MMS Messages failing suddenly No settings changed

[Anonymous]

I have an O2 account and an oldish Blackberry Curve 8900

I set up a new O2 business monthly paid account and everything worked fine until this month Jan 2014 I went to send an MMS picture message and it fails to send - 10 seconds into attempting to send it fails with a red X and it simply refuses to send.

I checked this out with O2 and they tried switching off MMS and then Back on again.  They said to do a battery pull in 24 hours which I did but still it won't send.   All settings are still the same.

MMS is enabled on the phone.  It stopped sending when o2 refreshed my APN which they tried to do so that the browsing via tethering with an Android would work again as that stopped too.   Signal shows full strength.  EDGE is in upper case.  Everything points to it being set up to send but nothing happens.   I've now taken to ordering a new phone Samsung Galaxy in case this is something to do with the Blackberry being out of date.   I do hope this rigmarole isn't going to happen with the new phone.  Does anyone know how I can find out what is blocking the mms from sending or receiving?  I'd be mighty glad of some tips that will work, as it's very inconvenient having it stop without warning.

[MI5]

You don't actually need any data connection to send an SMS but I agree with edge been extremely slow and painful.....

[Anonymous]

We are talking mms here Rich

[MI5]

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@Anonymous wrote:
We are talking mms here Rich

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I was responding to this comment...

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@Anonymous wrote:

I know in theory we should be able to send pictures, video and sound on EDGE but in my experience I am lucky to even send an SMS when I'm connected to it!

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[Anonymous]

Oh sorry my apologies

[Anonymous]

You were absolutely right.  24 hrs on and it started working again.

So thanks for your sound advice.

My next problem is how to find out why my Blackberry will browse the web on wap.o2.co.uk

but the Nexus Tablet connecting to the Blackberry Modem won't go beyond connecting to the server - and I get no through connection to the internet when opening any of 3 browsers on the Nexus 7.   Very strange.

[Anonymous]

Not sure what settings there are on the Blackberry for 2G or 3G - it must be 3G as the phone browses ok and sends sms text without trouble. Picture was suitably sized down to smallest. Interesting to hear you say EDGE is orrible slow and pretty useless. I have just posted reply to original helper here to say that it is working today so it did need 24 hours, what a service! That's like the old days of Demon internet in the mid 1990s when a password took all day to propagate around the system. I see we haven't moved on much from those days! I haven't tried moving to another 3G zone but I do remember that mobile internet was lousy on some other networks due to over crowding. I'm here in South Devon where there is a bit more bandwidth on 3G. I have to say Three.com mifi works tons better than O2. I have one and it never lets me down like O2 does. O2 mobile data is playing silly sods because my blackberry will browse with its own browser but when I connect to its modem using my Nexus, it dials the AT string and connects but won't connect through to the internet- browsers and email programs say no connection. The usual mass of frustration that comes from trying to get on the internet when away from our home cable broadband. It's a nightmare.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Not sure what settings there are on the Blackberry for 2G or 3G - it must be 3G as the phone browses ok and sends sms text without trouble. Picture was suitably sized down to smallest. Interesting to hear you say EDGE is orrible slow and pretty useless. I have just posted reply to original helper here to say that it is working today so it did need 24 hours, what a service! That's like the old days of Demon internet in the mid 1990s when a password took all day to propagate around the system. I see we haven't moved on much from those days! I haven't tried moving to another 3G zone but I do remember that mobile internet was lousy on some other networks due to over crowding. I'm here in South Devon where there is a bit more bandwidth on 3G. I have to say Three.com mifi works tons better than O2. I have one and it never lets me down like O2 does. O2 mobile data is playing silly sods because my blackberry will browse with its own browser but when I connect to its modem using my Nexus, it dials the AT string and connects but won't connect through to the internet- browsers and email programs say no connection. The usual mass of frustration that comes from trying to get on the internet when away from our home cable broadband. It's a nightmare.

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Glad the MMS problem is resolved for you now. problems like that can have more than one solution, I was just providing another solution, especially knowing had bad an EDGE connection I can get at one of our sites at work!

But onto the Tethering to the Nexus...how are you actually connecting the Nexus to the 8900? Bluetooth?

Its possible O2 don't allow tethering, although I have nothing to base this on as I have never tried it. They certainly allow smartphones to be turned into mobile hotspots if they have the ability.

I'm not sure if its still about, but there used to be an app called Tetherberry which always helped people use their Blackberry's as a modem. You might want to have a look into it if its available.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your ongoing examination of this. Well I have more info now. I discovered when looking on a website that talks about the design of BlueVPN an app that runs on my nexus, that tethering to a Blackberry no longer provides a data connection in and out when using BlueVPN on Android 4.4.2 upgraded Tablets. So this seems to be the reason my Nexus 7 would connect to the Blackberry by opening a port on the Blackberry Modem through a Bluetooth Connection. So my faith in BlueVPN as a piece of software and in Bluetooth as a method of connection has been rather shattered. It used to work well enough last year when I was using the previous Jelly Bean O/S and I didn't use the connection again after the upgrade to 4.4.2 so I found out the hard way when I came back to just try out the Tethering Bluetooth connection and that's when I found it would connect to the BlackBerry modem but none of the 3 browsers would recognize that I was connected at all.
So I went back to turn off the bluetooth - shut down the VPN and open up my normal home WiFi which works a treat. This all tells me that I was very wise to get myself a Three.com Mifi dongle to provide me with a roaming access point to connect my Macbook and my Nexus to when I go away from the house.
I hope that answers your question. Helpers here have been very informative and helpful. I'm very impressed. So I'll say thank you at this point. I'll return and tell you if the new Samsung Galaxy S3 mini works as a hotspot on my O2 business account.

[Anonymous]

I did promise to return here to report on what happened with the Samsung Galaxy.

O2 very craftily upgraded my Blackberry to the Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini but re-started my 2 year Pay Monthly business contract which was about 10 months old.  Never mind I got the above phone for a very cheap price.

The Galaxy works like a charm and so no more tethering, no more Blue VPN, no more grindingly slow modem, the phone can have 3G data enabled at the touch of a switch so it can browse, do email, and send MMS.   Sms are well catered for and the phone is so good I can't leave it alone.  I haven't touched the Nexus 7 for weeks!

Sorry to be so long returning to conclude the story. 

Again I would thank all those who tried to solve the insoluble on the Nexus Blackberry old model combination of troubles.

Hopefully I won't need the forum here for a while if everything goes according to plan.

Regards and Thanks

ToppyOne