Not able to download/upload files over mobile internet (over WiFi everything works fine)

[ChrisKras]

Hello,

Ever since I have mobile internet from my provider, about 1.5 years ago, I have never been able to download or upload images over mobile internet. No matter through what app I try to do this, e.g., upload/download e-mail attachments in the gmail app, download images from websites in Chrome browser or other browser, upload/download in Google Drive app, etc.

My phone tries to download/upload, but noting gets up-/downloaded. For example, when trying to download an attachment in gmail, a grey square pops up with the light blue horizontal lines moving in bottom of this square, which just goes on forever. This problem also extends to up-/downloading other types of attachments from gmail, like spreadsheets, in which case the progress is displayed underneath the moving lines, as "0%". This problem probably extends to uploading/downloading all types of files as stand-alone files to/from my phone in any app.

My phone is a Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini.

To be clear, uploading and downloading of images, or anything for that matter, works perfectly fine over WiFi. So, I have no problem with space on my device.

Also, I always have close to 1000 MB of data left on my dataplan (I only use a couple of tens of MB per month), so that should not restrict me from downloading an image of, say, 1-5 MB.

In case this matters, the option "Restrict background data" is turned off for all these apps that are relevant for this problem, and it has been this way this whole time.

I have contacted my provider, and they tell me that everything should work fine, and I have no settings with my provider that would block such things.

I have of course searched the entire internet, but have not even found a single person talking about the exact same problem, let alone found a solution.

I have contacted Samsung. They offered two suggestions. The first is to reset my network settings. The second is to go into safe mode to try downloading images from there (not really a solution).

Again, I searched the internet very thoroughly to find how to reset network settings on my phone (Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini), which appears not to be possible. Furthermore, it turns out that even from safe mode it is not possible to upload/download images.

So, my question is, can anyone help me fix this problem and finally be able to use my mobile 3G internet connection to upload/download files, especially images. This would greatly improve the usefulness of my mobile internet.

Thank you!

[CarlH]

Hi @ChrisKras. You may need to change your APN settings. This link will guide you through the process. Let me know how you get on! 

[ChrisKras]

Hi Carl,

Thank you for your reply.

I followed the steps in the link you suggested. First, under APNs I did the reset to default. Then, I deleted the APN, and manually setup a new APN, following the steps I found for my device on the website of my provider, including shutting down and restarting the phone

This helped partly. Now, I can finally download and upload files in the Chrome browser (probably also in the other browser, but did not check that).

Unfortunately, within apps I still cannot upload/download files. In Google drive, the setting to only transfer files over a WiFi connection is switched off (but it acts as if this setting is switched on), and in Gmail I don't see such a setting. I don't have any other apps to up-/download files with.

These two apps were the main reason why I wanted to solve this problem. But at least now I can use Gmail and Google Drive within the browser to transfer files over mobile network, which is something, at least (albeit a bit more of a hassle).

Also, just now, I cleared the cache of the Download Manager, and disabled it and then enabled it, as per some advice I read elsewhere, but that did not help. 

Since the problem has now changed, there might be other possible solutions to be found on the internet, and to try.  Perhaps, you have some more suggestions. When later I have time, I will try again to completely solve this problem.

For now, thank you for getting me halfway there!

Chris