# No text messaging?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-text-messaging/318583>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 25, 2005, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-text-messaging/318583 "2005-08-25T17:13:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![dauerbach](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c2a13f/32.png) [@dauerbach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dauerbach)\
**Post date:** [August 25, 2005, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-text-messaging/318583/1 "2005-08-25T17:13:38Z")

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So three of four cell phones on my cellular plan have no trouble sending or receiving a text message. On phone does. I took it in to the cellular place and they checked a bunch of things and said it should work. It still doesn’t. What can I check myself, and what should I do next?

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**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\
**Post date:** [August 25, 2005, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-text-messaging/318583/2 "2005-08-25T17:17:14Z")

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Just a WAG:

If you enter the messaging menu, you may have an area called something like SETUP.  
Is there a “SERVICE CENTER” option? Is there a number in there or is it blank? If it’s blank, look up this number in the same menu place on the other phones and see if it gets the thing to work.

My phone will spontaneously dump this number and I can’t text until I re-enter it. It happens frequently enough that I’ve saved the number in directory.