Weird Character Issues

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Diego Anero
New member
Username: Diegolan

Post Number: 3
Registered: 04-2006
Posted on Tuesday, May 09, 2006 - 09:03 am:   

Hello Bryce,

I have 2 SMPP connections. Both set to Default CharSet.

When I send an "ñ" on one (that´s the spanish n with the squiggly thing on top), and I look at the SMPPDEBUG log, i see it gets changed to "{", however, it is correctly received as "ñ" by the handset.

On the other hand, when I send the "ñ" on the other SMSC, the SMPPDEBUG also shows is as "{", but this time it is displayed as "{" on the phone!

Weird. Both SMSC only differ in the TON and NPI settings. The rest is all the same.

I tried setting the charset to ISO-8859-1 (latin) on the second SMSC, but that gave me a bind error - Unknown Error 0000104, and the message didn´t go thru.

Any ideas?
Thanks
Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support
Board Administrator
Username: Bryce

Post Number: 5911
Registered: 10-2002
Posted on Tuesday, May 09, 2006 - 05:00 pm:   

Hi Diego,

Changing the character set on the second SMSC connection is a good idea.

However, I can't see any connection between changing the character set and a bind error. I suspect that is an unrelated issue, because the character set is a submit message attribute, not a bind attribute.

Perhaps after you disconnect from the SMSC, it may take several minutes before the SMSC will let you connect again. (This can happen with some SMSCs.)

Or are you able to reconnect if you change the character set back to default?

If that is the case, try the setting for IA5 (GSM) for the character set.

-bn
Tarun Pinto Pereira
New member
Username: Tpintopereira

Post Number: 7
Registered: 09-2005
Posted on Tuesday, May 09, 2006 - 05:06 pm:   

Your bind error may be related to the MMSC trying to bind twice using the same Large Account. I had the same problem with the Logica SMSC. Each Large Account configured only allowed one bind session.
You have two options for fixing this. Either increase the no os simultaneous sessions allowed (MAX Sessions variable on the Logica) to 2 or in the advanced SMPP Settings on the MMSC select "SMPP Transceiver" check box.
Diego Anero
New member
Username: Diegolan

Post Number: 4
Registered: 04-2006
Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 01:00 am:   

My mistake about the bind error. i was reading one line wrong in the smscdebug.log. In any case, when i set the character set to IA5 or ISO latin1, I bind correctly, but I get the unknown error 104 from the smsc when i send an sms with any type of content.

I guess I will have to ask them what 104 means?

I´ll keep you posted.
Thanks
D.
Diego Anero
New member
Username: Diegolan

Post Number: 5
Registered: 04-2006
Posted on Thursday, May 18, 2006 - 01:33 pm:   

Hello again Bryce,

After more investigation this is what I´ve found.

From within the send sms form, i place the text: " Prueba con ñ a las..." (i.e. Test with ñ at...)

The PDU that I get from the log is:

HEX: 50 - 72 - 75 - 65 - 62 - 61 - 20 - 63 - 6F - 6E - 20 - 7D - 20 - 61 - 20 - 6C - 61 - 73 - ...

DEC: 80 - 114 - 117 - 101 - 98 - 97 - 32 - 99 - 111 - 110 - 32 - 125 - 32 - 97 - 32 - 108 - 97 - 115 - ...

ASCII: P - r - u - e - b - a - - c - o - n - - } - - a - - l - a - s - ...

As you see, the ñ gets changed to a }

The { gets interpreted as
0xF1 (241) decimal, which is an ñ in GSM alphabet,
but not in ISO-8859-1, which is the defual alphabet of the SMSC i´m connecting to.

In theory, according to SMPP specs, setting the data coding value to default (0) in the SMS Character set means "use whatever character set the smsc has".

If i set the character set to ISO-8859-1, i get an error, because the smpp server i connect to, does not allow it.

So, couple of questions.
1) Why does the ñ get changed to the {?
Could it have something to do with the character or language settings of the windows XP machine?

2) How can we solve this?

Many thanks for your asistance.
Diego.
Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support
Board Administrator
Username: Bryce

Post Number: 5964
Registered: 10-2002
Posted on Thursday, May 18, 2006 - 10:48 pm:   

Hi Diego,

Our default character set is GSM.

The character that you are seeing has been encoded in the GSM character set.

If you configure the SMPP character set as iso-8859-1, then we encode using the regular iso-8859-1 character set, and set the encoding flag in the packet to indicate the use of this character set.

If you configure the SMPP character set as GSM, then we encode using the regular GSM character set, and set the encoding flag in the packet to indicate the use of this character set.

If you leave it as default, we use the GSM character set, but specify default as the indicated character set.

We don't currently have a setting for using ISO-8859-1, but indicating default as the character set. (This could be done, but engineering is a little backlogged right now, so I can't promise anything quick ... it would probably take about 2 weeks.)

What if you try the setting for using the GSM character set?

-bn
Diego Anero
New member
Username: Diegolan

Post Number: 6
Registered: 04-2006
Posted on Friday, May 19, 2006 - 12:22 pm:   

Hello Bryce,

If I set for GSM Char set, the ñ appears as { since the smsc i connect to is set only as iso-8859-1, so that won't work.

Please do put in a patch so we can set to default using iso-8859-1. It would be much appreciatted.

In the mean time, is there a work around anywhere where i could manually transpose certain characters so that they display correctly?

Thanks
Diego
Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support
Board Administrator
Username: Bryce

Post Number: 5977
Registered: 10-2002
Posted on Saturday, May 20, 2006 - 10:58 pm:   

Hi Diego,

Send an e-mail to nowsms@now.co.uk with "Attention: Bryce" in the subject line, referencing this issue.

I think that I've got an updated DLL that I can send you, which will allow you to add an INI file setting to use iso-8859-1, but set the flag to indicate default character set.

The only caveat is that this DLL will only work with the 2006 version of NowSMS.

-bn
Diego Anero
New member
Username: Diegolan

Post Number: 7
Registered: 04-2006
Posted on Sunday, May 21, 2006 - 10:23 pm:   

Hi Bryce,

Email Sent. I´m using a 2006 version show, I guess it should work ok.

many thanks
Diego.
Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support
Board Administrator
Username: Bryce

Post Number: 5980
Registered: 10-2002
Posted on Monday, May 22, 2006 - 01:03 pm:   

Hi Diego,

Thanks, I've sent you an e-mail with an update that should provide an option to be able to work-around this.

-bn
Diego Anero
New member
Username: Diegolan

Post Number: 8
Registered: 04-2006
Posted on Monday, May 29, 2006 - 03:32 pm:   

Hello Bryce,

Thought I´d say here publicly that the patch works great, just in case anyone wants to use it.

BEst regards,
Diego.