W.K. (of our SAGESofBG group) recently wrote for assistance:

“Hi Michael,

“Could you help me with my husband’s phone.

“We both have Android Moto phones. He cannot see certain texts, specifically pictures sent via SMS/MMS.

“I had similar problem but I was able to fix; don’t remember how now, maybe went to settings and message and “cleared cache” (this is what internet says to do) I tried this for his and still can’t see texted message; it shows “download” and I click and it just goes round and round.

“Can you give me some tips as to what I can try to resolve this, thanks so much.”

Some Jargon Explained

SMS stands for Short Message Service and is a component, or protocol to share text messages.

MMS stands for Multimedia Messaging Service. It allows SMS users to send multimedia (images, animated gif images, short videos, etc.) content.

The animated spinning wheel that goes round and round is called a “loading spinner” or a “throbber.” The spinning indicates you should wait for the process to complete. In your case it never stops and indicates your phone has a problem loading the image.

Android Troubleshooting Suggestions

Here are some suggestions. But remember this is a computer and it has a mind of its own at times!

1) MMS may not be activated if your husband cannot see images on his texts.

The MMS setting is located in your Android phone settings under “Mobile network.”

Check to make sure MMS is turned on. Mine is active in blue below (to the left).

Note: I use ‘dark mode’ since it is supposedly better to read.

2) If this does not solve the issue, another possibility is that there is a temporary problem with your messages app. You might check for updates.

Open Google Play store on you phone and tap on your icon in the top right corner.

Then tap on “Manage apps & device” and look for “Updates available.”

You can either tap “Update all” or “See details” if the app in question needs updating.

It might be a good idea to restart the cellphone and check to see if the problem is solved.

Note: You can also schedule automatic updates on the Google Play store app by:

1. Tap your profile icon at the top right.
2. Tap Settings, then Network Preferences.
3. Select an Auto-update apps option: A) Over any network or B) Over Wi-Fi only.

3. If the problem is not resolved you may try resetting your network settings or contacting the service provider.

4. The last suggestion is to uninstall and reinstall the app, reset to defaults or try another messaging app.

But if you uninstall and reinstall the or reset it to the default settings, you may lose your prior messages.

Some apps have a backup feature to save your messages before uninstalling or resetting the app. Check the app settings to see if this feature is available. Make sure that you back up your messages before making any changes.

Old messages will not be automatically transferred to the new app if you decide to try another service. You may be able to export the old messages and then import to the new app if both of the apps support this feature.

5. (Added) Later today W.K. found that her husband’s phone was using RCS or Rich Communication Services. This is a new protocol that eventually may replace SMS and MMS messaging. It offers a wider range of features such as group chats, audio, video, high-resolution images, real-time viewing, read receipts, etc. It can also be encrypted for added security.

On some apps you can disable RCS and its chat features and revert back to SMS/MMS messaging. I offered a suggestion on how to do so, but it did not work. W.K. was able to uncover the steps to change to SMS/MMS messaging for future text messages herself. The older images on texts still cannot be seen.

Always remember…

There is no thing as a stupid question!

The nearest thing is a question not asked! And we’re here to answer what’s on your mind! Or we’ll research the answer for you (or together as in this case).

Contact us for individual computer and internet training. We always offer a free 15-minute consultation (sometimes they last 1.5 hours!). Or use the form in the right sidebar.

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Michael