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"SMS Mailbox is full" ever since I upgraded to iOS 5.

M

mtnDewFTW

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 26, 2009
903
174
San Francisco, CA
This is the first real problem I've encountered with iOS 5 - SMS text messages. I can't seem to receive any, and I keep getting the same error that my mailbox is full and I need to delete messages before I get some. I've deleted almost all of them, and I still can't get any texts. However, I get all my iMessages just fine. Every time someone texts me, I have to delete some texts, turn off my phone, and boot it up again. Then their message will show up in my inbox, however, when I reply, I get the same error over and over again. It's a horrible never ending cycle.

I've tried doing all sorts of research on this, but nothing came through. Has anyone else encountered this problem? If so, have you found any solutions?

P.S. I have a genius bar appointment set up for Tuesday the 8th. I think some screw is loose on my camera, so I'm also going to bring this up to them while I'm there, although I'm pretty sure they will blame AT&T for this.
 
I dont face this but my messages are being deleted automatically without notification eh! Whats wrong with Apple?
 
wow i didnt even know the sms "mailbox" could be full on the iphone. brings back old nokia memories
 
bushido said:
wow i didnt even know the sms "mailbox" could be full on the iphone. brings back old nokia memories
Click to expand...

IIRC, the original limit was 1,000 SMS messages when the iPhone first launched, subsequently bumped to 75,000.
 
kbmb said:
iOS5 changed the storage limit:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1498

Here's a thread on it:
http://att.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1248076&page=3

Basically.....you need to delete SMS messages on the phone. People are downloading Phoneview to archive messages.

-Kevin
Click to expand...

I've already done that. I even downloaded phone view and I like 66.5k messages left. I now that's close to their limit, but it's not that close. I called ATT this morning and got nowhere. The guy tried to do something but it didn't help. Oh well, I guess I'll find out tomorrow from Apple what's going on.

By the way, does anyone know if your text messages/iMessages are ever backed up to iCloud?
 
Oh man has anyone figured this issue out yet!!!???!!! It's been bothering me too for like 2 days already and I hate it so much!! I can't possibly understand why this is happening for the first time in 4 years of owning every single iPhone I just don't get it at all I hate having to keep deleting my old texts ugh
 
solidsnake32292 said:
Oh man has anyone figured this issue out yet!!!???!!! It's been bothering me too for like 2 days already and I hate it so much!! I can't possibly understand why this is happening for the first time in 4 years of owning every single iPhone I just don't get it at all I hate having to keep deleting my old texts ugh
Click to expand...

I'm asking out of curiosity,

with 15mb and 75,000 messages being the limit, why is it so important to keep so many messages?

I delete my conversations about twice a week.
 
Wirelessly posted (Verizon iPhone 4: Opera/9.80 (iPhone; Opera Mini/6.5.22931/26.1069; U; en) Presto/2.8.119 Version/10.54)

saving107 said:
solidsnake32292 said:
Oh man has anyone figured this issue out yet!!!???!!! It's been bothering me too for like 2 days already and I hate it so much!! I can't possibly understand why this is happening for the first time in 4 years of owning every single iPhone I just don't get it at all I hate having to keep deleting my old texts ugh
Click to expand...

I'm asking out of curiosity,

with 15mb and 75,000 messages being the limit, why is it so important to keep so many messages?

I delete my conversations about twice a week.
Click to expand...

Same here. Do you really need 66k text messages?
 
Went to the Apple store today and told them about the problem I was having. No one could pin point the problem, but since my iPhone also had a camera issue, they just swapped it out for a new one and now everything works. Although it's restored from new.
So my advice is, delete everything, restore your iPhone as new and your texts will be okay. I backed up everything through Phone View, so I didn't lose any texts that I can't go back to re-read. The SMS limit is 75k, but even though my texts were far below that, it still wouldn't work. I think it might be some iOS 5 bug. Hopefully they'll take off the stupid limit. this is an iPhone, I shouldn't ever have to delete texts unless I'm running out of memory on my phone.
 
I'm not sure why others are experiencing a problem.

I not only like to keep my SMS messages, but I keep count.

As of this morning my running total is;

2,3212,398. But that's just this past two years.

I have more saved on my 3GS.





It's just a joke...
 
Last edited:
"SMS Mailbox is Full"

Kinda crazy this issue is still out there with no good solution except to reset to factory settings. I used http://deciphertools.com/ to backup ALL voicemails and text messages to my computer before I did the factory reset but it is SUCH a pain to reorganize/redownload apps and insert passwords again.

Has anyone found any better solutions? I have a 32GB iPhone 5. There are lots of good reasons to back up conversations to our computer but I don't want them cleared off of my iPhone.

With a 13 year old this program might be handy to check her text messages without having her iPhone. :)
 
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