Windows Phone 8 suffering from obscure text message bug

Posted on 18 Feb 2013 at 09:18, by Gareth Halfacree

A somewhat obscure bug has been found to affect Windows Phone 8 running on Nokia's Lumia 920 smartphone, and possibly others, that prevents a dictated text message from being sent if it is manually edited.

First spotted by Todd 4 Tech, the bug - which has so far only been confirmed as affecting Nokia's flagship Lumia 920 handset, but which is likely to be present on other Windows Phone 8 handsets - can only be triggered in a somewhat specific manner. First, the user needs to trigger the voice-recognition facility of Windows Phone 8 by holding down the Windows button, then trigger the text message option by stating "text contact name".

When the text screen has loaded with the prompt "say your message," the user then needs to dictate the message to the phone - but, before sending, hit the pencil icon to launch manual editing mode. When the on-screen keyboard comes up, pressing "send" should theoretically send the message - but, because of the bug, the message fails.

The problem is easily spotted: rather than the original single recipient, pressing the edit button somehow adds a second recipient to the message in the form of the contact's surname - but without a valid telephone number. With no telephone number for the supposed second recipient, Windows Phone 8 is unable to send the message - resulting in an error.

Investigating the flaw, the site has discovered that it only triggers when the contact list is set to sort by surname; on handsets where the contact list is sorted by first name, the message sends correctly with only a single recipient listed. The issue is also avoided if the message is sent directly after dictation with no manual editing, or is written entirely manually rather than using the phone's voice-recognition capabilities.

While not a serious bug, especially compared with some of the other problems Windows Phone 8 has had, it's still a flaw in the platform - and one Microsoft will be likely to address in a coming update.

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User comments

Another Swipe at MS?

Gareth do you write any reviews for Apple by any chance? This particular review is like saying your calculator might not give the correct answer if you hit equals 10 times instead of just the once!

By Justjas on 18 Feb 2013