Strange but legitimate text messages

[MichaelB]

Anyone else get these strange text messages two nights ago (Nov 7)? https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/8/...es-day-syniverse-total-number-growth-carriers

Not spam. Apparently, a server that processes some text messages went down last February and was reactivated late Thursday night. It then sent the messages sitting on the server. They first said 168k messages, later changed to “higher” without specifying the number. I suspect a lot more, because I got two, which first seemed as if there were a family emergency. The time stamps were not the original times, so mine were stamped 2 am and 4 am.

The company at fault for the tens of thousands of delayed text messages that were sent out early Thursday morning says that more messages were delayed than it originally believed. Syniverse, the company in question, originally stated that 168,149 messages were delayed. It now says that the number was based on “preliminary data” and that further review shows the message total “is higher than initially reported.”

One lesson here is SMS text time stamps are when received, not sent, and not reliable indicators of anything.

 

[Venturer]

My former employee tried to call me yesterday. I was in a different room so I didn't hear phone. Later i picked up my phone and saw where he had called. I called him and ask what was up. He said he was returning my 3 am text message to "CALL ME ASAP". LOL I told him at 3 am I was sound asleep so he must have been dreaming it. Later that evening he sent me a link to a website explaing that this had happened to lots of folks. Kinda weird tho.

 

[MRG]

I heard about this but didn't receive any messages. Coming from an IT environment it's pretty comical. Most folks like to keep their operational screwups private.[emoji23]

I'd guess that a salesperson from BMC Patrol has already contacted the company.

 

[Alan]

A single server failed on Valentine’s Day 2019, holding onto messages that hadn’t yet been sent out. That server was only brought online again on November 7th, causing the stuck texts to finally be released.

Roses are red
Violets are blue
The date on this message
Is probably not true

 

[MichaelB]

Roses are red
Violets are blue
The date on this message
Is probably not true

Flowers are colorful
and very ornate
You got this text
Nine months too late

 

[GrayHare]

So they didn't know or fix the problem for 9 months, then they release all the pending texts at an early morning hour. Well at least they're consistent!

 

[Scrapr]

how many breakups have resulted from these messages being delayed

Honey, I know I was out of town but I texted you some emojis of flowers

 

[CaptTom]

I recently got a duplicate of a text I'd received hours or days (I forget) earlier. It wasn't months ago though, so maybe it's a different screw-up.

 

[NW-Bound]

I have seen a variable and long delay between the time a financial Web site says it is sending me a code for the 2-factor authentication and the time I receive it. It can be seconds, or several minutes. Who knows how many servers that SMS has to go through?


More than 20 years ago, back when there were Internet cafes, while in downtown Auckland, NZ, on a whim I went into one to send an email home.

About a week after the trip and arriving back home already, I received the email myself, which I forgot that I had CC'ed to myself. The email got stuck in the sender ISP server for that long. That is still not as bad as this SMS server boo boo.

 

[GravitySucks]

SMS was not designed to be a trusted reliable system. It was engineered to make use of unused bandwidth in the signaling channel. There is nothing to inform the sender the receiver ever got the message. The fact wireless companies made billions on it ( mostly from my teenage daughter in the early aughts.) is pretty amazing.

 

[Mr. Tightwad]

I got one.

 

[candrew]

how many breakups have resulted from these messages being delayed

I wonder how many unsuspecting hubbies were confronted by their DW's asking them, "honey, why did you receive a text from someone named "Sapphire"?