaging in my Android Messaging app settings and that solved the problem for all messages. It is far from an ideal solution because RCS messaging is good for close contacts, and you can tell if your messages have been delivered or read. This would be an easy code fix for Tesla, if it had any urgency on their end.

 

[beachsideev]

I'm not sure that suggestion works for all instances that expose this bug. For instance, I get the extra header crap displayed for a group chat with iphone users, which doesn't use rcs.