Help stop me from smashing my phone

So I got a new phone this winter, a T-Mobile Revvl V+ 5G, d it has a weird issue when texting that has really started to drive me nuts. Randomly it will take a random word in a text I'm sending and try and find a Google Maps location correlating to that word. It doesn't do it every text, and it'll go days where it doesn't do it at all and then some days it will try and do it on nearly every single text I send.

It seems like shutting the phone off and restarting it sometimes fixes the issue, but maybe that's just a placebo effect. 

I've had it before where it seems to get hung up on a certain phrasing of a text. Like, I'll type out a text, it'll generate a map, try typing the message out the exact same it'll do it, then shift the wording and phrasing around and it'll go through fine. 

I've tried going through settings and can't seem to find anything relevant to Google Maps and texts

I'm aware this is kind of a longshot but I'm at my wit's end and I'm ready to smash it with a sledgehammer.

Should also add that I've had issues where someone sends me a text and I can see the sample of the text in the menu where I select conversations, but then when I open up the conversation, it's not there. Again, comes and goes randomly, much less frequent than the map issue, and seems like restarting it might fix it, but its so intermittent that its hard to tell if it's a coincidence. And from day one, the Phone app freezes and crashes out any time that I attempt to open the call history.

Are you using the native T-mobile app, or Google Messages, or something else?

In reply to Mr_Asa :

I'm using the built-in SMS system.

I haven't found anything online about this, but it seems that T-mobile has a habit of interfering with what its users want to do.

I'd try installing Google Messages and using that if only to see if it actually changes anything.  If it does then I'd look at the factory installed apps from T-mobile and see if any of the settings of them do anything funky.

In reply to Mr_Asa :

I admittedly haven't talked to T-Mobile store employees about it because I honestly feel like I'll sound like a lunatic "My phone puts maps in the texts!"

NickD said:

In reply to Mr_Asa :

I admittedly haven't talked to T-Mobile store employees about it because I honestly feel like I'll sound like a lunatic "My phone puts maps in the texts!"

You're definitely not the only one with this issue and I bet they at the very least have some helpful advice and best case have a solution for you.

Stuff like this is why I really prefer "vanilla" Android phones like the Pixel.

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

Stuff like this is why I really prefer "vanilla" Android phones like the Pixel.

Before this I had LG phones and was really happy with them, very user-intuitive and worked great. Then LG went and quit the phone business, which I learned after I tried to warranty the last one for a charging port that wasn't working great, and the T-Mobile folks talked me into this phone, since it was in the same price range and very similar in a lot of regards.

Does it do it if you use Messenger as the SMS provider? 

I know everyone have the eVil that it is but I've found it very reliable. 

It won't be long before we all smash our phones.  

AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:

It won't be long before we all smash our phones.  

We should all be so lucky.  Clearly, the world would be a better place.

It'll never happen.

QuasiMofo (John Brown) said:

Does it do it if you use Messenger as the SMS provider? 

I know everyone have the eVil that it is but I've found it very reliable. 

I dont have the issue when using Facebook Messenger, but I've never used Messenger as the standard SMS provider.

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

Stuff like this is why I really prefer "vanilla" Android phones like the Pixel.

 

Yeah, years ago I got rid of my Samsung and went back to Pixel phones. 

I would smash it and get something else.     Reviews say it's a clunker.

I'm an old guy with a flip phone, so please don't laugh (or at least not too obviously), but what on earth does Renee mean when she says her phone "rotates even with rotate off"?

Stealthtercel said:

I'm an old guy with a flip phone, so please don't laugh (or at least not too obviously), but what on earth does Renee mean when she says her phone "rotates even with rotate off"?

Smartphone screens are rectangular, the normal mode of holding one has them taller than they are wide.  The phone uses a motion sensor to detect when you've turned it sideways and it redraws the image on the screen so that now it's wider than it is tall.  You can turn this feature off if you want, but apparently the config doesn't stick on this phone.

Got it. Thank you. That makes sense. And I can certainly see how it would be annoying to have this happen randomly.

In the settings of your texting app (or maybe in your phone's general settings), is there something for Smart Link Previews? You should be able to turn them off completely or set them just for web link Previews, and that should stop it. I think. 

1988RedT2 said:

AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:

It won't be long before we all smash our phones.  

We should all be so lucky.  Clearly, the world would be a better place.

It'll never happen.

It might happen.  Maybe.  One day.  If people ever comprehend what how their phones are being used against them, maybe. 

Russian Warship, Go Berkeley Yourself said:

I would smash it and get something else.     Reviews say it's a clunker.

Interesting reading how half the reviews say "This phone sucks, but damn the camera is good" and the other half say "On top of all the other issues, the camera can't take a non-blurry photo to save its life." I've always thought the camera was really good.

In reply to NickD :

Incredibly poor quality control.


Which is the answer to your issue, as well.

Not sure if using messenger will help.  It doesn't re-route the SMS to messenger, messenger waits for the SMS to come to your phone and usurps it and imports it to the messenger app.  It's just a display choice, but messenger doesn't receive the SMS.  The phone receives the SMS and messenger steals it to display it alongside your FB messages

FWIW, I had to replace my phone a few weeks back and when I asked the reps at Tmobile about the Revvl phones they said "you don't want that".  Ended up with a TCL that's OK so far, they said TCL bought a lot of the LG technology and I can see a couple things that look like it.

So, a follow-up to this, I had the day off and wanted to talk to T-Mobile about home internet. There's a whole other story there, but then I explained what was going on with my phone. Even showed screenshots of the map thing, and how the phone part of the phone doesn't work. Complete bewilderment from the employees. They tinkered with it and found some weird buried setting in Google Maps that might have fixed the map thing. But no amount of updates or tinkering could seem to fix the "Phone Has Stopped" message and crash when accessing contacts. Finally they went "You know what, this is still under warranty, we're just going to get you a new one." Great, because the charging port was getting screwy (USB Type C sucks and no one can convince me otherwise) and the aux port wasn't much better.