# Vodafone Webtexts



## ninsaga (27 Jan 2005)

I cannot text from a phone - nope, thumbs to big, usually end up pressing the wrong buttons- deleting all my effort. Which is why I found Vodafone Web texting (with 300 free texts per month) to be very handy... all except for the following.....

- Vodafone.ie has to be the slowest web site on the planet if you are using standard dialup
- Even over a faster network it can be a bit fineky
- the Web text has been down for the last few days with eth following message..."Error An error has occurred in trying to process your request, please try again later . We apologise for any inconvenience (57). "

..is it just me or has anyone else experienced this?

ninsaga


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## ajapale (27 Jan 2005)

Yep! Vodaphone Webtext is a bit of a dog. In addition to the points made you are restricted to Domestic Numbers and you dont have an address book. Both 02 and Meteor have these features. Is moving an option?

also see here 
and here 

ajapale


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## ClubMan (27 Jan 2005)

Yeah - I've generally found the _Vodafone_ site to be very slow and unreliable. :\


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## elderdog (27 Jan 2005)

ninsaga

I'm the same as you 'bout texting & use their webtext. Like you I find its down. Its not just the Webtext function thats down its just not possible to log on as a user.  I'm mighty Peeeed orff with them

Apart from anything else if they cant even run a web site what chance of them doing anything complicated - like, er, billing ?


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## ninsaga (27 Jan 2005)

Thanks ajpale - no chance of moving for now unfortunately.

My thoughs exactly elderdog - this is meant to be a high techcommunications company yet they cannot sustain "old" technology such as having a robust website.

ninsaga

Oh & let me add that if you want to contact them about this you are taken to the following web page...

"Contact  Us
We can be contacted by telephone,  fax or post."....I mean, for feck same like!...a fecking fax or snail mail..jeez ..fairly pathetic don't you think!

Try this link if you have 10 mins to spare while its loading....

[broken link removed]


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## fatherdougalmaguire (27 Jan 2005)

Try using [broken link removed]. I'm an O2-er so I can't speak for the Vodafone functionality but it works triffic for me.


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## stobear (27 Jan 2005)

Father D, you do come up with some cool stuff, downloaded and am currently using up my free texts in no time!! Pain logging in everytime you need a text!!!


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## ajapale (27 Jan 2005)

Thanks FrD,

Unfortunately text buddy does not work for me. I get an "error checking licence" message. Any thoughts?

ajapale


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## ClubMan (27 Jan 2005)

Worked first time for me. Perhaps you need to configure the _Text Buddy_ proxy settings to match your browser settings (_Options -> Preferences... -> Connection -> Proxy Settings_)?


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## elderdog (27 Jan 2005)

Cute idea Father D

Does not seem to get on with NT4

"vodafonemsg.exe entry point not found"

& aborts

Is it my setup ?


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## fatherdougalmaguire (27 Jan 2005)

Cripes! I just provided a link and now I'm first-level support!

ajapale: That message seems to be related to the application itself. Maybe you need to run it from an administrator account on your machine?

elderdog: I guess that's the case. Maybe it's trying to use some kind of Internet Explorer control to access the web. My guess is that it merely automates the browse/loging/text sequence. It might be using some Internet Explorer API/DLL to do all of this. Try installing IE6 (if you really want too).

Otherwise, you could just [broken link removed] the author/company.


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## ninsaga (27 Jan 2005)

> Cripes! I just provided a link and now I'm first-level support!



...gee thanks fpr that Father DMcG...can you tell me when you plan to release a version for the MacOS  

ninsaga


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## elderdog (27 Jan 2005)

No! No!! 

Father, Not looking for support At All, At All, - just posting so that all would be aware that it may not be straight forward  to install it in every case 

FWIW Vodafone seem to have got their site working again. Any bets how long it will keep going ?

eDog


P.S. am <blush> using IE6


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## fatherdougalmaguire (27 Jan 2005)

ajapale, it seems that the error is more to do with your network settings. ClubMan's on the ball about trying your proxy settings with TextBuddy.

Shame about NT4. Maybe if you ask Nitroweb nicely they could do a build for you? As for MacOS, maybe if you ask them _really_ nicely they'll do a Java version


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## ajapale (27 Jan 2005)

Thanks Fr D,Clubman

Iv contacted "nitoweb" with my problem and Ill let you know how it pans out.

Yes you were correct! the httpsettings.

Thanks again,

ajapale


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## ClubMan (27 Jan 2005)

*"vodafonemsg.exe entry point not found"*

Does it say what entry point/function cannot be found or is that the error message verbatim? If not then you could try using Dependency Viewer to see what entry points are missing (should be highlighted in red) to get a bit more insight into the problem (post back with more details if you try this).


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## capaill (28 Jan 2005)

Ninsaga

I used to have a Nokia phone with an infrared link.  I downloaded a free app from the Nokia site that lets me connect to the phone via the IR port.  Lets me edit phone book and also send texts to & from the PC using the mobie over the IR.

Might be worth checking to see if your phone manufacturer has the same facility

C


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## ninsaga (28 Jan 2005)

Ok Capaill - let me check out the okia site...but I guess thous ethat even though you are using IR you are still paying for the texts anyway right?

ninsaga


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## OhPinchy (28 Jan 2005)

*...*

I agree - the vodafone.ie site is the WORST performing site on the web - frequently out of action and very slow at the best of times when it is working. Logging into the main section is bad enough, but I swear that doing the second internal login to get into your billing section (even the online banking systems only have one login so whats the need for the second one here?) is even worse - I'd say about 7 times out of 10 it just times out.

Why are the webtexts restricted to Irish numbers? Why is there no address book? Mmmm, surely this couldn't be one of the reasons why O2 have just gained 90,000 customers in the last couple of months?

I emailed a complaint a few months back (somehow got hold of the email address to complain to)....only for some tech support fella to tell me it must be a connection problem on my side. I informed him it was not as I have tried it from work, my home broadband, and dialup and its the site, not the connections. They then got smart and told me mine was the only complaint they had received so it must be a problem on my side. Don't they realise theres a difference between the number of people that bother to complain and the number that are encountering the problem? When I pointed out that their site is slower than the BoI online site, which is hardly fast itself, and they rebfuted this with a simple 'No its not' I knew it was going nowhere.

I have a friend who worked there for a while and he said the problem is down to a poor technical architecture which does not lend itself to scaling across a larger number of servers. So the problem may be that the servers simply cannot handle the load, which will reduce the number of available sessions, which explains why it works ok once you manage to get it. The absurdly short session timeout length is probably also due to them wanting to free up sessions for active users.


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## elderdog (28 Jan 2005)

*Re: ...*

Crikey....

Looks like vodafone.de isnt much better than the irish site 

vodafone.co.uk seems to be a bit sharper but notice the (C) date of 2002 on it where as .ie & .de are 2005. Could it be that they just cant resist screwing around with the websites & they are now full of buggy and unnecessary code ?


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## ninsaga (28 Jan 2005)

*Re: ...*

Hi OhPinchy - any chance you can resurrect that email address so that we can sent  Vodafone the link to these posts?

ninsaga


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## fatherdougalmaguire (29 Jan 2005)

*Re: ...*

You could probably also interest the text-a-holics over on boards.ie.


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