Settings, settings, settings...

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Bill Turner
New member
Username: Dizzyfish

Post Number: 1
Registered: 03-2006
Posted on Wednesday, March 01, 2006 - 03:27 pm:   

Hi Bryce,

I'm coming to the end of a lengthy evaluation of NowSMS and it really is a *GREAT* product and I'm REALLY looking forward to the 2006 version (pleeeease release it!).

While testing and then using NowSMS, everyone must have gone through what I have gone through which is this: What settings do I need to set up MMS on a Nokia? What settings do I need to set up SyncML on a Motorola? What settings do I need to set up Service X on Device Y...?

I'm not talking about the OpCo settings here, but the fields I have to enter and what I have to enter into them. Or the XML structure I have to use. The big problem I've had is not knowing whether a message has been rejected by a device because of an issue with NowSMS (unlikely) or a malformed message.

I have trawled this support forum and while there is A LOT of useful information, I haven't been able to find much in the way of message specifications or the ones I have found haven't worked (as appears to be an experience shared by other people).

Speaking to Sales, I believe that NowSMS is used by all the big manufacturers to test the OTA bits of their devices.

I also believe that there are hundreds (thousands?) of developers out there that have made their fingers bleed trying to get a Motorola to accept MMS settings, a SE to accept PIN codes or an LG to accept anything.

And I also know that the in-house NowSMS developers must have tested the software to death and so must have sent countless OTA messages to countless mobiles.

So, the question is: would it not be a great service to NowSMS-kind to have an area where we can post all of this stuff: sample settings for all the devices we've tried, which devices work, which don't, which carriers do what and any other curiosities we may have found?

I would be more than happy to post the LONG list I've compiled while testing Nokias, Motos, SEs, LGs, NECs etc...

Regards,

Bill
Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support
Board Administrator
Username: Bryce

Post Number: 5564
Registered: 10-2002
Posted on Thursday, March 02, 2006 - 08:13 pm:   

Hi Bill,

Figuring out the quirks with different devices is a tall order. For the past year (well, actually longer), it seems that we've constantly made minor tweaks to the settings templates that are generated by our web forms.

But the one thing that we discovered through all of this process was that while we were pretty good at troubleshooting when we had physical access to a device ... it was a lot harder getting feedback from customers and enabling them to do their own troubleshooting.

For NowSMS 2006, we decided to add a "View XML" button to our OTA web forms. The idea is that the OTA generated by these forms is a good starting point. But it was previously too difficult to extract.

And sometimes you want to try different options when you have something that works part of the way, and compare the differences in the XML.

Of course, there are also minor tweaks that have been made to the underlying logic that implements the settings. I can't recall the specifics, but the Motorola MMS settings issue is an issue that I recall ... where we made some changes late last year.

So give NowSMS 2006 a try, and we'd welcome any feedback on settings. And I'm sure that there are others here who also would have information to contribute. It's probably going to take us awhile to get caught back up on some support backlog before we can be proactive in providing additional information.

The one thing that frustrates me is devices that don't seem to have any reaction upon receipt of an OTA. In those cases it is never clear if there is an attribute of the OTA that they do not like, or if it is a security issue (maybe they require a PIN ... or even worse only accept settings from a white listed set of addresses), or if the device simply does not support the OTA spec.

One other thing new in NowSMS 2006 is support for USERNETWPIN signing. For most uses, it is completely impractical if you need to use either NETWPIN or USERNETWPIN signing to get a device to accept settings. But if a device is not reacting to settings, you can also try these PIN signing types to see if this is what they require. (More details on this are in the NowSMS 2006 manual.)

-bn
Bill Turner
New member
Username: Dizzyfish

Post Number: 2
Registered: 03-2006
Posted on Saturday, March 04, 2006 - 09:36 am:   

Hi Bryce,

Thanks for the lengthy reply, especially on the day you released a new version! 2006 is looking better than ever so congratulations to all your team.

Access to devices is vital. Thanks to our role in building device emulations (www.virtuaphone.com) we get access to early prototypes which is great fun (they are often literally falling apart!). We also get to speak to the people that build them so can often just ask what's going on.

What we've found out is that when the devices are originally provisioned, the OpCo sometimes switches off OTA (note that the department that switches it off 'for security' is usually an entirely different department to the one that wants to reduce CSR load by supporting OTA. Wonderful 'you've done WHAT?' arguments result!).

This manifests itself as your frustration which is: no reaction from the device whatsoever. It gets the message and knows what to do with it, but has been told to ignore it. So it does.

Devices that do not support OTA at all usually display some or part of a corrupted message. Those that do support OTA and haven't had it locked down interpret the message on receipt and you'll at least get some way to applying it.

Its also clear that Nokia/Ericsson devices are hardly ever locked down in the way that OMA devices are. This has to have something to do with the different way OMA is applied (i.e. through the WAP layer (?)).

In our experience, Motorola are a good example of USERNETWPIN: they won't accept the settings unless accompanied by a PIN which is a pain as it adds another SMS to the OTA message which increases costs...

I'll re-iterate my willingness to help and I'll keep maintaining my list of results.

Regards,

Bill