Corrupted PNG screenshots when sent across Cricket MMS?

  • 15 December 2020
  • 13 replies
  • 310 views
W
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Is anyone having a problem where screenshots sent over Cricket MMS are arriving blank/corrupted? My wife and I are having no problem sending/viewing these over RCS messaging, but if we switch to MMS mode, or are sending to someone not on RCS, the image doesn't go through intact - it depends on the receiving phone what it ends up looking like, but usually either a blank image of the appropriate size, or an error placeholder. We did a little diagnosis, and it seems the image is arriving, but arriving corrupted. We're not having problems sending other images, like photos, at all.

(Apologies for not being more specific, but I already posted this once with more detail, and the forum marked it as spam. If this gets through, I can show some images of what the corruption looks like.)

13 replies

W
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Here's a visual example of the corruption - we sent a screenshot over MMS to a second phone (where it appeared blank in Google Messages), saved the image there, then sent it back using Google Photos. While our phones still weren't able to make anything of the image - it appears like a blank image of the correct width & height - Windows 10's photos app is able to make something of it, and this is a screenshot of how it appears there. You can see some of the image data's intact. Maybe the appearance is a hint as to what's corrupting it. Other photos we "round tripped" like this and then compared to the originals had an identical similar pattern of corruption - the top portion of the image is OK, and then it's garbage past that.

Screenshot 2020-12-15 115217.png

W
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Some additional observations from a sent screenshot image and the received, corrupted image: the basic details of the images are the same, listed below for reference.

The original file is 520,132 bytes. The corrupted version 456,058 bytes. A binary diff tool shows the first ~92,000 bytes are identical - that seems like quite a high percentage, much more than just the standard PNG start of file structure - and then after that, a random mess - and the last 12 bytes are identical (including the PNG "IEND" end of file marker.)

File Type: PNG
File Type Extension png
MIME Type image/png
Image Width 1080
Image Height 2340
Bit Depth 8
Color Type RGB
Compression Deflate/Inflate
Filter Adaptive
Interlace Noninterlaced
SRGB Rendering Perceptual
Gamma 2.2
Pixels Per Unit X 3779
Pixels Per Unit Y 3779
Pixel Units meters

W
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This is still an issue as of Feb 1 2021. I worked with chat support in late December (they did a network reset, this did not fix it) and there was supposed to be an advanced support return call, but they never did call me. I called in again Jan 14, and the agent was unable to do anything useful wrt. the advanced support support ID they’d given me - could not connect me to someone who might be able to do diagnosis beyond network reset. The next day I got voicemail I believe was from advanced support, given the caller ID, but it was completely garbled audio, not a clue what they were trying to tell me, and they didn’t call back.

This may be very important to people who are also having trouble, and in diagnosis: it appears this also affects JPG photos sent over MMS. Here’s a series of messages I sent to someone else over MMS over a series of minutes/days - I got a screenshot back of the result. Curiously the corruption varies with each photo - it’s exactly the same photo file sent each time, I promise - but the corruption pattern is recognizable: a sliver at the top of the image is OK (just like with the PNG, if your image app is wiling to display it at all), but the rest of the image is tinted to some degree, sometimes very little, and sometimes seriously:

 

W
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I’d like to add also the phones in question where sending’s a problem are Google Pixel 4a. We have other models on our account, and those send images over MMS without this problem, even images of similar dimensions/file size. I suspect there’s some issue in the image resizing system used for MMS specific to Pixel 4a on a Cricket line, although this is really bizarre and if left undiagnosed I’d not be surprised if it affects other models.

W
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This is still an issue as of February 18th 2021.

W
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Still seeing this issue on Cricket’s network with two devices as of March 1st 2021. Expectation is that someone from Cricket’s advanced technical support reach out here to get this fixed - it’s been way to long for a bug like this to be hanging out on the network.
 


 

 

jdor_Cricket
Userlevel 4
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Hi @waded 

We’re sorry to hear you are having issues with MMS on the Pixel 4a for so long now. We see that you mentioned you worked with our support team, and it sounds like a case was created for this. We would love to follow up and see how we can get this resolved for you. Please reach out to our support team on Facebook (m.me/cricketwireless) or Twitter (@cricketsupport) with your wireless number, name on the account, and case # (if available) so that we can review further.

W
Badge +2

Hi @waded 

We’re sorry to hear you are having issues with MMS on the Pixel 4a for so long now. We see that you mentioned you worked with our support team, and it sounds like a case was created for this. We would love to follow up and see how we can get this resolved for you. Please reach out to our support team on Facebook (m.me/cricketwireless) or Twitter (@cricketsupport) with your wireless number, name on the account, and case # (if available) so that we can review further.

The advanced support case number for others to reference if needed is 201221-1648883. I’ll touch base with  @cricketsupport also.

W
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Good news! This was fixed sometime between mid-March and early April 2021 - just after my prior comment here. Photos & screenshots started arriving over MMS/SMS at destination without corruption, tested thoroughly on April 4, and it’s still working fine as of June 2021. Thanks for finally getting this fixed.

W
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This started happening again, November 2021 or so, and hasn’t let up as of December 13 2021. I MMS’d my Google Voice number a set of screenshots and photos today to confirm the behavior after my brother told me the pictures I was sending him were coming up blank, and Google Voice showed this same corruption pattern is what was actually received.

And as before, sending over RCS does not have this issue - it’s specific to MMS.

It appears whatever was fixed before has regressed.

W
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Still an issue to this date. Because this is causing problems for business use of our lines, we'll likely be leaving Cricket.

W
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For what it’s worth, here’s a couple examples of other folks complaining about the same issue with Pixel 4a on AT&T infrastructure (i.e. Cricket’s)

https://www.reddit.com/r/ATT/comments/ldgjan/photos_getting_corrupted_in_text_messages/ (this one correlates with when I originally reported the problem here)

https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/pai7oi/google_pixel_4a_images_sent_in_sms_get_corrupted/ (this one’s somewhat newer, prior to when I first noticed the issue recurring. I replied here to ID the network provider.)

W
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We ended up canceling Cricket. On Google Fi we’re having no issues like this with the very same devices - clearly a Cricket/AT&T issue as I explained.

I would also like to note that prior to canceling, I think we narrowed the issue to a specific tower (unfortunately, the one next to our home) using CellMapper to identify current tower in our testing. When sent through this tower, image attached would tend to be corrupted at destination, and when sending through other towers, I don’t think we ever saw the corruption. The tower, Cricket Support, CellMapper identifies as “eNB 431159”, the AT&T tower on N. Glenwood Street in Garden City, Idaho. I noticed that in another report someone else said their provider blamed a specific tower too (but not necessarily 431159.) A tower we tested with several times without seeing this symptom was eNB 432017. I can also confirm we tested with Wi-Fi completely off, and in situations where we were far from home/Wi-Fi but still connected to 431159 - not surprising as I don’t believe Cricket supports SMS/MMS over WiFi except through RCS at this time, but I want to be clear, it’s a cellular/SMS/MMS problem.

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