Messaging Failure Reasons

As messages get sent on to the carriers, there are cases where they will return a FAILED message status. Carriers are now consistently providing more detailed failure reasons in conjunction with the failed message status. As a result, we have updated our platform to capture these reasons in plain language and store them. This allows us to surface the failure reasons (when provided) in our Account & Line Detail reports alongside the message status.

NOTE: Not every single failed message may have a detailed failure reason.

Failure Reason CodeSummary
1 - CarrierExceptionThe carrier provided a generic error code.
2 - MalformedSourceThe source number is incorrectly formatted.
3 - InvalidSourceThe source number does not exist (in the carrier), etc.
4 - MalformedDestinationThe destination number is incorrectly formatted.
5 - InvalidDestinationThe destination number does not exist, does not have SMS, etc.
6 - CarrierOptOutThe recipient is opted out from the carrier or service provider.
7 - CarrierRejectedThe carrier or service provider rejected the message but provided no specific reason. For AT&T traffic, this could be a prepaid user whose account is out of money, a subscriber that is provisioned to not receive this type of SMS or it was identified as Spam.
8 - CarrierTimeoutThe carrier timed out waiting for the delivery receipt, this could be because the downstream provider did not send the requested delivery receipt or they sent after the system timed out at two hours.
9 - CarrierRateLimitedThe carrier or service provider rate limit has been reached. Higher vetting may be required for 10dlc numbers.
10 - CarrierRoutingErrorCarrier is reporting there is no route available for message. This could be because no routing exists to destination, no roaming route is available, the destination handset is roaming on a network that cannot be reached, no SS7 route, or routing was denied.
11 - CarrierAccountErrorThe carrier account has an issue, the incorrect external credentials are being used, etc.
12 - FlaggedAsSpamThe carrier or service provider flagged the message as spam.
13 - ForbiddenCountryThe carrier or service provider marked the destination country as forbidden.
14 - ForbiddenShortCodeAn invalid or non-existent short code is being used as the source.
15 - MediaUnavailableAttached media could not be found or retrieved.
16 - CarrierContentSizeExceededAttached media or message body exceeds the carrier content size limit.
17 - InvalidContentTypeAttached media is an invalid content type.
18 - UnknownServiceCenterAddressThe service center address is unknown.

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