Odd Smartphone Glitch -- and a Solution

Thanks for the warning, acraven. I think the problem is with the contacts app you are using. Is it the Goo g..l.e app, a Samsung app, or an Apple app?

I have a Samsung phone, and am using the latest native Samsung contacts app. My phone, like yours, has two active sims, a sim from Tmobile, and an esim from Roamless. The Tmobile is set as the default, in the phone "Settings".

But, when I looked in my contacts app, I can tap the 3 dot thing, and I see an option for Preferred SIM. Tapping that shows 3 sims: Sim1-Tmo with 0, eSIM1-Roamless with 0, and "Default" with 471. This confuses me, because I actually have 652 contacts.

Then I see that for EACH individual contact, I can select "Edit", and then change the Preferred SIM for that contact. The choices are: Default, or SIM1-Tmo, or eSIM-1-Roamless. I've never seen any of this before, because I've never had two active sims at once before.

So I suspect your contacts app has somehow gotten to where the Belgian esim was set to "Preferred". I think my latest contacts app has this new functionality (at least new to me).

Kinda puzzling. Thanks for the heads-up.

That's a very good thought. I had to go into those settings while traveling in 2024 and this year (not sure about 2023) in order to use my Google Fi texting capability with a European eSIM installed. However, this is the first year I've run into problems making calls after returning home.

Like you, I have a Samsung phone and am using the standard Contacts feature. At the moment I'm not finding the feature that allows me to change the SIM for texting, but I assume that's because I now have only the Google Fi SIM live.

I'm not finding the feature that allows me to change the SIM for texting, but I assume that's because I now have only the Google Fi SIM live.

yep, when I disable my second sim (esim), the option to set that goes away. Regarding selecting a sim for texting, I'm a little unclear. I also have an old Galaxy S9 which is a true dual-sim mode. it allows me to select which sim for voice, which sim for text, and which sim for data. Very clear. My "new" phone is a Galaxy S24 with Android 16. It doesn't have those options. But if I enable the sim and the esim, then I get an option under "SIM Manager" for "Data switching and backup calling", which says "Use uour secondary SIM for mobile data if your primary SIM can't connect". I figure I'll select that if I am out of the U.S..

That "Data Switching" setting doesn't allow me to initiate a text via my Google Fi SIM; I have to go into Contacts, select the person I want to text, and go from there (I think via the 3 black dots at the upper right). I could receive texts without doing that. I can't remember whether I could respond to incoming texts without fiddling with that setting.

Samsung doesn't have a single setting that allows specifying of the SIM to be used for texting--at least not as far as I know. It seems you must deal with the issue on a contact-by-contact basis. I had to do quite a lot of Googling the first year I found myself in that pickle before I found a solution that actually worked. It's easy on an iPhone, and apparently on non-Samsung Android phones. Samsung likes to meddle with the underlying Android software, I think.

acraven, thank you for that info. I'll be trying things out this weekend. I'm going up to the Upper Penninsula, and there is no Tmobile coverage at our cabin. I'm gonna enable both Tmo sim and Roamless esim., and will hope that the backup data option allows the phone to have Tmo active and yet get data from Roamless (Roamless can use AT&T towers which I can receive). I think I'll have to enable wifi calling to make it work. I know that I could use a wifi hotspot from another phone to get internet, and then the wifi calling on my phone would work. As for using my contacts app, I'll experiment with that. I will report back next Monday.