Jacob Morrow
2025-02-07 10:01:22
Text marketing is one of businesses most common practices to communicate with customers. Its great effectiveness makes it an essential addition to your business communications. However, an error message can occur when you are trying to send your texts, thus making you feel frustrated. And to make things worse, there are many reasons why a message failed to send.
We will explore the world of error message text by explaining the different error codes you might encounter and providing solutions for them.
Part 1: What Does an Error Message Text Mean?
Explanation
A message send failure is nothing more than an issue that prevents your message from being delivered to its recipient. In reality, it is a very broad term that can originate from various causes. For example, it can indicate problems with your network, recipient device, or text formatting. In any case, every error message text includes an error code that allows you to understand the cause of the failure and help you spot the right solution to resolve it.
If you are an individual, then a fake error message text copy and paste might be a fun prank idea. However, as a business that delves into SMS marketing, it is crucial that you instantly recognize what each error message means. This is not a matter of simple technical troubleshooting, but it is also something that can affect your business practices as a whole. When your campaigns end up on the "message not sent, invalid destination" error among others, you lose profit and damage your company's reputation. Therefore, addressing these errors efficiently is one of your top priorities.
Part 2: Common Text Message Error Codes
The best way to approach an error message is to identify what the error code indicates. These codes are tied to a particular cause, making it easy for you to realize how to resolve it. In general, we can categorize these message errors into the following types:
- Delivery Errors: This is a broad category that includes every message that failed to be sent because the recipient was unreachable. For instance, they might not have access to a network or their number is out of reach.
- Validation Errors: This category includes the errors that have to do with the text's parameters. For example, you might encounter this error type if your recipient's number is incorrect or invalid.
- Technical Errors: In this category, you will find all text errors that have to do with the platform you are using or any other technical issue that arises with your carrier.
- Format Errors: There are many rules you need to follow to send a correct SMS. If you are using restricted content and unsupported characters or emoji formats, you might encounter one of the errors that fall into this category.
- Network Errors: Every error message that has to do with your carrier will appear in this category. For example, it might temporarily be unavailable or it flags your SMS as spam due to its content.
Source:Apple Community
Source:Apple Community
As you can see, a message sent by failure doesn't have just one cause and one solution. For this reason, we have gathered the most common text message error codes into a table you can refer to when the need arises:
| Code | Type | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | Invalid Message | This error code appears because the carrier has flagged your text as an "invalid message", thus preventing it from getting sent. It indicates that your text doesn't meet the format or content requirements, such as having unsupported characters. |
| 20 | Network Error | This code indicates that your carrier experienced network issues like a brief disruption in its services. This is typically a temporary error. |
| 30 or 40002 | Spam Detected | This error shows that your message was flagged as spam by the network or the recipient's carrier . This is normally due to the content. Additionally, it can also happen because you have sent too many messages using a long code number in the US and Canada. |
| 40 | Invalid Source Number | This code indicates that your (the sender's) number is incorrect, not recognized, or not SMS-enabled. |
| 50 | Invalid Destination Number | This error code shows that the recipient's number is incorrect, inactive, not SMS-enabled, or blocked. This error will also occur if you have accidentally typed the number incorrectly. |
| 60 | Loop Detected | This error shows that the carrier cannot route your SMS because there are some settings that create an endless loop of messages. |
| 70 | Destination Permanently Unavailable | This code indicates that the destination number has been permanently deactivated or is no longer in service. |
| 80 | Destination Temporarily Unavailable | This error code shows that the destination number may be temporarily unreachable. This might mean that the device is switched off or out of service. |
| 200 or 502 | Source Number Blocked by STOP from Destination Number | This code is used to show that the recipient has opted out of your campaigns. When this happens, your messages get blocked until the recipient opts in again. |
| 4xx | / | This family of errors indicates some type of processing failure. |
| 400 | Invalid Number Format | This error message text shows that the phone number doesn't have the correct format. |
| 401 | Encoding Error | This code indicates that your SMS contains characters that are not supported by either the network or the recipient's device. |
| 402 | Empty Message | This error appears when the SMS seems to be empty. |
| 5xx | / | This family of errors indicates some type of send-related failure. |
| 600 | Carrier Rejection | This error indicates that the carrier has blocked your text because it violates its content policies. |
| 602 | Carrier Network Issue | This code occurs when there is an issue on the carrier's network that prevents your text from being delivered. |
Part 3: How to Fix Each Error Message
The table of the message send failure codes of the previous section should be your guide to identifying what you need to do to ensure uninterrupted SMS campaigns. In this part, we will go one step further and show you how to fix each one of these common error codes:
| Code | Solution |
|---|---|
| 10 | Follow the proper SMS encoding flag. If you are using SMPP, use the correct UDP. |
| 20 | As mentioned, this is a temporary error. In this case, try sending the message later when the carrier network is functioning again. |
| 30 or 40002 | Use a whitelisted or anti-spam number. Another solution is to get a short code. |
| 40 | Ensure that your phone number is in the correct format and has the SMS service enabled. If the issue persists, contact your service provider to authenticate your number. |
| 50 | If this error happened because of an error while typing, try checking your contact list for any errors. At the same time, remember to separate the multiple recipients with a comma. |
| 60 | To avoid this error, create and add loop filters in the platform. |
| 70 | Ensure that the recipient's number is correct. If your service is still working but this particular recipient cannot receive your texts, remove them from your contact or create a separate SMS list. |
| 80 | This is a temporary issue. Try sending your message again at a later time. |
| 200 or 502 | Create a separate SMS list for these recipients. |
| 400 | Check that your recipients' numbers are formatted correctly. |
| 401 | Ensure that your text doesn't contain unsupported characters. |
| 402 | Check that the texts you have sent contain text and are not empty. |
| 600 | Check your carrier's policies to ensure that you comply with them. |
| 602 | Contact your carrier. |
Part 4: Enhance Your Enterprise's Reputation & Avoid Message Failed to Send
Sending your text messages without fail is an important step toward building a strong reputation for your business. For this reason, you must employ all the strategies that will help you resolve errors like "message not sent, invalid destination". Some of the strategies that will help you achieve that are the following:
- Validate Recipient Numbers: Regularly clean and update your contact lists to ensure that all recipients' information is correct and accurate. EngageLab is a platform that will regularly check for inactive numbers and automatically clean them out for you.
- Create SMS Lists: Organize your contacts into separate SMS lists. Your main list should only contain active recipients who want to receive your communications.
- Comply with Regulations: As a business, it is very important to adhere to local regulations. If you are targeting an international audience, then make sure that you are aware of the messaging laws in foreign countries. Non-compliance can lead to messages failing to send errors and penalties.
- Monitor Delivery Rates: Analyze your statistics and delivery reports to identify any issues. If the message send failurestat is high, then you examine what might be causing the issue.
- Optimize Content: Craft an engaging text that complies with your carrier's guidelines. For instance, avoid sensitive or restricted words that might trigger rejections and eliminate any unsupported characters.
- Find a Reliable Carrier: To ensure efficiency for your business, you should partner with a dependable carrier that will help you employ your SMS marketing without disruptions.
- Take Advantage of a Reliable Tool: A reliable messaging platform is just as important as a great carrier. EngageLab is your top option for not just SMS marketing, but all of your communications with your customers.
- Develop Alternative Communication Channels: You must always have some other channels of communication with your customers. Set up alternative channels, such as email or push notifications to always rest assured that you will reach your customers no matter what.
The Most Reliable Tool for Your Business - EngageLab
All of the above strategies, and so much more, become possible in EngageLab. This is the reason why every business needs to use this platform for its communications. EngageLab provides a robust messaging platform that has been developed to reduce message send failure errors and enhance your business communication. Its key features include:
- Multi-Channel Marketing: EngageLab supports SMS, email, and push notifications among other channels. This way, you can always have multiple ways to communicate with your customers even when you encounter an error message text.
- Delivery Monitoring Reports: The platform gives you access to real-time insights that give you glimpses into message delivery statuses.
- Advanced Filtering: EngageLab automatically detects inactive numbers and automatically clears them out so that you always have a clean and accurate SMS list.
- Global Reach: With a robust infrastructure, EngageLab ensures reliable message delivery to recipients all around the world. Its unified API can be integrated with multiple carriers across 200+ countries.
- Compliance Tools: EngageLab helps your business to remain compliant with messaging regulations. Among other measures, your SMS templates are checked and verified by a specialized team before you can use them.
- Two-Way Messaging: Keep communication with your customers alive through two-way messaging. In EngageLab, recipients can directly reply to your texts.
- Dynamic Pricing: One of the biggest benefits of EngageLab for businesses is its flexible pricing model. You simply need to visit EngageLab's pricing page , add the services you need, and the number of messages you are planning on sending, and get a custom price for exactly these needs, and these needs only.
This way, you make the most of your budget since you only pay for the communications you will use. For large customers, EngageLab provides special discounts and custom pricing packages, making it a cost-effective solution for high-volume users.
In Conclusion
An error message text is a sign that something went wrong in your SMS marketing campaign. For this reason, you must be aware of the error message codes, as well as the possible solutions for them. Furthermore, adopting a platform like EngageLab ensures that your messages will be efficient and compliant no matter what. Sign up for EngageLab today and take advantage of the platform's capabilities for your business.
