"drop out" problem with Frontline SMS

[David McAfee]

Greetings everyone from Madagascar.

My organization, Human Network International (www.hni.org) helps to build the internal capacity of our development partners to collect data from the field and send SMS messages back out to selected groups.

We use FrontlineSMS as a "pass through".  We create personalized data base programs that automatically take SMS messages out of Frontline and separate the data into specific columns.  Our development partners can then filter and export the data to excel and other programs.

The system works beautifully, except for one (big) problem.  On average, about once per day, FrontlineSMS "drops out".  In essence the connection between the GSM telephone/modem and the FrontlineSMS program stops working and we have to reboot the system.  Meanwhile, the SMS messages keep coming into the GSM telephone.

We're concerned we may overload the telephone's SMS "inbox".  Have you had other reports of this problem?  Is there anything that can be done?  As I mentioned, other than this one glitch, the system works very well and our development partners are really enthusiastic.

Also, do you anticipate that future versions of FrontlineSMS will use 3G modems/telephones?  It's getting difficult to find the GSM telephones listed on your website as Mada moves away from GSM technology.  If so, can you estimate when?

Thank you!

[Morgan Belkadi]

Hello David,

thanks for these words.

3G modems and telephones are already working with FrontlineSMS, as they work like regular GSM devices. We just can't give an exhaustive list of which are working or not for the moment, unfortunately.
What kind of phone could you be able to get?

About your "drop out" problem, we've never been confronted to this kind of thing, but there is a chance this could be improved in the next version of FrontlineSMS.
Like Ken told you, we should be releasing FLSMS v1.6 next week, or the one after, and this version is much more stable than the 1.5.8.

We will keep in touch!

Best,
Morgan \o/

[Priyanka]

Hi David,

 

I know it's been quite a while since you posted this, but I'm working on a vaccine reminder system project in India and we've been running into the same issue - our GSM modem (an EDGE Flycard) keeps "hanging up" and stops sending messages to FSMS. Did you ever find a solution to this issue? I'm considering replacing the modem, but if there's an alternate solution that doesn't involve spending an additional $150+, I'll take it!!

 

Thanks for your help!

Priyanka

[Tom Marentette]

Hi Priyanka,

 

Your program sounds interesting and sorry to hear you are having troubles. Can you tell me, what version of FrontlineSMS are you using and what OS (Windows, Mac, Linux)? What do you find fixes the issue, a reboot of the system or restarting the modem?

 

regards,
Tom

 

[Priyanka]

Hi Tom,

 

Thanks for your response! I'm using the latest (non-beta) version of FSMS with the PatientView plugin on XP. We actually found another modem that we can use for this, which has solved the problem for now, but I'm still curious to see what the issue was, because that Flycard modem would be much more convenient if we could get it to stop hanging all the time! We've found that both rebooting the system and restarting the modem is necessary, although in our particular case, any time we want to close and open FSMS, we also have to uninstall then reinstall the modem (that's the only way for us to get the Flycard to work with FSMS, interestingly enough.)

 

Best,

Priyanka

[Tom Marentette]

Hi Priyanka,

 

Glad to hear you have another modem and it's now working. I wonder since you had some issues getting the Flycard to work with FLSMS (uninstall/reinstall) that maybe there's a driver issue with that modem - or maybe a different Flycard? Unfortunately I don't have any experience with that type of GSM modem.

 

In any case, best of luck with your project. Let us know how it goes.

 

regards,
Tom