State of MMS on Librem 5

@hirohiro, this looks like to be in correlation:

Is there a way to have two connected APN’s in mobile settings at the same time?

My operator uses different ones for mobile data and mms. From the mobile settings, I can only choose one or the other. I have entered the mms settings in Chatty, but it doesn’t seem to handle mms unless I tick the APN for mms, which instead breaks cellular data.

dec 22 12:10:00 pureos mmsdtng[1326]: ../src/service.c:send_message_get_attachments() Content ID: IMG20221212120721-00001-00001.jpg, MIME Type: image/jpeg, File Path: /home/purism/.local/share/chatty/mms/2022-12-22T11:56:22+01001e41988e1c13b1416e1a1801cd01888ff1a0/IMG20221212120721-00001.jpg
dec 22 12:10:00 pureos chatty[1848]: Bearer Handler emitted an error, the APN set in mmsd's settings does not match any connected APNs
dec 22 12:11:37 pureos dbus-daemon[588]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.hostname1' unit='dbus-org.freedesktop.hostname1.service' requested by ':1.106' (uid=1000 pid=1848 comm="chatty --daemon ")
dec 22 12:11:53 pureos chatty[1848]: Bearer Handler emitted an error, the APN set in mmsd's settings does not match any connected APNs

No, I don’t believe so. I’m not an expert, just have done a lot of reading on the MMS stack for my own issue.
This is the issue tracking the problem from what I can tell: https://gitlab.com/kop316/mmsd/-/issues/5

I think it’s an oversight. Those two should not have to match.

Unless I’m mistaken, I think official MMS support was added today. Can anyone confirm?

P.S. To test it myself, I would have to switch to a different SIM and look up the carrier’s MMS APN settings. May do that later.

My situation:

Network: T-Mobile
Network Mode: 3G, 4G (Preferred)
APN: fast.t-mobile.com
MMSC: http://mms.msg.eng.t-mobile.com/mms/wapenc
(APN/MMSC settings match in both the Mobile Settings and in the Chatty preferences)
Using Chatty 0.7.0.rc5
Using Byzantium: Linux pureos 6.1.0-1-librem5

As of today:

  1. I can receive images and text from others in a group MMS but if I reply with text only, my reply is NOT received.
  2. Images that I send individually or to a group are NOT received.
  3. SMS messages I send to myself are NOT received.
  4. SMS messages I send to a single individual ARE received.

Do I need a new carrier?
Do these SMS/MMS messaging functions all work on AweSIM?

I had the same issue. Check out this post:


Assuming you are having the same issue…
Your mmsdtng version is older then 1.13 and has a known issue with T-Mobile.
Try ‘mmsdtng --version’ at the command line. What does it report?

It returns: 1.13.0

How about ‘/usr/bin/mmsdtng --version’. Just wondering if you have two installed like I did in the post where I said, “Seems to work for me. One point of confusion”

It still returns: 1.13.0

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Here’s what installed for me today:

Upgrade: chatty:arm64 (0.7.0~rc3-1pureos1, 0.7.0~rc5-1pureos1), mmsd-tng:arm64 (1.12.1-1pureos2, 1.13.0-0pureos1)

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To complete my story, SMS and MMS for me were unpredictable. Sometimes I could receive but not send, sometimes send but not receive. I contacted Purism support, not really getting anywhere useful. I decided to change out the BM818-A1 card with a new one (the original was from one of the first L5USA models), and this fixed all the problems I was having. In addition, voice quality seems improved over the original card. However, I don’t know if the original card’s problem was of hardware or firmware origin.

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Hello,
Just received my librem 5, and MMS are working.
It takes me time to understand that my isp put me in IPV6, and that mms proxy and port were not more used, and that APN for mms should be the same as the current APN used in global Mobile settings (thanks journalctl -f | grep mms)…
Once this problem solved, I was able to receive MMS. Three little problems :

  • I tried sending some photos, but resize within chatty produce a 1.1MB file and this seems a problem for the receiver. Where can I specify the max mms size ? Sending little files works. (for example, if I send back a 550kb photo that the sender sent me, it works)

  • when the sender send me a mms, it comes into a discussion “sender name and +336myphonenumber” (not very convenient)

  • I don’t know how, but sometimes in chatty, it displays the image. Sometimes it displays a link to ~/.local/chatty/mms/theimage (and I need to click).

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I tried sending some photos, but resize within chatty produce a 1.1MB file and this seems a problem for the receiver. Where can I specify the max mms size ?

Can you be specific on what the issue is? I have never heard of this being a prolem before. You can edit the value in mmsd-tng via the settings file, but I strongly discourage it

when the sender send me a mms, it comes into a discussion “sender name and +336myphonenumber” (not very convenient)

That’s a known problem. It actually wasn’t filed so I filed it: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/chatty/-/issues/777

I don’t know how, but sometimes in chatty, it displays the image. Sometimes it displays a link to ~/.local/chatty/mms/theimage (and I need to click).

That is a known thing.

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By way of example though, on the iPhone when I email a photo I get a dialog on the phone:

This message is 6.6 MB. You can reduce message size by scaling the image to one of the sizes below.

Small (98.5 KB)
Medium (230 KB)
Large (1.9 MB)
Actual Size (6.6 MB)

(For the record, those are not actual actual sizes but sizes after Base64 encoding.)

I didn’t check whether I get the same dialog when sending the image as MMS.

It doesn’t seem unreasonable to want that control, albeit that this is asked on every send (as far as I know), rather than just configured once by the user.

If nothing else, on slow connections, sending a large image ties up the sender’s phone and ties up the receiver’s phone. So if I want to send a smaller image, why not?

In some niche cases there may also be Intellectual Property reasons to want to send a lower resolution copy.

So

Why? Will it cause a problem?

To fix this I added in the section [Settings] of the file ~/.mms/modemmanager/mms

TotalMaxAttachmentSize=600000

Replace 600000 with the appropriate value for your provider

By way of example though, …

This scenario describes a UI flow you desire, instead of

and this seems a problem for the receiver. […] It doesn’t seem unreasonable to want that control, albeit that this is asked on every send (as far as I know), rather than just configured once by the user.

I have never used an iPhone before, so I have never encountered this UI flow. While not unreasonable, no one has ever considered it. I would consider filing a feature request in Chatty for it (or even better, help to create it!).

Why? Will it cause a problem?

Carriers have a limit for MMS baked in, and I simply don’t know what happens if you exceed it. They may silently drop it, reject it, I don’t know. The response above me shows how to change it.

I don’t know how, but sometimes in chatty, it displays the image. Sometimes it displays a link to ~/.local/chatty/mms/theimage (and I need to click).

As long as the file is identified as a file with some image mime type, it will be shown as an image.

Currently it is shown as a link if the message contains something other than an image (like message text, subject, or more than 1 attachments). This has been improved to show images even in the presence of other files/message text, which will be included in the next chatty release.

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Your 600k is a really good guess, up to this link (in french) . It seems the main french telcos (bouygues, orange, SFR) fixed a 600ko limit between them for MMS size.

It is working, many thanks !

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And T-Mobile and AT&T should handle 1MB in the US, and i imagine Canada and Mexico. To be compatible you almost have to pick the lowest number, but then if someone sends a larger file your carrier supports you may not get it - so chicken and egg. The setting shouldnt really exist and it should be negotiated between carriers.

https://support.bandwidth.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014235473-What-Is-the-Size-Limit-for-MMS-Files-Text-Messages-

I tried 500K to be on the safe side but for me made no difference.