HELP! - Struggling to send 887 sms messages

[Esi]

Hello there,

We have been struggling to send messages to 887 cellphone numbers using an attached cell phone. When we opened up FrontlineSMS on our laptop we would get the following error message:
 A problem occurred during FrontlineSMS startup
 The first few lines of the detail reads as follows: Class java.long.runtimeException:: [SQLException: state=null; error=0; message= unable to open. Database file] at net.frontlinesms.data.db.DbController.sql_execute (DbController.java:712)...

Since then we emptied out both the Inbox and Outboxes on the phone and were able to send a few messages before the system froze again...:( :(

HELP!

[Ben Whitaker]

doesn't sound too good -

can I just confirm a couple of things:
1: does FLSMS work normally for sending small numbers of messages?

2: is your PC running low on disk space?

3: are you going to be sending a lot of large batch SMSs, anything in excess of 100 messages at a time?
-> If you are going to be doing lots of sending, configuring FLSMS to use one of the Internet based senders (Intellisms or clickatell) should be faster, more reliable and cheaper.

Ben

[Esi]

Thanks for your response Ben :) To your questions:
1. It used to work better when we had only a few messages. It has been taking longer and longer (some times more than 24hours) to send messages as our database has grown

2. I don't think our laptops are running low on disk space. We have tried it on at least three laptops and one PC and none of these seem to have problem with disk space

3. Yes! we will be sending large batches of SMS on a weekly basis. How do I configure FLSMS to sync with clickatell?

ENS

[Ben Whitaker]

great, sounds like internet sending is the way to go.

first of all: what country/countries are you sending most of your messages to?

[Esi]

We are sending most of our messages to Swaziland but a few are sent to South African numbers

[Ben Whitaker]

both destinations are covered by Clickatell and IntelliSMS, so you can pick either on price.
http://www.intellisms.co.uk/sms-gateway/coverage/
http://www.clickatell.com/pricing/standard_mt_coverage.php

You will need to set up a user account with one of those providers, pay for some credit, and then set it up in FrontlineSMS following the user manual.

Then make sure you set your phones as receive only, and set your outgoing sms identity to match the number of one of your incoming phones, and you should be ready to go!

[Esi]

Great! will try this now :)

Actually we have been trying to figure out if it is possible to have a local number displayed when we send the messages through Clickatell so you have answered the question :) :)

[Esi]

Hey Ben,

Where do I find the FLSMS manual? I have signed up for Clickatell and want to configure FLSMS as you recommend.

[Ben Whitaker]

intellisms is probably easiest to set-up, but either will work.

instructions are here:
http://wiki.frontlinesms.com/w/index.php/The_Menu_Bar#SMS_Internet_...

[Esi]

Thanks!

intellisms works out to be more expensive for us than Clickatell

[Esi]

Hey there Ben,

I have finally connected to Clickatell but both my test messages failed :( :( Any ideas why?

[kiwanja]

Hi Esi

Have you purchased any message credit with Clickatell yet? Even though there are "free" messages they only allow you to send a fixed message, and sometimes these don't work. I'd buy some credits then try again.

You might also want to try different number formats for the messages - for example, add the +xx international code if you haven't tried, or remove it if you have. Clickatell is notoriously hard to get running, but once it does it will make your life much easier.

Ken

[Esi]

Thanks a ton Ken! :)

It worked with the +xxx