Unable to Receive Group MMS Messaging iodéOS 7.4 - T-Mobile US

System and Apps
1

Hello iodé community!

I am a new iodéOS user and absolutely loving it so far. I recently installed iodéOS 7.4 on my Google Pixel 8 Pro and have everything working great except for one frustrating issue — I cannot receive group MMS messages.

**Device Information:**

- Device: Google Pixel 8 Pro (Husky)

- iodéOS Version: 7.4 (installed April 2026)

- Android Version: 16

- Carrier: T-Mobile US

- SMS App: Google Messages (RCS completely disabled)/Fossify messages

**The Issue:**

I can successfully SEND group MMS messages and my recipients receive them perfectly. However when anyone replies in the group chat I receive absolutely nothing — no notification, no download prompt, nothing at all.

One-to-one SMS and MMS messages work perfectly in both directions. The issue is specifically with receiving incoming group MMS messages.

The group chats are mixed — both iPhone and Android users.

**Troubleshooting I Have Already Tried:**

1. Disabled RCS completely via messages.google.com/disable-chat

2. Verified T-Mobile APN settings are correct:

3. Group messaging set to MMS in Google Messages advanced settings

4. Auto-download MMS enabled

5. Temporarily disabled iodé blocker completely — issue still persisted

6. Contacted T-Mobile support — they re-provisioned my line and escalated to their Dev team

7. Created brand new group chats from scratch — same issue

8. Tested with coworkers — they receive my messages but I get nothing back

**What I Have NOT Tried:**

- Switching to QKSMS as default SMS app

- Any logcat debugging

Has anyone else experienced this specific issue on T-Mobile US with iodéOS? Is there a known fix or workaround?

I have searched the forum and found the SMS/MMS/RCS thread but my issue seems different as it is not related to RCS at all — this appears to be a standard MMS receiving problem specific to group chats.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I really want to make iodéOS work as it is an incredible OS and I have invested a lot of time setting up my privacy stack including Nextcloud, Proton Mail and more.

Thank you in advance!

2

Posting for others my email reply to @DaddyDog earlier, just so all the information is here:

This is an occasional issue that people have, I can’t exactly straighten out what goes wrong. But I have personally seen the issue with prior group MMS messages that behaved similarly. Deleting all traces of that group seemed to clear it up, but not consistently. Still sometimes messages would come individually instead of to the group thread, replying to the group thread sometimes got sent just to the one individual, etc.

I finally got my extended family to use Signal (that was the only group misbehaving), and since then I have other newer group MMS messages that don’t have any of the issues and work fine (sending, receiving, etc). All groups also are mixed iPhone and Android users as you describe. I am also in the USA, with T-Mobile and Verizon SIMs (both through US Mobile, a reseller).

Note I haven’t ever used Google Messages on iodéOS. I would fully expect issues with it, however, as all the API calls etc are not supported by microG I think. Maybe just having it installed and set as default is still “hijacking” something with the messages database: it maybe doesn’t deliver them to the standard messages store (which is not part of any specific app, which is why the other messages apps will show the same messages).

I only use either the default messages app (Fossify) or QUIK (updated QKSMS - that one is abandoned) and both work fine now, but again the prior headache with one particular family group MMS chat were also with both of these.

But let’s also see what others have to say here. As the issue you describe isn’t specific to a Pixel or to iodéOS 7.4, I do suggest you remove those from your issue title so that other users aren’t deterred from replying here if they have other devices (with similar issues).

3

Okay so what I did is I turned off RCS on the google messages app and uninstalled it from my phone I’ll install quick and see if that works. Thank you

4

I convinced my wife to join my de-googling efforts, woohoo! I spent a fair bit of time getting her set up with her Pixel 6, Iode 7.4 as well, (we have Verizon) and everything works EXCEPT for receiving group MMS as described here. She does a ton of coordinating via group texts so this is a big bummer. I have not done extensive troubleshooting yet besides turning off RCS, but she is fairly frustrated with it, understandably so. I’ll try deleting google messages, downloading QUIK, and rebooting, then setting that as default. I’m hopeful this can get resolved or I’ll have to flash back to stock.

5

Yeah my wife joined me too and on had to revert her back to stock Android for that same reason. I’m going to figure it out and bring her back to the degoogle life style. I didn’t want to loose her hahaha

6

IodeOS user on T-Mobile here with a Pixel 6a. I too had the same issue for quite a while and I was not successfully able to deactivate RCS because I would never receive the six digit authentication code from google on my device running iodeOS. However, when I put my Sim card in another device running Android, I was able to receive the code back from google and deactivate RCS. Since then I have been able to receive group messages from iOS users. Hope this helps…

7

UPDATE - Some Progress Made with T-Mobile Support

Hello everyone,

I wanted to share an update on my situation as it may help others experiencing the same issue.

**What T-Mobile Did:**

I spent time on the phone with T-Mobile support and here is what we accomplished together:

1. T-Mobile went into the backend and disabled RCS on my number directly via messages.google.com/disable-chat on their end

2. They did some troubleshooting with me. And their test iPhone.

3. They sent a fresh text message to my number.

4. The new chat immediately recognized my number as SMS and NOT RCS

5. T-Mobile confirmed my APN settings are correct

6. I was successfully able to receive a picture MMS from their test iPhone :white_check_mark:

**The Remaining Issue:**

While 1-to-1 MMS is now working, group messaging between mixed iPhone and Android users is still not working. The iPhone in the group chat is still defaulting to RCS instead of MMS for the group thread, which is preventing proper group MMS delivery.

**My Current Theory:**

Even though RCS is now disabled the new group threads seem to still be trying to use RCS. Creating fresh group chats still does not work.

**My Planned Way Ahead:**

I am going to try the following approach:

1. Flash back to stock Android temporarily

2. Reflash iodéOS

3. Test group MMS with fresh group chats.

4. Get a new SIM card from TMobile. As they said I have an Old one.

I will post another update after I complete the reflash process. Thank you everyone for your help and suggestions.

DaddyDog

8

I know this is a big pain, but if you are able to help sort this out others will benefit. I am a bit “lucky” in that both my SIMs “just work :tm:” but at one point I did get a new T-Mobile network SIM from US Mobile in the process maybe a year ago (the Verizon one hasn’t been replaced in a long time).

Actually one more thing I will try to test is to see if I can get group MMS on the T-Mobile SIM (I only test group stuff between all my devices: it isn’t out there in the “real world” as I keep this sim just for testing). Meaning, I don’t have any any mixed iPhone / Android group MMS with this SIM at this point.

9

Hello! Did you test further? I am having similar problems!

I made changes like default to sending group texts as MMS and moving my SIM back to my old device to disable RCS and then moving it back to my iodé device. I get some group texts just fine including some with mixed iPhone and android users, and including a group chat I did not create, but my work group texts won’t come through!

10

Are you able to send messages to the group? I am not sure how many people are in the group, but one trial would be to delete the group entirely (if it exists) in your Messages app, then ask a coworker to send a message (so it would then cleanly create the group on your phone). Or you could delete it, manually make a new group and send to the chat. But this is a bit of chatter for others (but they may understand).

Probably a bit of an unacceptable option to others (that is our lot in life here in the USA), but any chance they would consider moving to Signal? You could promote the increased security that way, especially with business discussions maybe they would consider (again much more doable with 4 others than with 50 or 100 or 1000 :slight_smile: )

11

If the group does not exist on my new device, I guess I could skip deleting it and just make the new chats?

I just tried texting 3 people via MMS and my message appears in the conversation I was already having with the first person I selected. EDIT: I can toggle the view of the conversation to include all members instead of just the first.

This is a fairly serious issue because I don’t know what texts I am missing. For work I get added to different chats with different combinations of people.

As for Signal, trust me, if I could I would have everyone I know switch to Signal. It is so far and above better at messaging than any phone messaging service I’ve ever had. Unfortunately I don’t think it would go over well. I’m already stretching my professionalism by missing texts and testing fixes out with my clients (after successfully testing it with a family group chat with lower stakes).

12

Yes I do have an update, I had to wait that 30 days, for RCS to completely get disabled. I still miss some group texts but its not too much. I also struggled at work with professionalism and not answering texts i told others if you absolutely need an answer call me. Group text messages are better now after the 30 days but there’s my main work group chat doesn’t work at all. I think the issue is that others do not want to delete the old chat so it keeps getting remade. You can wait it out the 30 days and see what happens then.

13

Can you remind me what prior devices were used with your phone number (Android or iPhone)? If it was iPhone, then do you have an ability to login to your Apple account and remove the phone number like this: Deregister and Turn Off iMessage - Apple Support

But if previously on Android, I do appreciate @DaddyDog reporting back and with their ability to get some detailed testing done with T-Mobile, thanks for that.

So I think a working theory is that after de-registering a number with RCS it may take a while to “trickle down” to iPhone users. Meaning when they will send to a group it may be that the number / account is still seen as a RCS recipient?

So do we think that the sending phones have information on the recipient if it is able to receive as iMessage or RCS or instead just SMS / MMS? I would have thought that is all done at the carrier level: the iPhone user sends as normal (probably as iMessage), but then the carrier reports back it was delivered as RCS (Google Android) or SMS / MMS (de-Googled Android). Let’s go with that. But then likely for “efficiency” the iPhone keeps a local registry of “this number is iMessage” or “this number is RCS” or “this number is MMS / SMS” and then defaults to that next time.

So with this theory, the issue is at the iPhone level when they have existing conversations with the phone number formerly under iMessage or RCS but now only capable of MMS / SMS, and it takes “some time” to clear up the local registry on the iPhone.

I think I can corroborate @DaddyDog 's observation that “it gets cleared up in a month” with my own experience: I am quite confident I am not missing any group MMS at this point, and I am dynamically added to new group chats all the time (various layers of family and friends). But when first on iodé a daily chat with about 4 others was not coming through, or was getting mis-filed, or they could see it I couldn’t or I could send to 2 but not the other 2, etc.

I have a test in mind I may be able to do with an iPhone user and possibly breaking my test SIM (T-Mobile) messaging by using it with RCS on a fully Googled phone but it may give a good chance to at least see what others see regarding messaging issues. I’ll try to do that the next few days.

14

I’m also new to iodéOS (v.7.2 on Pixel 9a with T-Mobile network) and am experience the same unpredictability in receiving some group texts.

Repeating theories above:

Theory 1: iPhones are slow to recognize changes to RCS status. Time seems to improve the situation.

Theory 2: Some individual phones within a text group may remember your former RCS status and reply accordingly, thus fouling your ability to receive replies.

I’ve had two experiences that would seem to challenge these theories:

  1. A group chat with my brother’s Android and my work iPhone worked fine (i.e. send and receive) within minutes of disabling RCS nine days ago. However, I discovered two days ago that I now can no longer receive messages from that group. This would seem to disprove the idea that time fixes the issue.

  2. A group chat with two other Android phones has never worked properly on the new device. I can only send. (This text group existed before I moved my same cell number to the new iodeOS device.) This would seem to disprove the theory that iPhone is causing the problem.

Now yesterday, I received a message from T-Mobile stating that I have “a SIM or device that’s not compatible with the network.” The SIM was installed new by T-Mobile/US Cellular on July 6, so I have a hard time believing that the SIM is at fault. Has anyone else received this message?

Thanks.

15

Thanks for the time to write this up!

Before you manually disabled RCS, was it not working? Then it somewhat immediately worked, but now doesn’t receive again?

Good info! Maybe it is Google’d Android doing what I thought may be happening (caching an association with a number and RCS capability).

Now to a bit different angle of inquiry: what device / OS was your phone number previously associated with? Any possibility of an iMessage integration of your number? I think you can always send this iMessage deregister request regardless as a “safety”, did you try that? Deregister and Turn Off iMessage - Apple Support

To the T-Mobile SIM saying it is not compatible, I did need to change my T-Mobile (US Mobile in my case) SIM last year as they did some sort of network migration. I think behind the scenes that was enabling their 5G network for it(?).

16

Hi rik,

You asked:

Correct. Immediately after activating the new iode Pixel device (same phone number, new SIM), group messages no longer worked – or at least not on my test group, which consisted of my brother’s Android and my work iPhone as mentioned above. But after deactivating RCS that same day (via the link given later in this message), that group worked within minutes, only for me to discover that it had failed again (i.e. no longer allowed me to receive messages) about a week later.

The previous device associated with my number was an antiquated Samsung Galaxy S8 running Android v.9. So no iMessage integration.

I see why many of you have hopes for improvement after 30 days. At the following link (which I had used to disable RCS), it states, “You will be removed from all RCS group chats if RCS is not turned back on within 30 days.” I’m curious why Google removes you from the groups rather than simply downgrading them to SMS/MMS while preserving functionality.

Hopefully these groups can be recreated after 30 days and function both ways for all members via SMS or MMS. https://messages.google.com/disable-chat

Regarding that T-Mobile warning that my SIM or device was not compatible with their network: Today, the T-Mobile rep told me that lots of people have been getting that message. We both suspected it was part of the chaos of merging US Cellular with T-Mobile. Perhaps it was for peace of mind, but he gave me another new physical SIM anyway – despite my previous one having been installed new only on July 6!

(I’m not sure if this is relevant or not, but he tried unsuccessfully to set up an eSIM before resorting to another new physical SIM).

17

eSIM should work, BUT in my opinion to keep all the complication at bay “physical SIM > eSIM” in all cases is my prefererence :slight_smile:

Sorry I didn’t get to re-test with a family member with an iPhone. But I did hear from another family member with a “full fat Google Pixel” that they don’t get any messages from the iPhone user (and I have no issues). All 3 SIMs (me on iodéOS, iPhone user, Google’d Pixel user) in this case are US Mobile (Verizon network) SIMs. I am leaving on holidays tomorrow, so it may be a bit before I revisit testing. Sorry about that.

18

I’m sorry I thought I texted back. I used to have an Android, never Apple.

I’m not sure if the problem was resolved; I asked my work group to try texting me again I believe after the 30 days and it still didn’t work. I just gave up and decided that in the year 2026 with AI messing so much up, I am allowed some grace - I just try to tell everyone to text me individually if they don’t hear back.

19

Thank you for the reply, thanks also for your patience and willingness to work through some rough edges.

But I don’t know of any issues that most face after some time: as a former Google’d Android user did you do this step?

RCS deregister: https://messages.google.com/disable-chat

If that is done then I would hope that you are not missing messages, but I know you faced some mobile data issues as well: MMS (older tech group messages) relies on mobile data being active.