Monday, January 9, 2012

HTC Incredible S Android Update - SMS/Messages Problem

This morning I got a notification on my phone to upgrade to Android Version 2.3.5 and the new version of HTC Sense (3.0). That's great - and I'm really happy with the upgrade.

However, one annoying side-effect for me is I immediately started receiving SMS notifications which were blank (or just said "SMS message") and displayed the location I was in (for example my suburb or nearby suburbs). Each message came with the option to "save" or "cancel". If I selected 'cancel' it would just go away. If I select save, it appears in my text messages coming from the sender '50'.

The annoying part is that these messages just kept coming. As I move my phone around the house it would every minute or so get messages from the sender "50" and give me an annoying notification that I had to respond to.

It turns out that these messages appear to be "Cell Broadcast" messages. The cell broadcast forum states that:

Cell Broadcast (CB) is a mobile technology that allows messages (currently of up to 15 pages of up to 93 characters) to be broadcast to all mobile handsets and similar devices within a designated geographical area. The broadcast range can be varied, from a single cell to the entire network.


There's more information about it at Wikipedia - Cell Broadcast.

In any case, it seems that the update to Android 2.3.5 and HTC Sense 3.0 on the HTC phone has caused it to start notifying me of each Cell Broadcast messages coming from channel 50. (Presuming they didn't just start broadcasting in my area this morning at the exact time I did my update, at least!)

Solution: I decided I would leave Cell Broadcasts generally enabled on the phone, but simply disable this channel.

To do this, you go to Settings on your Android phone. Then select Call. In this menu you have the option to enable or disable "Cell broadcast". I left it enabled and clicked on the "Cell broadcast settings" option, further down the list. Here I found the broadcast channel causing the problems (50) and clicked on it to select "disable".

This fixed the problem and my phone is back to its normal, quiet self! I guess I could have disabled "Cell Broadcast" entirely, but, who knows? One day there may be a flood coming to my area and I'll be glad I left it on!

I couldn't find anything about this specific issue on the internet, so thought I'd record this for others who experience the same problem. I'd be interested in comments if others know more about this and there is a better way to handle it. Was it just me, or are others are also experiencing this problem?

27 comments:

Ruby Claire said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
devonrexcatz said...

Yes l had this problem since the upgrade last night. Thanks for sorting it out...l was going bonkers!

stace said...

Thanks soo much. It started happening to my Incredible S yesterday after the upgrade. It drove me batty. I think its a good idea to leave it on but only disable Channel 50. I know they can now inform people of disasters (bushfires etc) on mobiles, so this function seems important. This is the only site that tells me how to fix it. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU :))

Anonymous said...

Thank-you! Thank-you! Thank-you! This has been a problem on my wifes phone for days, and has been driving us both around the twist! It took me ages to find this solution in the net...
Thanks again....

Anonymous said...

Yes thank you very much for the help..most appreciated!

DMOwen100 said...

Have had the same problem for afew days now, this is the only web page that I've found to be of any help. Never would of thought of looking in the call settings. Thanks.You're a superstar :-D

Anonymous said...

Thanks, I had same problem when I updated this morning.

derp said...

Thank you! I started having this issue as well and I was sure I hand't changed anything other than the upgrade.

It's now fixed. You're a star!!

Anonymous said...

THanks very much had the same problem driving me nuts

Anonymous said...

Grateful to you for posting this.. Thankyou so so much!

Farzam said...

Thank you so much :)
That was horrible for me

Anonymous said...

Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Very helpful dude! Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this info.Glad to be rid of such an annoyance.Cheers.

Natasha said...

I had this same problem for over 4 months now, I went to the shop I got the phone from, they sent me to another one, who are their partners and supposedly specialize in HTC phones, they just didn't want to deal with it because it was something they never came across before. Thank you so much for the solution.

Pawan Waghalkar said...

I have HTC Desire S with 2.3.5 upgrade, I used to disable the cell broadcast completely but every time after the restart of phone the cell broadcast setting used to get enabled again, which was very annoying.

Thank you for the tip to disable the channel and not the cell broadcast all together.

Anonymous said...

Go bless You , Was going bunkers with
an average of 400 of these messages , i actually considered abandoning the number and network .
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU !!!!

Angela said...

THANKS!!!! I have had it going on for about 2 weeks or so... So annoying having to have my phone on silent 24/7... always missing phone calls and real messages. Drained my battery and my patience!!
Thanks again :)
However I clicked to disable to cell broadcast before fully reading your post. It asked me to 'delete channel list' I did this but now I have enabled the CB messaging again to see if it starts back up again or it i have to 'add' channel 50 to disable it manually

Anuj Agrawal said...

I have HTC One X and am experiencing a similar problem. I even tried the solution you gave but it doesnt work on m phone. I disable the cell broadcast option but just after a minute I see that it gets automatically enabled and I again start recieving those messages. I am running HTC software version 1.26, Sense 4.0 and ICS.

Anonymous said...

Thanks it seems to have worked
for me

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much! Have been trying to fix this for a while! So much less annoying now!

Anonymous said...

Brilliant - stopped me and my wife from testing the phones functionality sunken in a bucket of water or buried in the earth. Thank you

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much, simple and effective!

Unknown said...

I have HTC Desire X(android 4.1.1 HTC sense version 4+)and there is no option of cell broadcasting feature enable/disable, plz suggest.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Thank you. This is exactly my problem. Trying your fix now

Anonymous said...

I have HTC desire 500 and don't have this cell broadcast option what should I do?