Can't send SMS with Wi-Fi calling enabled

Hi brad2k! We are here to look into you not able to send or receive while WiFi calling is enabled.

Please power cycle your device, reinsert your SIM Card to reset your device. We also recommend resetting your network settings to refresh your network, go to Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings.

Update your device software to the latest version to help fix your Message service, enough space, at least 80% battery and a Wi-Fi connection is needed for the update. Lastly, check out our helpful Troubleshoot And Resolve Tool to help fix message service. Go to Fix An Issue > Connection > Messaging and enter the correct device at Change Device. 

We hope this is helpful! Reach back to us if you have additional questions!

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Carlton, AT&T Community Specialist 

Also contact Google.    I used a variety of android devices on AT&T over the years, including two different pixels and never had trouble with Wi-Fi text messages.  

Thanks for the suggestions, but unfortunately these are all things I have already tried. As I mentioned, the problem has been going on for a very long time—nearly a year—and on multiple devices, so issues of software updates aren't relevant. There's something more nefarious going on since it happens all over the place and the problem is directly resolved by disabling Wi-Fi calling. SMS works fine otherwise.

Hi there @brad2k, let's offer a few recommendations to help your messages while connected to Wi-Fi!

You will use the chat features in messages to send & receive messages over Wi-Fi. To use this option, everyone in the messages' conversation must turn on chat features.

Check and see if you have this feature enabled:

I've experienced this as well.

Regardless of what device I'm on (which is always up-to-date), no matter how much I restart it, etc., AT&T SMS via WiFi Calling just does not work. I've had the issue happen on many lines, not even just one.

Even after porting out and back to AT&T, the issue still persists.

I'm fairly convinced it's a technical error with AT&T's WiFi Calling system that they've just not addressed, considering how many people have complained about the issue and its multi-month or even multi-year persistence.

I've been dealing with this since 2022, personally.

WiFi-C (WiFi Calling) works just fine for us. Even here in Kona, HI. iPhones, and no issues with MMS/ SMS to and from our Android friends either.

@OttoPylot, is there AT&T network coverage in the places you use WiFi Calling?

Yes. At home driving around there are spots that switch from 5G, 5G+, 5Ge, to LTE but that’s to be expected. Inside our home, it’s WiFi-C (WiFi Calling) all the time. If we drive across town to our friends house, our phones switch to WiFi-C automatically when they connect to their network. Both of us use AT&T. Public WiFi like in an airport or at Starbucks works as well if the cellular signal is too weak but is rarely needed.

For what it's worth, this issue plagued me for as long as I had both my Pixel 3 and 6. I switched to an iPhone 15, which is a regrettably annoying device that I'll switch off of as soon as RCS is implemented in iMessage, but I haven't had this issue ever since, which leads me to believe that that SMS over WiFi calling on Android is not well tested by AT&T and clearly there aren't any analytics in place to log failures. It's entirely possible the issue doesn't surface as often in iOS as most messages iMessage are not delivered over SMS.

We have no issues sending/receiving MMS messages to our Android friends via iMessage (which doesn’t go thru Apple servers) on any of our iPhones. iMessage, as expected works just fine with our Apple friends.