[m_ridzon]

I know this sub-forum is titled as "PC Repairs/Upgrades," but considering a lot of techie folks browse the forum, I figured I might be able to get some feedback on an iPhone question.

My wife and I have old iPhone 5C's, iOS 10.3.3 (we are "simpletons" in terms of our cell phone needs and don't typically race to get the latest when Apple releases one). Until about a month ago, they worked fine and then started acting up. The main issue seems to be with text messages (all other apps seem to behave okay). A larger percentage of messages seem to get lost in transit to/from us. Or sometimes they may lag for days until they actually transmit. It can be either inbound or outbound messages. I'm not very savvy with the inner workings on iPhones. But I know PCs can sometimes need the HDD cleaned with defragmentation or other system tools. Do iPhones need this type of cleaning as well? If so, how?

$400-500 on a newer used phones seems like extortion to me, which we are trying to avoid. So I'd like to nurse these along further if possible.

 

[Dave Sal]

I have no idea if this is related to your problem, but I have an ipod touch that I bought about a year ago. It is the 32GB model, and just yesterday I was trying to get some photos off of it onto the computer and got a message about the storage being full. It directed me to "settings", "general", and "storage" where it gave suggestions to save on space. I had no idea that all of the text messages, including attachments, were all still on there taking up space. I cleared up about 2GB just by clearing that out. Give it a try and see if that helps. If not, maybe try a factory reset and see if that helps.

 

[Druidia]

I know this sub-forum is titled as "PC Repairs/Upgrades," but considering a lot of techie folks browse the forum, I figured I might be able to get some feedback on an iPhone question.

My wife and I have old iPhone 5C's, iOS 10.3.3 (we are "simpletons" in terms of our cell phone needs and don't typically race to get the latest when Apple releases one). Until about a month ago, they worked fine and then started acting up. The main issue seems to be with text messages (all other apps seem to behave okay). A larger percentage of messages seem to get lost in transit to/from us. Or sometimes they may lag for days until they actually transmit. It can be either inbound or outbound messages. I'm not very savvy with the inner workings on iPhones. But I know PCs can sometimes need the HDD cleaned with defragmentation or other system tools. Do iPhones need this type of cleaning as well? If so, how?

$400-500 on a newer used phones seems like extortion to me, which we are trying to avoid. So I'd like to nurse these along further if possible.

I have two iPhone 4s and one 5s that are still in use. I don't have a problem with texts not being received or sent.

iPhones don't need defragging like HDDs do.

Delay in receiving SMS would be more a problem with your carrier than with the phone.

Which messages are delayed - both SMS and MMS? or just MMS? MMS requires cell data so if u have data turned off, u won't get MMS.

Images are sent as MMS. Group SMS is sent/received as MMS. Yes, text messages (no images) sent to more than 1 recipient are handled as MMS.

If you really want to rule out the phone being the problem, just back up your phone (contacts, calendar, notes etc. - iTunes or iCloud) then reset. You can get back your contacts etc by signing in to iCloud.

Make sure you transfer all photos to ur PC before u reset ur phone.

 

[user_12345a]

Can you put your sim card into another phone for testing?

iphone hardware is crappy imo and if it's a hardware problem you should just get rid of it and buy a used android.

 

[huesmann]

OP, what is your service provider?

Have you tried a hard reset?

 

[Missouri Bound]

Other than reset you have few options.
But I believe that phone will be 3G.....and that is going away in a couple of years.
You may want to bite the bullet and replace the phone(s) now.
And user_12345a is absolutely correct. iPhones are overrated.
I have always had better luck with android phones.

 

[m_ridzon]

I have no idea if this is related to your problem, but I have an ipod touch that I bought about a year ago. It is the 32GB model, and just yesterday I was trying to get some photos off of it onto the computer and got a message about the storage being full. It directed me to "settings", "general", and "storage" where it gave suggestions to save on space. I had no idea that all of the text messages, including attachments, were all still on there taking up space. I cleared up about 2GB just by clearing that out. Give it a try and see if that helps. If not, maybe try a factory reset and see if that helps.

Storage in the phone is slim, but I have run my phone down to bare bones (no storage left) many, many times and the thing still performed fine, except when taking pics, obviously.

Which messages are delayed - both SMS and MMS? or just MMS? MMS requires cell data so if u have data turned off, u won't get MMS.

Images are sent as MMS. Group SMS is sent/received as MMS. Yes, text messages (no images) sent to more than 1 recipient are handled as MMS

Both SMS and MMS are problematic. We have iPhone and Android friends who converse with us. The phones are set to use MMS and SMS. My wife even has problems receiving inbound phone calls though. There have been times recently where she was literally setting looking at her idle phone and suddenly 4 voicemails popped up from a caller who tried to ring through in the recent few minutes. But her phone never rang once. Even this weekend, we were travelling in the car side by side. She was trying to access the internet (cellular data). Her phone showed 1 bar service and patchy internet service. I picked mine up and had 3-4 bars service and no internet problems. It was bizarre.

If you really want to rule out the phone being the problem, just back up your phone (contacts, calendar, notes etc. - iTunes or iCloud) then reset. You can get back your contacts etc by signing in to iCloud.

Make sure you transfer all photos to ur PC before u reset ur phone.

Yes, I think we are going to try the factory reset. Is that where you go to Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings (or should I choose Erase All Content And Settings) ?

OP, what is your service provider?

AT&T is our provider. We have had no major problems with them for years.

Have you tried a hard reset?

We are going to back up the phone first. But yes, we are then going to reset the phone to factory settings.

Other than reset you have few options.
But I believe that phone will be 3G.....and that is going away in a couple of years.
You may want to bite the bullet and replace the phone(s) now.
And user_12345a is absolutely correct. iPhones are overrated.
I have always had better luck with android phones.

Thank you for your candid feedback, but our iPhones basically "do the job" except lately.
Yes, the iPhone 5c is 4G, so no issues there.

 

[m_ridzon]

Update: I just reset my wife's phone to factory settings. It was much easier than I anticipated. I first backed up to iCloud. After reset and during bootup, I logged into her iCloud and virtually everything was set back to the way it was. Very seamless. Her available storage space is much higher now. She now has roughly 3Gb (our phones are small and max space is only 5Gb) whereas she only had roughly 200Mb before. So that looks promising too. She is going to test it for a few days and see how things go. If things look good, I'll do mine also.

 

[m_ridzon]

Update again: My wife's phone has been running great. I reset my phone a few days after hers, and it's also been running great! I also have much more space now, than I did before. Although minor, I lost my music in the reset, and also had to reset the Hey Siri voice recognition. I just reconnected to iTunes to reload my music into the phone and still had ample space left in the phone (although Instagram storage consumption continues to grow endlessly (I just delete the app every month or so to clean out its consumption)). Those were the only two things I noted that didn't restore identically to what was in the phone before.

Bottom line, it looks like the factory reset did the trick and it was much less painful than anticipated! No need to fork out hundreds of dollars to upgrade! Thanks folks!

 

[m_ridzon]

If I were you, I wouldn't think about buying a new phone if it's expensive for you. You can quickly transfer all the information to the new one from the old phone. Or restore the old one and restore all the information and all the data on it.

My friend, thank you for the feedback. But this thread is several years old and very far into the rearview mirror. I've since made the necessary changes my service provider required.

 

[Oso954]

You will be forced to upgrade that old phone in the near future. The carriers are shutting down all of the 3g networks. The last dates I saw were all this year.
4g phones that are NOT 4G LTE will no longer have service. Your 5c is one of them.

Here is the latest from the FCC.

Plan Ahead for Phase Out of 3G Cellular Networks and Service

If your mobile phone is more than a few years old, you may need to upgrade your device before your mobile provider shuts down its 3G network, to avoid

www.fcc.gov

Note that other devices, such as certain medical devices, tablets, smart watches, vehicle SOS services, home security systems, and other connected products may be using 3G network services, and may be impacted as well.

 

[m_ridzon]

Folks, I don't know why this thread was resurrected. It's old news and very far into my rearview mirror. I have archived the old iPhone 5C and upgraded to an iPhone 11.