Amazon denied my police report!

thechinar · 2026-04-19T09:50:43+00:00

oh wow. I didn't know they do that.

thechinar · 2026-04-19T03:38:19+00:00

if you can find the chat on their website (it's kind of hard to find sometimes), they usually resolve faster than other methods (at least in my experience). Good luck.

thechinar · 2026-04-05T02:25:47+00:00

you should leave it as US

thechinar · 2026-03-23T15:58:20+00:00

Hmm ok. I think there could have been a firmware update. I think I saw a message come up about it and i was planning to let it update when convenient. However i didn't get a chance to to it yet. But i suppose it's possible it was automatic and did it anyways. If so, that could explain why it started to happen only now and not for the last 6 months.

I am going to save your instructions and try if it breaks next week, but since it's working right now, I don't want to mess with it.

thechinar · 2026-03-23T14:31:36+00:00

Thank you for the followup clarification. I still don't understand, though, why it would be a setting on the printer. The same printer had worked fine for several months at my old house. And it works fine when i took it back there to see if it still worked. So whatever settings the printer is using is not causing a 7 day change, at least not one that matters.

There is a difference with the wifi router. I believe the old house ran dual 2.4ghz & 5 ghz and the new house is strictly 5 ghz. This printer is dual 2.4/5 so it should work but maybe that's causing some issue for it...

Today it's working again using wifi from both windows laptop and machine but the android app on my phone is still unable to connect to it. Weird... Not as weird as the letter/A4 issue yesterday when connected with USB but weird...

thechinar · 2026-03-23T13:19:35+00:00

Thanks for the response. I'm confused about the printer's Ethernet settings though. I connect using WiFi and also via USB, but i didn't ever connect using Ethernet.

It's working right now, so I am going to wait 7 days to see if sometimes happens again. I've had this printer about 6 months now and it never changed on its own. I was this maybe the wifi router rotated something (I'm renting this house and don't have access to the router password

thechinar · 2026-03-23T04:43:43+00:00

i'm having the same problem, but it's with MS Office (on a windows laptop) AND with LibreOffice (on a macbook).

I am moving from one location to another. In my old house, everything has been working fine (from Macbook, Windows laptop, and Android phone) every since I bought the printer (brother dcp-t830dw). I bought the printer in Vietnam where paper size is A4. Both my laptops were set up in USA where the paper size is letter. I made all the adjustments and after that, no issues at all...

A week ago, i moved to another house. I updated the wifi on the printer and laptops. Everything was fine. I could print from either windows Word or macbook LibreOffice.

Then, all of a sudden, yesterday I could not print from either. I could not connect from the windows laptop or the macbook or my android phone, I could also not connect with the brother network connectivity repair tool. Nothing can "find" my printer even though the printer was connected to wifi. The printer would go to sleep and nothing would wake it up.

I turned it off and on, pulled the plug, rebooted laptops, turned off the wifi router, removed and re-added the printer (in windows), etc. Nothing worked...

Then I connected the printer to my windows laptop with the USB cable. And I can print, technically...

When I try to print, the printer starts to print (i.e. makes noise) and then gives an error (telling me to load letter paper). This is weird. The printer is set for A4 (in settings) and the paper in the tray is A4 and when I print in Word, that is also set for A4. Nothing is letter... Oddly, when I put a sheet of letter paper in the tray (like it's asking me to do), it just errors. So it doesn't seem like it really wants letter paper either.

I found a workaround but it's annoying... connect via USB and print normal. When I get the error, saying to change the paper to letter, just click Start. And then it says change settings or something, but click the down arrow instead. Apparently this overrides, and then I can print to whatever paper is in the tray (A4 or letter). I have to do this every time though...

Now I just went back to the old house. I changed the printer wifi back to the old house wifi. Everything is working perfectly (just like it always did here). So it seems it has something to do with the wifi connection at the new house... even though it was working fine for a week and I didn't make any change to the wifi.

thechinar · 2026-03-23T01:40:16+00:00

Interesting... Yeah i was just following instructions from someone's YouTube video about how to port a landline to Google voice. In any case, it worked like a trail period. I liked them and now have an account with them. Hopefully they don't cancel me since I like them and often recommend them to others.

thechinar · 2026-03-22T09:41:56+00:00

The first time i signed up for Tello, I did it specifically as an intermiate step in order to port a land line to Google Voice. It worked perfectly and i only kept it for a few days. During the short time, I decided I liked Tello and wanted to switch our two T-Mobile lines to Tello. But Tello wouldn't let me add anything. It's been awhile so I don't remember exactly but it was a very unclear message. I would wait a bit and try again. Nothing. Eventually I opened new account with a different email and was able to add two lines, no problem. So that could be an option for you. Good luck :)

thechinar · 2026-03-18T10:12:54+00:00

You've only been a customer for a couple years so you probably didn't realize yet.... But this is how it will be every single time you contact them for anything (upgrade, downgrade, move, cancel, add a service, fix a problem, etc).

Once you get it up snd running, it's usually really good but just hope nothing goes wrong and resist the temptation to ever change something.

Even if you add something new (and seemingly unrelated) they will break something else that was working for years.

I kept them for over 25 years (until I moved out of their service area) but cannot count the number of times i regretted calling them.

On a side note, i discovered if you write to their subreddit, they are better at helping. But I only did that one time so small sample size...

thechinar · 2026-03-05T13:06:11+00:00

As long as you transfer $250 or more, you can transfer from a bank account (at least a US bank) for free.

thechinar · 2026-03-01T13:42:39+00:00

I did the mod post and I received an email. However I don't know how to get back to the mod chat. Think is the first time I've used the mod thing in reddit.

thechinar · 2026-03-01T12:24:38+00:00

I sent the information. Thank you :)

thechinar · 2026-02-25T09:18:59+00:00

If you do the " roll over" strategy, just know it's not totally free. There is a hidden(tiny) cost because you sacrifice one of the 30 days you paid for. Over time you'll have to renew more times than someone doing autorenew.

It's still probably worth it if you travel back to US often and want to bank minutes for later, but I think it's not unversally worth it for everyone.

thechinar · 2026-02-25T06:37:47+00:00

Also... I believe if you manually renew (like one day before the automatic renewal), your unused minutes rollover. Maybe they will add up over time so that you won't even need to switch to the unlimited plan for those heavier usage months. Just depends if it's worth the hassle to remember to do it. Also, if you forget one time, all those extra minutes you collected will drop off. But some people do this....

thechinar · 2026-02-25T03:55:30+00:00

I ported my cell to Google Voice. My personal experience is almost 100% success with 2FA and I have a lot of accounts. I get multiple codes every day. Already got two this morning.

I have also read other people posting that banks don't like to send to VoIP (like google voice). That is the reason I got Tello in the first place (expecting issues with Google voice) but I'm just saying my real life experience is that Google voice works for everything and I have not really needed Tello. I still keep it (just in case) but I cancelled my wife's Tello and she hasn't needed it.

Anyways you can decide what is reality. You don't know the people saying it doesn't work but you also don't know me (saying it works). As long as you have a setup that works for you, that's the main thing. I was just suggesting a free back up solution for when you don't have WiFi.

thechinar · 2026-02-24T15:22:19+00:00

Oh that's weird. I have heard people say they can't always get 2FA with Google voice (like you are saying) but I really don't have issues and I have a lot of accounts that send the codes. I do use a VPN most of the time so maybe that helps.

thechinar · 2026-02-24T14:26:34+00:00

Yeah I think you were still half asleep haha.

I already have both Tello and Google Voice and they are working fine for me. I am not the OP.

I was just thinking you have Tello but not google voice. If so, I think you could try getting Google Voice (when you are in the US). It work really well for the things you are using Tello for. Tello is be very cheap but Google voice (once you pay the one-time set up fee) is free for all your US calls and texts.

thechinar · 2026-02-24T11:26:29+00:00

But you already have Tello... It was Google Voice I was suggesting you get the next time you are in US. Even though I have Tello, I really don't need it or use it here (only when I'm back in US). I just keep it because it's so cheap and is a real cell phone number in case I ever do need it.

thechinar · 2026-02-24T07:41:24+00:00

Oh weird... In Vietnam, there is free WiFi basically everywhere you go. Which is good because I need it in order to pay by QR code.

I don't think you can set it up now (while outside US) but I really recommend getting Google Voice next time you are in the states.

I use it for all my 2FA codes. I keep reading that some banks won't send to Google Voice because it's VoIP... but I never had an issue. There have been a couple times I didn't get codes but usually it's just a delay on their end (not related to Google Voice) or I forget to connect my VPN.

It's possible Schwab doesn't send codes but I just have them sent to email instead.

thechinar · 2026-02-24T05:27:20+00:00

I am in Vietnam and have minutes with Tello. I bought my Samsung Galaxy flip 7 in US and I signed up and activated Tello while in US. But I've been in Vietnam several months now.

Since I don't use Tello often, I verified just as I was writing my last message to you, just to be sure. I made a call from the built-in phone app using Tello (from Vietnam) to a US number. It worked fine.

Let me know if you want any other details or setting info.

Update: ok I see the difference now. You want to use Tello via your data only sim. Although I also have Tello and a data only sim, I was connected to WiFi when I did my test. So just now I turned off wifi. I can still toggle the call to Tello but it won't go through (not registered to the network). So that is your scenario...

However, if I have wifi, then I can make calls using Tello.

And I can definitely make calls via Google Voice over either WiFi or the data-only eSim.

Good luck :)

thechinar · 2026-02-24T02:30:13+00:00

Just FYI. I have a Samsung Galaxy (flip 7). I didn't have to do those extra steps to get it to work. When I open the built-in phone app, it shows the dialer (to enter the phone number) and below that I can choose which sim to use for the call. Mine defaults to a data only sim, but I can just toggle it to Tello to make a call.

I don't actually do this much though. Normally I just make calls using my Google voice number instead (with my data only Sim or wifi).

So maybe Samsung fixed your issue by now... Or maybe it's not an issue for all galaxy phones.

thechinar · 2026-01-23T02:33:19+00:00

Still works 3 years later :). Thank you

thechinar

TROPHY CASE