Nokia 7610 SMS/Text Sending Problem

My Nokia 7610 has been failing to send SMS/text messages for the past two days supposedly because its "general memory is full" and that I needed to "close some applications and try again". Thing is, nothing else but my message editor is running, so I don't know what the problem is.

This glitch has been hounding my phone for the past few days. It's such an inconvenience because important contacts that needed replies could not be sent to, so I practically had an expensive, camera-equipped pager instead of an MMS cellphone.

Earlier today I asked our friendly neighborhood cellphone repair booths and they said the phone needed reformatting, that I needed to back-up the phone memory (messages and contacts included), and it would cost me PHP 500 (around US$ 9.00) for the 10-15 minute procedure.

Since my unit was still within its one year warranty courtesy of Nokia and my network provider, I decided to visit my network's customer service desk also in the area. They agreed that I needed to back-up my phone memory on a personal computer and then they would reformat it, 10-15 minutes tops at no charge.

If you have the same problem as above and nothing more, try this:

NOTE: While contacts, calendar entries, to-dos, note, pictures, sounds, and video may be saved, messages may be deleted. So browse first through your inbox if you have important texts there.

1.) Back-up your phone memory first on your PC's PIM Program - Outlook, etc. (Use your cable and Nokia 7610's PC Suite.)

2.) Copy the entire contents of your memory card to a temporary folder on your computer.

3.) Reformat your memory card by accessing in the phone "Tools" then "Memory" then "Options", "Format mem. card".

4.) Go back to standby mode, then key this in: *#7370# and the phone will ask for your confirmation to restore to default/factory settings. Click yes/ok, and then enter your security code. This will erase all information and return your phone to its fresh-out-of-the-box state.

5.) Let the phone do its thing undisturbed. Once it's done, it will inform you that it needs to restart, go ahead and let it.

6.) After a few moments, your phone will once again be in its newly purchased state minus the sms-sending problem. Adjust the time again to your local time. You may now restore your contacts, etc. by using the PC Suite again. Also by using phone browser, you can copy back from the PC your multimedia files into your memory card.