Trying to use the SMS note to send messages to a Canadian cell phone but nothing is coming through. Is Canada not supported?
We don’t block any countries or provinces specifically, but as stated in the SMS Node’s documentation, any message that would cost more than $0.06 USD to deliver will not be sent. It’s possible you’re running up against this limit when sending to your Canadian number, though typically messages to Canada go through OK.
I also don’t see any failed messages to Canadian numbers in our Twilio logs from around the time you made this post. Are you able to hook up a Debug Node after the SMS Node in your workflow and see if there is any helpful output there? Perhaps the phone number is in an invalid format and the node is not actually running.
Hi @Dylan_Schuster. If I use the Twilio node to send to the same Canadian number, I do get a report back from Twilio “Phone number invalid”. However its not invalid, its my number and I get SMS on it all day long via the largest carrier in Canada.
Any other ideas?
Thanks
Behind the scenes the Losant SMS Node also uses Twilio, just tied to our company account. Looking at Twilio’s documentation, the number must be in a stripped-down format. For example, to send to the fake American number (513) 555-1212, I must put the number in my node as “5135551212”, or if you’re sending to a country without a country code of 1, “+335551212”. Is your number in that format?
Also, try with the “+1” in front of the number, since it’s going to a Canadian number.
@Dylan_Schuster the +1 was the key. It works now! I even tried just 1 prior to that but that doesn’t work.
Thanks a million
Good to hear, Evan. We’ll probably rev the SMS Node to enforce a country code - or at least hint as much to the user - as a result of your issue. Thanks for bringing it to our attention and let us know if you run into any other issues.
Hi! I am experiencing the same issue with sms to my French phone number (Format: +33…). I checked the same node with my American phone number (Format: +1…) - works good. Is it similar cost-related issue or EU conties are not supported? What’s the best way to investigate this issue if I need to consider a few contry codes in the EU? Thanks
Hello @Alexander_Kondrov,
I have just a couple things to help us debug this! I haven’t been able to test with an EU phone number, so I apologize if any of these steps seem obvious. 
The first thing to check is that your phone number is formatted correctly for Twilio. Twilio requires phone numbers be in E.164 format; for EU numbers, it looks as though the it should be 12 digits prepended by a +. The area code should be two digits, and the phone number should be eight:
The next recommendation I have for debugging is to use the Twilio Node in your workflow, as it allows for more debugging and advanced functionality. Twilio has a lot of resources that could be helpful, such as Number Lookup, which can tell you who owns a phone number and if it is correctly formatted.
Let me know how else I can help!
Julia
Hi Julia,
I postponed this question for now. I will get back to debugging with Twilio later. I will write you if I find anything
Hey Dylan,
I had been using the SMS to alert on particular events. They used to work however now they don’t. Is there a charge for sending sms messages? and if so, i’m trying to send them to Nigerian phone numbers. Is this an issue? Please advise
John, did the Nigerian numbers previously work and now they do not? Or were you sending messages to other numbers - which worked - and now sending those messages does not work for Nigerian numbers?
Behind the scenes the SMS Node uses Twilio to send the message; Losant just eats the cost of those messages. We do have a limit on the per-message cost, hence the discussion in this thread. If you need to send messages to international numbers, we recommend signing up for your own Twilio account and swapping your SMS Node out for a Twilio Node in your workflow.
They use to work but now don’t, thus my question on how many and how can I tell why they stopped working.
Hi @John_Lapham,
This is likely a problem on Twilio’s end, as they will reject messages for a variety of reasons, which can range from a blocked number, a number they consider invalid or even if they believe it to be a landline. I can troubleshoot this further for you if you would like to provide the numbers in a private message. I will message you momentarily!
Thanks,
Julia
Hi @John_Lapham,
I spoke with our engineers about this issue and learned some new things myself! We recommend using the SMS Node primarily in proof of concept projects as it is a bit limited in it’s functionality. Unlike the Twilio Node itself, the SMS Node will not include errors on the payload should your message fail or be rejected. Additionally, though the SMS Node uses Twilio to send messages, we do rate limit messages to one every five minutes and will also not send messages that cost more than six cents. I took a look at Twilio’s pricing chart for Nigeria and it looks as though only one of the telecommunication companies falls under the 6 cent ceiling (Reliance Telecom). I am very curious as to why the messages were sending previously but now are not, and am still looking into why that is the case. I got in contact with Twilio support to see if they recently changed their pricing for Nigeria, and though they did not, they did link me to a documentation page explaining that prices increase at certain character lengths and when using special characters. I am still looking into this for a cause, but we do recommend using the Twilio Node for any project that is past proof of concept to allow for more advanced configuration, new features (such as attachments and formatting), and to remove the limitations of the SMS Node. In the meantime, I am going to make a ticket with our engineers to improve the output of the SMS Node to include errors so that it is clear when messages are failing.
I will update you with any new information I find on this!
Thanks,
Julia
I can on Thursday or Friday. I am flying back to the States from Africa at the moment
Thanks
John
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