At least that is what I think the problem is. I sometimes do not receive text messages. It seems to be if someone initiates a text with me. If I send a text to them and they respond it does seem to work.
I do not receive group text at all though.
from what I understand it might be because the RCS protocol is not supported on the Brax3.
This might be the deal beaker as being able to communicate with people is a requirement for me.
I searched all day and did not find an answer.
This may be the end of the line for me. There are some important communications that come to me via group text. I guess google wins in the end… sad.
I’ll probebly keep the Brax, as a toy to fiddle with but, I will have to go back to a google phone now.
Honestly, I don’t think you are going to see any RCS messaging stuff resolved in a de-googled phone… anytime soon.
Just FYI, I understand why you’re asking… and it would be nice to see… it’s just not plausible at this moment.
Yes. I came to the same conclusion.
It was quite soul crushing that such a seemingly trivial thing would end this journey.
So, IMO, Brax3 has not been transparent… people paid $$ for this device… it sucks.
Myself and my favorite nemesis @LostEther made some comments on the devices function way back… we kinda got shuffled to the rear.
I hope the ubports come to fruition, but I’m not feeling it.
It’s funny how Rob Braxman has totally disappeared off the whole Brax3 conversations in his videos.
I now have two paperweights…
I don’t think the phone sucks. I did a lot of research as to what to expect from a $350 de-googled phone. I figured it would be, well… pretty much exactly what I got with the Brax3, EXCEPT…
I did not know that text messaging was not going to fully work. Had I know that, I would not have gone down this road.
Now, I have a new question…
Can I re-google this phone and get the full text messaging functionality? I would rather do that then buy another new google phone.
In my experience SMS is more reliable than RCS. RCS is supposed to be a better service, but for who? The developer or user?
It certainly isn’t that I like RCS, It’s that I have to have it. I have family, friends and business that send me group text.
For two weeks now I didn’t even realize that I was not getting those text.
If the only way for me to receive these group text is that I have to go back to google, than I have to do that.
Telling everyone that they have to repeat every thing back to me personally is not an option.
Now If I can put the google services into the Brax3 that I will do that. Otherwise I will go buy a new google phone.
To be clear, I am not mad at Brax. I am glad I did something to support the movement. I dream of a day when consumers can regain their freedom. I hope my purchase can further that goal.
I will probebly try and put linux on the brax and use it to paly around with, but not as a phone.
Are you using a Gnu-Linux distro now? I suggest that you spend some time reading about it and learning about a whole new world where YOU are in control. But you can not be in control until you focus on educating yourself on the details of you distribution. Most users go through a period of distro hopping until they find the distribution they feel most comfortable.. There are literally over 300 actively developed Linux distributions. Visit distrowatch dot com www.distrowatch.com to read about or try the top 100 most popular each week. Feel free to start asking questions and you will learn which ones are your favorite! You will be familiar with the ones you try. I suggest Gnu Linux Mint-Mate’ for Ubuntu based distros or Linux Manjaro for Arch based distros. Have fun!!
So i had the same issue with not receiving texts etc. I had to use my old normie phone and sign into my google account and turn off rcs chats and sms and mms works perfect from people with rcs or ichat and everything in between.
I think the real issue is not about personalities but about the needs of the market and who is in the market. My needs are an outlier of this market. Why? because I have modest needs compared to power “power” smartphone users. I have has mobile phones before there was cellular phones and in those days as well as the AMPS days ( up until 1997 in some areas) there never was an real security or privacy. Anyone with an old TV that had a UHF knob on it could easily listen in on conversations ( both sides) for many miles of travel. From that time, I knew I was Zucked before there was Zuck. The consequence is that I am very aware and concerned about my communication risks. At one time I carried a bag of cellphones so I could communmciate anywhere I was located whole traveling. Today I use pages and as few phones as I need. Many times no phones. But why with "encrypted communications? My experience and knowledge of what I have observed is what informs my position. I really can’t say more than this. In my work confidentiality is a paramount requirement. The BraX3 phone fits my needs perfectly. It give me the level of privacy that I need for my work. I do not need a lot of “Apps” and I do not carry phones with me like they are tied to me by an umbilical cord. You want to talk, signal my pager. Pagers, set up my way, NEVER give out their location to anyone who is curious except for short distance Local Oscillator emissions from the receiver. Not a concern.
For those who are curious, I use Low Band VHF pagers that are pages over a wide area regions of states. I also prefer voice pagers over digital pagers. I always know my listening to the voice who is trying to reach me. It is all about stress codes, super simple, and very difficult to emulate, almost impossible by using computers.
Google has a stranglehold on RCS. If you want RCS, you have to get it through Google. And they set the rules. Yes, it SHOULD be provided by the carriers, but it’s just so hard for them to provide basic features like, calling and messaging, don’t ya know?
Anyway, if you switch to a phone without RCS, before doing so you need to disable both iMessage (if on apple) AND RCS messaging before you do so. If you don’t, then you may need to wait up to a month before things start working the way they should (even if you go to Google’s site to unregister from rcs…it should work but sometimes it just doesn’t; on the other hand Apple seems pretty good about deregistering you from iMessage if you request).
Once you’re completely unregistered from iMessage and RCS, next step is to ensure mms is setup correctly (you need to set an apn for that, it’s another thing that “should just work” but sometimes doesn’t). Try sending a text with a picture to someone, and then receive a text with a picture (very handy if you have a second phone to test this all with). If it works, then group texts may just work as before, congrats! But they also might not, especially if everyone in the chat was using RCS. If that’s the case, you might have to resort to setting up a new group chat. Just add all the people as before and send a message. Unfortunately, on their end they will see two group chats, an old one and a new one. If it’s a small group chat and they can all delete the old one…you’re all done. If it’s a large group chat, sorry. There’s no reason they can’t all join a new group chat but inertia will likely stop them from doing so, at least until more people have the same issue.
Are you saying that if I successfully unregistered RCS with google, and If I can receive a text with a picture then I will be able to get the group text through MMS?
I thought group was something that was exclusive to RCS.
If that works then I’m golden.
I found this link that is supposed to disable RCS: https://messages.google.com/disable-chat
Group texts have been a thing long before RCS.
There’s basically two ways old-school group messages work. They can be sent as a single mms, or multiple sms messages (the latter means if you send a message to a group with 10 members, that message gets sent 10 times). I am simplifying a bit here, but you get the idea.
First step is to make sure RCS is completely disabled. Yes, Google does have a link, but I’ve found it often doesn’t work, and you end up waiting the 30-day timeout period before your number is unprovisioned for rcs; personally I would pop the sim back in my old phone, make sure rcs was enabled, THEN disable it. Yes, that link is supposed to work…but doesn’t always (if you’ve been using your new phone for 2+ weeks, I’d probably just use the link and wait it out…it’ll timeout after about a month anyways).
Since group messaging can use sms or mms, it’s best to make sure both can work. Sms is easy…mms can be tricky, but if you can send/receive photos via text, I can virtually guarantee mms is working. And if there’s someone, anyone, in the group that also uses sms/mms, then you should be able to send/receive messages in the group once your number is no longer associated with rcs/imessage. However, if the group is solely rcs or solely imessage…then you may need to create a new group with the same people. Basically there would be one group chat that’s rcs, one that’s sms. There will be issues with people sending to the “old” chat instead of the new, so you’ll likely not get messages from them sporadically for quite a while. It’s a mess, I know.
Ok, you tough me something here.
I can send and receive text with photos.
I used the link and can wait a few more weeks.
I think getting people to recreate the groups is acceptable.
Fingers crossed this works out.
Thanks for the info @josetann , I’ll report back when I find out if this works.
RCS will be supported when microG starts supporting it.
They’ve opened a 10k$ bounty for a dev to get it done: [BOUNTY] RCS Support [10000$] · Issue #2994 · microg/GmsCore · GitHub
When done, we can easily enable rcs by just updating microg.
Nice. So essentially RCS exactly the same as with iMessage for iPhone users…
…you need to decouple your phone number/ID from the relevant Walled Garden Messaging System so the original generic default messaging functionality like MMS can actually work freely as intended.
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