Can't send message with, error 104

[vgt]

Hi all,
Until recently, I was sending and receiving text messages with everyone in my contact list. I don't engage in lots of text messages on a daily basis, so when one day I found that I could not send to one contact, I tested with others and everyone else seemed to be in working order but this one. "It's not a problem on my end," or so I thought.

Attempting to send to this iPhone user now resulted in an unsent message with the error message that I titled my post with,displayed on-screen. The next message on my screen offered a suggestion regarding a SIM card, but I do not recall its exact wording. I could tap on the message to attempt to send it again.

A search on Google did not display any results for this exact error message, but it displayed numerous results about errors 104 with similar issues: I can't send to one or two of my most important contacts.

Well, because I don't send texts every day to this contact, the issue wasn't obvious enough to be tied to an event, the AHA! moment.

My details: This is a nearly year-old smartphone, my first touch screen device. Coolpad 3300A, Android 4.4.4. Not a lot of spare resources, so setting aside using the Internet, it handles phone calls and texts with ease, I can ask a few questions of Google.

Messaging app is Android Messages. I recently attempted to load Signal (messaging app) but I aborted that install before the setup was completed.

I don't use ad-supported software on my phone. All that advertising background activity only shortens the life of a charge and can make the battery run warm. Instead I will clear cache in the Settings > Storage menu and clear some app data from Google and from my little browser in Settings > Apps.

Messages still reported itself to be the default messaging app, but when my message failed to send to this iPhone, and after repeated cache cleanings and restarts did not resolve it, I happened to look in the Play Store at my installed apps. Messages WAS NOT LISTED!

I went into my apps menu and uninstalled Messages. I went into Google Play Store and reinstalled Messages.

I successfully exchanged messages with my iPhone contact.

An error 104 may indicate the need to redo the messaging app' installation!

EDIT: I might add, the error message shown in the title might be a clue to the problem after all:
"Can't send message with [corrupted software], error 104" !!

 

[clh42]

The original post is a year old, but I just had this issue and thought I'd post my solution. I had ONE, and only one specific contact that one day all of a sudden I could not text and got this error 104. I found many threads on this error 104 and tried every solution suggested in them, deleting and recreating the contact, deleting the text message and call log history associated with the recipient's phone number, PRL and Profile updates. Nothing worked.

My SMS app is also Google Messages (it's the default that was on my model of phone). I ATTEMPTED to uninstall and reinstall it, but since it was the default included on my phone, "Uninstalling" only rolled it back to the original version that came on the phone. I could not totally uninstall it. So reinstalled the newest version and the issue persisted.

I ended up doing a Clear Cache and Clear Data, and sure enough I was then able to text this recipient again.