Carwings SMS always come from random numbers - WTF?

[FalconFour]

OK, I'm getting pretty fed up with this, and I wonder if anyone has a clue here.



Since September 27th (yes, I have a documented date when this started happening), I've had all my Carwings SMS notifications coming from a different 4-digit number EVERY SINGLE TIME. So, needless to say, my SMS threads list gets pretty much taken-over by Carwings. Fortunately, I don't text like a teenager in love, so I don't mind that much. But it certainly takes a toll on my sanity when my phone keeps acting like there are 40 people trying to get ahold of me.



Dafuq? This can't be a common thing, otherwise I'm sure there'd be a lot more torches and pitchforks visible in this forum...

 

[FalconFour]

Also just noticed how the text in the message changed, no longer saying I can reply STOP, HELP, etc... like some major change was made to Carwings around that time which triggered this strange behavior. :?

What's also amusing is that the numbers they come from can no longer be replied-to at all... the replies just get sent without an error response or anything, talking to thin air. Doesn't that violate some SMS-service agreement right off the bat anyway? Or maybe they just cheaped out and went with an SMS-by-email solution that works so painfully badly on T-Mobile that this kind of crap happens...

 

[davewill]

Dafuq? This can't be a common thing, otherwise I'm sure there'd be a lot more torches and pitchforks visible in this forum...

Why in the world wouldn't you simply delete the messages as soon as you read them? Then they wouldn't pile up like that.

 

[GeekEV]

Are you with AT&T? I've seen that behavior when using their email bridge ([email protected]). The might have switched to that to save money over a genuine texting service. The fact that there's an email address listed first in the message seems to support that.

 

[Stanton]

Unfortunately, Nissan decided to switch to the "email generated" SMS instead of Common Short Codes (CSC). Even worse, I don't get them (AT&T) unless my phone is actually ON; I always used to look for that "charging stopped" message when I got up in the morning (no more). There's an existing thread:

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=14477" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[FalconFour]

Dafuq? This can't be a common thing, otherwise I'm sure there'd be a lot more torches and pitchforks visible in this forum...

Why in the world wouldn't you simply delete the messages as soon as you read them? Then they wouldn't pile up like that.

Really? :evil: I don't know, maybe because my eyes and attention aren't glued to the phone 24/7 whenever my car finishes charging? I glance at my phone, it rolls off a message about the Leaf, that's all I need to know. I don't need to open the message. I don't even need to open the thread. Didn't you see that half of those messages are "unread"? In reality, I never even open those threads - 90% of them are still "unread" unless I tap through each one and get my unread count to go down. I still care about the alerts, but it's a passive thing - I don't actually have to DO anything whenever it happens. It's just peace of mind, since I've been left with a non-charged car more than once in the morning...

So, judging from that info and the other thread, sounds like Nissan decided to switch to a cheaped-out email-SMS bridge. Instead of improving Carwings with "better" service, they decided to cheap it out and give us even less of a reason to ever consider "paying" for this complete joke of a service. Sweet. Every time something changes, I regret being an "early adopter" more and more... :x

Also, I'm using T-Mobile (which I also entered on the site after switching from Sprint). I'd at least hope they'd check the behavior of each carrier they "support" using this new cheaped-out method, and use other methods when necessary to keep the thing working well for everyone. *grumble* at least, that's what Tesla would do. or anyone else that gives 2 craps about the quality of their service...

 

[ObiQuiet]

Also, I'm using T-Mobile

Something else is going on here - the bad behavior is not just dependent on Nissan's choice of SMS gateway, nor our cell provider, nor a combination of the two. Data point: I use T-Mobile and an older Android device, and it displays all messages from "[email protected]" conveniently under one grouping. While I don't have a "group by sender" option that I can find, but maybe your device does, and you can turn it on?

Otherwise, I'm not sure what other factor causes our different experiences...?

Carrier: T-Mobile
Device: Android 2.2.2
Behavior before the "short code" change: SMS messages are grouped under "[email protected]"
Behavior after the "short code" change: SMS messages are grouped under "[email protected]" (same as before)

 

[GeekEV]

I know Verizon will group email-bridge messages together and will even show the originating email as the phone number. AT&T (back when I had them) never did. I've not had T-Mobile so I can't confirm what they do.

 

[TomT]

It works fine with Sprint...

 

[z0ner]

Dafuq? This can't be a common thing, otherwise I'm sure there'd be a lot more torches and pitchforks visible in this forum...

Why in the world wouldn't you simply delete the messages as soon as you read them? Then they wouldn't pile up like that.

Really? :evil: I don't know, maybe because my eyes and attention aren't glued to the phone 24/7 whenever my car finishes charging? I glance at my phone, it rolls off a message about the Leaf, that's all I need to know. I don't need to open the message. I don't even need to open the thread. Didn't you see that half of those messages are "unread"? In reality, I never even open those threads - 90% of them are still "unread" unless I tap through each one and get my unread count to go down. I still care about the alerts, but it's a passive thing - I don't actually have to DO anything whenever it happens. It's just peace of mind, since I've been left with a non-charged car more than once in the morning...

It's 1000% annoying, for exactly the reasons FalconFour states above. I have AT&T and noticed the same starting in late September. If I want to find a particular thread I have to scroll through several junk unread Carwings threads when before it was coming from a single source. I'm leaning towards disabling the notifications and taking my chances.

 

[FalconFour]

Also, I'm using T-Mobile

Something else is going on here - the bad behavior is not just dependent on Nissan's choice of SMS gateway, nor our cell provider, nor a combination of the two. Data point: I use T-Mobile and an older Android device, and it displays all messages from "[email protected]" conveniently under one grouping. While I don't have a "group by sender" option that I can find, but maybe your device does, and you can turn it on?

Otherwise, I'm not sure what other factor causes our different experiences...?

Carrier: T-Mobile
Device: Android 2.2.2
Behavior before the "short code" change: SMS messages are grouped under "[email protected]"
Behavior after the "short code" change: SMS messages are grouped under "[email protected]" (same as before)

Interesting. I use a Nokia Windows phone (it was $100 without contract, how could I refuse this brave new platform?), so it might be sending the messages through with a tagged header that's supposed to be interpreted as the "sender" instead of the random 4-digit number.

Is anyone else using Windows phones in here? :?

As for me... T-Mobile with Windows Phone 8.0 "Amber" (OS version 8.0.10328.78) on a Nokia Lumia 521.
Before the "short code" change, SMS was coming through under my address book entry for Carwings - short code 79161.
After the change, it comes through as a random number, but "[email protected]" is in the header of each message.

 

[FalconFour]

Huehuehuehue... :lol:

I sent a message to [my 10-digit ph#]@tmomail.net (I Googled the SMS-by-email gateways), and it came to my phone nearly INSTANTLY, just like Carwings texts do when I unplug the car while charging. Guess what?

Text from random 4-digit number. "******@gmail.com / TEST / Test from random number."

Just like the Carwings emails. "Sender / subject / message body". So, definitely a network problem. But it's just a slap in the face that Nissan decided to stop using SMS short-code services. I wonder if there's a cell provider I can choose in the Carwings notification options that doesn't support the SMS-by-email gateway, and would force it to still use the short-code service...

 

[Stanton]

I wonder if there's a cell provider I can choose in the Carwings notification options that doesn't support the SMS-by-email gateway, and would force it to still use the short-code service...

Unfortunately, there's no way to force a vendor to use the CSC process: they either do or don't. However, I wish the carriers would be more consistent on such a common thing; there are several services that use the "email as SMS" system that I can't group with AT&T.

 

[davewill]

Dafuq? This can't be a common thing, otherwise I'm sure there'd be a lot more torches and pitchforks visible in this forum...

Why in the world wouldn't you simply delete the messages as soon as you read them? Then they wouldn't pile up like that.

Really? :evil: I don't know, maybe because my eyes and attention aren't glued to the phone 24/7 whenever my car finishes charging? ...

Must you be so literal? :roll: You can clean them out at the end of the day or week if that works better. I personally use EMail notifications, and YES, I have to delete them eventually. Funny that.

 

[rslatkin]

I'm using AT&T and I've been having the same problem. I changed my email address in Carwings to <phonenumber>@mms.att.net and set it to use email instead of texts for my alerts. Seems to work well so far and the messages come from [email protected].

 

[z0ner]

I'm using AT&T and I've been having the same problem. I changed my email address in Carwings to <phonenumber>@mms.att.net and set it to use email instead of texts for my alerts. Seems to work well so far and the messages come from [email protected].

Love the ingenuity. Thanks for a great solution.

 

[FalconFour]

Longer emails (like an email-SMS reply chain) come through as MMS for me too - with the proper "[email protected]" sender, no longer a random number. So I'm giving the email solution a try instead - maybe Nissan uses a longer message format for email that'll trigger it to go MMS instead of SMS each time. I've got unlimited everything, so who cares - T-Mobile's fault for screwing email Email<->SMS implementation.

Also figured out that the random number is so that the phone will reply to that number and get the reply sent back as an email to the recipient. Instead of just, you know, having the phone send an email (even via SMS which has been possible since the dawn of SMS), like I'd expect in 2013.

update: Well, it came through as [email protected] for once, but definitely NOT in any usable format. See:


The message was long enough to have an entire couple week's worth of notifications in that single message... 99% code and 3 pages of disclaimer text. Blah.

 

[FalconFour]

Maybe I should create a little web service, which will strip out the BS, make the message >160 characters (but less than a novel full of gibberish code and legalese), send it to your provider's text-email bridge service email, and you just enter the service's email address into your Carwings preferences to set it up. First, though, I need a fire under my butt and a way to get around Comcast's SMTP blocks. Or a server to use. :? *headdesk*