email-to-text does not work

[jrichard]

I just spent over an hour on chat with a Visible rep but my email-to-sms / mms does not work.  He eventually claimed it is a phone feature (like Facetime) and I need to contact Apple support to get it working.  I don't think so--but I'm no expert on this.  It seems to me this has to be a network problem...I'm guessing Visible/Verizon is simply forwards email to the phone in the form of sms or mms, and the way mine is setup is not working properly.

Specifics:  iPhone 14, sms/mms and data all working normally except if I text to (mynumber)@vztext.com, (mynumber)@vtext.com, (mynumber)@vzwpix.com, I do not receive the message on the phone.  It works the other way:  I can text to an email address no problems. 

The rep had me go through my phone settings repeatedly checking ->Messages->Send & Receive -> check mark next to my phone number and some other settings.  He had me reboot.  He told me he was looking up answers on Apple support.  All of this, of course, I'd already done myself.

Is there any help to get this working?  My recollection is it all worked correctly before my recent "upgrade" to the new Visible network.

[RyanBlakeIT]

Hi @jrichard - First off, you are spot on when you challenged the representative as this is done on the carrier side, which in our case is Visible.  It's not an issue with a phone feature outside of being able to use SMS/MMS, which if you can text and receive SMS messages (SMS, not iMessage) then that's not the issue.  I have an Android phone and I just tested with the same results.  Sending a text to an e-mail address works fine but replying to that text via e-mail does not work.  The e-mail format is XXXXXXXXXX [at] vzwpix.com starting with the area code.

If I were to guess, they blocked receiving e-mail to text because of the excessive abuse by scammers/spammers.  Prior to mid-February, I was getting tons of spam from e-mail addresses but now I don't receive any.  What I'm not sure of is if they can turn it back on for specific people or if it's a global change they made (assuming this is what happened).  If I find out, I'll be sure to update this thread.

[jrichard]

Thx for replying.  Interestingly, a bunch of email -to -texts to my phone (via mynumber(at)vzwpix.com and vztext.com) arrived this afternoon after being sent this morning.  Then I was able to successfully send some real-time as I tested this afternoon.  Now, however, it seems to not work again.

[nekit]

I have a Generator Monitor computer that is connected to my Wi-Fi network. When the power goes out it is supposed to send me a text via email to text with my number @vtext.com. It had worked for years. Over the past year it randomly works and then doesn’t work. When it doesn’t work I get an email back in my gmail account saying delivery is delayed. Sometimes a week later I get a bunch of texts all at once. Seems like a Visible/Verizon issue. 

[nekit]

I’ve been using email to text for years and over the past year it randomly works and doesn’t work. I get an email back from gmail saying delivery of the email message is delayed. Sometimes it eventually goes through and sometimes not. Seems to be a Visible/Verizon problem. 

[holewheat]

Any update here?

I am having this same issue. I have a notifier send a text to my phone when some conditions are met on my server. Used to receive a few a day but a few weeks ago they just flat out stopped occurring. This worked forever on AT&T but now seems to be broken on Visible.