Why did my SMS arrive garbled, cut off, or as two separate messages?

Work through these in order. All three symptoms usually come from encoding or length, not from the network.

1. Garbled text, boxes or question marks #

The message lost its encoding before it was sent. This is common when text is copied out of a PDF, a database export or an email.

• Paste the text into Extra > SMS Length Calculator and check the Detailed View. Unexpected red squares mean stray characters.
• Retype the affected words directly in the panel, and save your upload files as UTF-8.

2. The message was cut off #

• The send box accepts up to a set number of characters, so very long text may simply not fit. The calculator’s Length value tells you how long the message really is.
• If the delivery report shows INVALID_MSG_LENGTH, the operator rejected the message for its length. Shorten it and resend.
• Check your variable values. A longer-than-expected name or address can push a message past the limit at send time.

3. It arrived as two or more separate messages #

Long messages are sent as parts that the phone normally joins into one. When a phone or network fails to join them, the parts show up separately. You can’t control that from the sending side; the fix is to keep the message within one part. The calculator’s Max Cost Length tells you where that boundary is.

4. Still unexplained #

Open the Delivery Report, find the message, and note the status and cause along with the transaction ID. Send those to support with the exact text you submitted, since the cause code narrows it down quickly.