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Did You Get Random Valentine's Day Texts This Week? You're Not Alone

The text messages were sent on Feb. 14, but remained undelivered until Wednesday.

November 8, 2019
Cell phone conversation bubble

Billions of text messages are sent and received across the US every day, but Nov. 6 was unusual because some of the text messages received were originally sent on Valentine's Day in February.

As The Verge reports, the nine-month wait between these messages being sent and received wasn't limited to one mobile OS or mobile carrier. The texts were sent from both Android and iOS devices using AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon networks. Regional carriers in the US and Canada, as well as Google Voice users also experienced the surprise late-night messages.

The cause of this bizarre fault has been traced to a maintenance update performed on Nov. 6 to a system operated by Syniverse, which mobile carriers rely on to relay messages. A Sprint spokesperson confirmed the "issue was resolved" quickly and T-Mobile confirmed the same issue and quick resolution.

In a statement, Syniverse said that, normally, "messages that cannot be delivered immediately are temporarily stored between 24 to 72 hours depending upon each mobile operator's configuration. During this time, multiple delivery attempts are made. If the message remains undeliverable after the specified time, the message is automatically deleted by Syniverse."

On Feb. 14, "a server failed, and messages were in queue at the time. When the server was reactivated on Nov. 7, 2019 messages in the queue were released."

It doesn't help that many of these messages are going to be Valentine's focused, and I'd be surprised if some potential relationships hadn't been derailed because a message of love never garnered a response. Little did the sender know the target of their heartfelt message never received it rather than ignoring it. Worse than that, though, is the fact some messages received late were sent by people who have since died. I can only imagine the upset and confusion caused when those messages popped up.

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About Matthew Humphries

Senior Editor

I started working at PCMag in November 2016, covering all areas of technology and video game news. Before that I spent nearly 15 years working at Geek.com as a writer and editor. I also spent the first six years after leaving university as a professional game designer working with Disney, Games Workshop, 20th Century Fox, and Vivendi.

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